Well, wasn't expecting this so soon, but you guys voted for it. So here it is, my first ever Fanverse review :D!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fanverse is a very touchy subject to people, some people love the idea, some people hate it. I personally love the idea of the Fanverse, but it's a little sad to see it become a members only club thanks to a fruit nobody likes and now with the Fanverse, there is this idea that everyone should try to one up each other to hopefully get into the Fanverse. I still love the Fanverse and everything about it, but it has left an impact on the fangame community. I don't know if anyone would consider that for better or for worse. I feel it is important to talk about it because it's the Fanverse, these are now technically official titles. And while this series hasn't been released on Steam yet, there are plans to do it... eventually. (Please Emil, I need more Candy's content I love this series.)

Anyway, enough Fanverse talk, let's get into the meat and potato's. Now, I found out about Candy the Cat like everyone did... by Tyler Ahlstrom stealing the character and calling it Sugar.

Yeah, I know, basic to talk about this character here. But like, when the fuck am I ever going to talk about TRTF? I don't plan on reviewing those games unless recodes or something come out, and I won't be review fangames until basically all the official stuff is done lmfao. So consider this your TRTF review in a way. Anyway, this is how I met Candy, through The Return To Freddy's. Now, I had no idea who this character was at the time outside of "Oh look, Sugar the Cat". I didn't know of Emil Macko's existence. So when it comes to the name change to "The Return To Freddy's", I was confused on where Sugar was and why someone named "Emil Macko" was in the game and why they were called a bitch?

Of course, I later learned when I found out about Five Nights At Candy's itself that the character was stolen, but little young me didn't know that. I actually had gone on my old (deleted) twitter account at one point to badmouth Emil for daring to use Sugar the Cat in the game. How could anyone take from another developer? Of course, when I found out about the real thing, I apologized profusely. Luckily, Emil was a good sport about it and forgave me... and I never interacted with him again after that. I went on to play more TRTF games and watch as Sugar was decapitated after the second game (she still looked like Candy). Now, with all that out of the way, I was actually there for the Fnac 1 teasers, though I was late to the party on a few. These will probably be a bit out of order.

Anytime I look at this teaser, I think of Sans Undertale saying "But soon" after I die sometimes.

Oh do you now? Take it from experience girl, you don't want to play in the dark.

Honestly I was expecting the next teaser to be titled "The Fixed" and that would have made me laugh.

This made me more hyped than ever. A PENGUIN?! Young me loved Penguins, they were my spirit animal.

Fun fact, he actually can't see you.

I thought this was the coolest thing ever as a kid. I then thought Emil made the Gray Puppet hoax. And now that I think about it, I actually don't know who made the Gray Puppet hoax. Anyway, I love this guy, he's cool.

I played the game when it came out... and had a blast. I thought this game was awesome, I thought it could have been better than Fnaf itself. I probably did think it was better than Fnaf itself when 4 came out and I hated that game. As years went by, Fnac was still in the hearts of many, so much so that it got a Remaster before being officially announced into the Fanverse. Crazy right?

I played the Remaster for this review so that is what I'll primarily be going off of for this review. I've been playing a lot of recodes and old fangames lately with not so good graphics, so to come back to Remastered is like whiplash. The game looks REALLY pretty, and I like pretty things :). So anyway, let's not waste anytime, let's get right on into the show!

Gameplay:

So similar to most Fnaf games and fangames, we got ourselves a good ol fashioned office to be spending out nights in.

And look at that? Our office is actually fairly good! It has some doors but with no lights and looks like it's a mix of Fnaf 1 and 2's offices as we have a door in the middle we can close. Though, that's kinda impractical for the button to be under the desk. That's a little silly. Anyway, these doors are your main defenses, it's back to Five Nights At Freddy's 1. You got three doors, but no lights. Some animatronics may have glow in the dark eyes that you can see in the darkness, others will not. You have to look on the cameras for these characters and if they are right outside your door, it's best you shut it or they'll get inside. Yeah, we're back to basics with this one. No over the top mechanics where you have to look around a mini map, put down wet floor signs, or drive all the way to Las Vegas just to deal with one character.

