Little Misfortune is a game that is intended to shock the player. It starts early when the narrator informs the player that the girl at the center of the story is “going to die today.” The girl, Misfortune hears the narrator somehow, but the narrator quickly handwaves it away and starts to directly talk to Misfortune. From there the player takes control of Misfortune on her adventure.
Much of Little Misfortune revolves around moving Misfortune to the right and looking or interacting with every object that appears on the screen. She also will live up to her name causing a lot of trouble in her wake.
But really the core of Little Misfortune is an attempt by the developers to shock or rattle the audience. While the thought that the main character might die today will troublesome people, many of the topics the game brings up feel inappropriate or just awkward. Having Misfortune make a joke about her friend who treated a gun as a toy and made her parents “dead” just feels off.
Granted much of Little Misfortune is attempting dark humor and it can work at points in the game, but it’s done by producing disturbing images or thoughts. At first, this seems ok, Misfortune clearly doesn’t understand what she’s saying and several comments feel like it’s made by a child who lacks a deeper understanding of the world.
However as the game goes on, Little Misfortune continues to explore darker themes and images, but the character of Misfortune also starts to become unlikable. While the opening of the game treats her as a very naive character, later on, she starts to swear often and yells at objects. This doesn’t feel like her character has changed, but rather that someone else was writing the dialogue or the author forgot the voice the character was supposed to have.
The other possibility is the opening/demo was rewritten with her being more naive to interest new players, and the game takes her to a more negative space once the player has passed that initial section.
Yet there’s something that made me want to see what would come next in the game. Whether it be an underground strip club for hamsters or a drug operation run by rats that Misfortune stumbles on, I had to see more because every step of the way left me shocked that the game would reach for that depth.
There’s a point where the player can play with a puppy who has a party hat on, and then suddenly a branch drops killing the puppy. Misfortune then goes to tell the owner at a party, which turns out to just be the dog’s owner who has hung himself… because that’s what this game is. Very dark humor.
Of course, that’s just one possibility, the player can also let the dog go, and a different set of situations play out with the dog snatched by some giant birds.
This decision is just part of the ‘gameplay’. Where Little Misfortune mostly moves to the right, there are several choices and decisions that Little Misfortune has to make. The game promises these choices will change parts of the game, and as stated above that is a different story, but ultimately, that’s all most of the changes are. A slightly different part of the story but not one that will change the ending of the game.
There is an alternate ending it amounts to a single additional scene and is really not a major change.
While the gameplay is standard, and the topics that Little Misfortune deals with is edgy, I feel like there’s one part of the game that holds the entire experience back. The final act of the story.
A majority of the game spends its time following Misfortune as she chases down Benjamin, a fox hat the narrator constantly warns Misfortune about how evil he is. The twist finally arrives where the fox is actually the good guy, and the narrator is the villain isn’t a surprise at all. It’s very clearly shown in the early parts of the game, and the attitudes and actions that both the fox and narrator make this beyond obvious.
What’s worse though is the story completely goes off the rails in the third act, finally introducing who the narrator is as if someone saw the time and had to dash off the ending before leaving work for the day. The final conflict happens with almost no interaction, and then the big reveal happens.
Without saying what that reveal is, I will say it was also very predictable, and yet feels like the entire game was a bit of a pointless journey.
The biggest problem with the ending is that Misfortune is such an utterly unlikable character by that point, that the player will have a hard time worrying about her or wanting her to succeed. Most of the game is about making the player see what an annoying person she has become, the player can’t care about her personal story. At the end of the game when the player has to have connected with Little Misfortune for the final scenes, it’s too late, and the character has lost any relatability.
But more importantly, the ending feels manipulative and obvious, yet the hours played in the game are all unrelated to this big moment.
That’s not to say the ending is done poorly, but much of the final act of the game doesn’t fit with the previous two hours that led to those moments, and the main conflict and finale just can’t reach the player. If the player has decided that they prefer bad things to happen to the main character, which will be what they have to eventually feel if they continue onward with the game at multiple points, then that ending is not successful, but if the player makes that connection they likely will stop playing the game far earlier because it’s just about shock value at multiple points
Ultimately the weak interactive nature and the finale really makes Little Misfortune struggle in the final moments, and it harms the whole experience. While there’s an interesting story, the fact it doesn’t pay off in a meaningful way means the journey itself becomes a bit pointless, and players are left wondering why they spent so long to get to know this character once they understand what’s waiting for them on the other side.
Personally, I was fine spending my time on the game, but I probably wouldn’t recommend anyone else follow in my foot tracks.
I give Little Misfortune an arbitrary
6/10
If you want to see more from me or my coverage of the Humble Choice:
Kinglink Reviews 
What are you smoking?!
Unlikable?! She’s adorable and everyone I’ve seen says the same. Every single youtuber that is major in gaming that I’ve seen loved her.
I loved her.
I think you are just a snotty person who probably has little fun in life. What the hell makes her a bad person?! She’s a child.
She’s literally done nothing wrong. She’s got abusive parents. She’s been sweet in my game.
Idk what you are on but it’s a great game and I adore her.
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She’s literally playing the game to gain eternal happiness for her mother.
She literally doesn’t do a single thing wrong: she’s a child: she plays games, she has a crush on Benjamin and wants to pet animals.
She throws glitter to sprinkle happiness on things.
How on Earth are you saying the game shows how horrible she’s become?! She’s 8! You must be playing a different game. In mine she doesn’t do a single thing wrong. She tries to help everyone she comes by, it’s like we literally played different games.
I posted this on a subreddit for games of this type and I got similar reactions of shock and “some people are just unhappy jerks who try to find bad in everything.”
What the actual fuck is this review?!
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This game is a prime example of how much illusion of choice games suck. I can’t prevent her death, I can’t do anything for Hiro or the unnamed missing children. It feels like an entire act of the game was left on the cutting room floor. One where after reaching the afterlife thanks to Benjamin’s help (and our own extremely limited guidance) Misfortune gains some kind of power that allows her to set out with Benjamin to rescue Hiro and the unnamed missing children from Morgo’s clutches and bring them to the afterlife.
Like it makes sense that you can’t bring any of these kids, including Misfortune back to life, but the fact she gets to the afterlife but so many plot threads are still left open sucks and makes it feel like nothing was actually accomplished by the journey.
She has a permanent ability to glitterize things meaning no chance of you failing to get the extra scene that classifies as the good ending because glitterizing everything the game allows you to is the trigger for that scene (so you can in essence run through the game making all the mean/bad/evil/douchebag choices yet still get the good ending because again the glitterize ability is permanent).
They make such a big deal out of Hiro’s “Kiri was doko desu ka? (Where is the fog?) (Where is the end?) (Fog/End – depending on your interpretation of Kiri which can mean both these words, but both fit with the game regardless of which of the two possible words you translate Kiri into because ‘end’ can refer to the afterlife and ‘fog’ can refer to the literal fog we see become prevalent in the game starting at the carnival (Phantasmagoria) show and that is very present in the final area of the game surrounding the graveyard and the temple/portal thing where Lady Death greets Misfortune)” line but much like everything else about this game it goes nowhere. It’s just another in long series of red herrings.
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So glad you posted this! I was going to do the same thing, I was also trying to find the reviewer’s Twitter ID so I could say the same thing on Twitter. I can’t see how you cannot love Little Misfortune?!? I mean she has your sympathy from the get-go!
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Are you sure you played the same game as the rest of us? Or do you just hate seeing people happy?
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I think you missed a lot of what was going on. This is a little girl on the brink of puberty who has been raised by an alcoholic, depressed, abused mother and an abusive father. Children mimic their parents (the cursing) and, like all children, believe that how they were raised is normal. When she says shocking things, she’s not saying it in a shocking way. She also has a big imagination. She states that her father had a meth lab in their basement and I wouldn’t be surprised if he hasn’t left her in the car while he goes into strip clubs (probably why she can’t go in and imagines druggie rats).
It seems odd that you criticize how she changes during the game when there’s a point that Misfortune asks Morgo what’s happening to her and he tells her it’s puberty. It seems like Morgo is some demon who tries to trick the souls of children on the verge of pubescence and had succeeded with all those other children because they grew up in good homes and trusted people. Misfortune was the only one who sadly grew up to not trust which is why she didn’t fall for Morgo’s tricks.
The game also states pretty early that there are no right or wrong choices only consequences. That seems like a pretty clear way of saying the game will end in a similar way but how you get there may differ.
I think it’s a shame your article is the first to pop up on Google searches. Hopefully anyone who reads this terrible article will scroll down and read the comments.
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what a shitty review lol
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Your opinion is invalid and you should really stop writing reviews. No one on this entire planet gives a single shit about what you have to say
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You do know that reviews are just someone’s opinion right?
People are allowed to criticise this game. I thought it was trying way too hard to be edgy yet also silly and both fell flat. Other games have done the meta narrative element better and other games have done the cute/horror juxtaposition better also. 6/10 is generous.
This is just my opinion, it in no way invalidates your own, much like this review.
Maybe you should try touching some grass and being less of a a silly cunt.
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Name one game that has done it better
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Nice try writing a bad review to get some interaction. But remember your credibility is just as important as a journalist and now I know- disregard this guy
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I agree with your review, the third act certainly lacked weight. It was very predictable. There were some edgey ideas and topics, but topics were all they were. The game doesn’t try to make there be a message about the topics and as soon as it spoken it is gone again. Like the one off fart joke, it’s just kind of thrown in randomly. I was excited to try this game after the social media hype, but turns out the 1:30 clips on YouTube were the most interesting parts of the game and the rest was… meh.
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I just finished the game and I agree with every paragraph of this review.
As soon as I entered the forest, It became pretty obvious that the game was trying too hard to be edgy and shocking.
The plot was obvious, the jokes were out of place and the journey was meaningless.
Except for the art, which is good, I wonder how shallow and easily impressed people can be to think this game has something deep to tell.
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weird . i didnt dislike the character ..
.. buy i am here ti find out about the 3 missing stones and how to get all the heart stones .. ?
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