These doors rely on power, just like Fnaf 1. The more they are shut, the more power they drain. Sadly, the character's aren't exactly like Fnaf 1 where they can stay in place for a bit. I feel like if they did, it could cause some tension and make the player try to manage their power a bit more. But I digress, I think the game actually has good power management honestly. Your camera system has two modes, regular, and night vision mode. Night vision will allow the player to see the building instead of the darkness on the cameras. The cameras drain power regardless, but night vision drains more power. Maybe sometimes, it could be ethical to just look at the cams without your night vision... but that's very very rarely. Point is, you have some power management to deal with and you have some doors. Now you may be wondering, who are these characters of Candy's Burgers and Fries? I'm glad you asked, let me introduce you to the crew.

Candy the Cat!:

Iconic design in his own right, Candy's a great and simple design. He's just like Classic Freddy, simply iconic. He's shiny just like a toy animatronic, but has a few details that make him stand out from being a toy animatronic. He's a great design for something so simple as a blue cat with a red tie. Candy will patrol the building and go to either your left or right door. When you see his eyes in the door ways or on the cameras, close said doors. You may hear footsteps coming towards you, but they can be very faint.

Cindy the Cat!:

Candy's twin sister that has a peanut figure, this is Cindy the Cat! She has a peanut torso but I would be lying if I said I didn't like the design. The design is once again, simple and iconic. You look at these two and they can stand out from the crowd because of their simplicity alone. Again, she resembles a Toy animatronic, but there are design cues that make her different from the Toys. She behaves like her twin brother but can only go to the left door. If you see her eyes or see her on the camera, shut the door.

Chester the Chimpanzee!:

The monkey chain! The monkey's fist! The monkey!!!!!!! Yes, I know, he's a chimp, but who cares! He's the monkey in my eyes. Anyway, Chester's cool. He has clothing compared to just having a tie or a bowtie. A slick pair of green overalls. He usually also rocks a red banjo which is nice. He acts like the other two characters, but can only go to the right door. Close it if you see him on the cameras or in the doorway with his eyes. Great design again.

The Penguin!:

Now this is a peak design, look at this magnificence. Wouldn't this be fucking cool? You go to a restaurant and it's like House of Mouse where penguins deliver you food and drinks, that would be sick. He wears a suit and a bow tie and he has little flippers. I don't know how he moves around, maybe he has wheels on his flippers. Anyway, his eyes glow, you know the drill. The problem with this guy is that he's a little small, so it might be hard to see him on the cameras. He can't jumpscare you, but if he gets into your office, he will act like Balloon Boy. He will be under your desk and close doors when he feels like it saying "May I take your order?" causing the power to drain.

Blank the Canvas!:

This is another peak concept that people would go day 1 to see. Blank is an animatronic that kids can draw on that an employee took a wrench to during their third night before we took our position. If you look closely, you can see drawings of the Fazbear 4 on him. Now, this guy is a little different. He doesn't have eyes... and he can break the glass. The window in front of your office is now something that can be broken. You have to watch Blank to know when he is going to strike, and close the window before he does. He's a cool design with a cool animation for when he gets close.

Old Candy!:

An older version of Candy that is still around. Gives me Withered Freddy vibes honestly and I love it. Old Candy here has a cool design, he's darker blue, not as shiny and he doesn't have eyes like Blank. He goes to the right door and if you see him on the cameras, close the door. Be warned, he won't have eyes. Cool design and shakes up the gameplay as he can now go to the doors. And with that, that is all the characters... NOT!

Meet... The Rat!:

Another iconic and peak design. It's like Springtrap if he was a rat and doesn't have a corpse. He's got bolts all over him and he has cool looking hands and feet. He acts like Candy but doesn't have eyes, see him at either the left or right door on the cameras, shut the door on him until he leaves. He's the last character to get introduced... if you are playing the original. More on that later : ).

Now, you're probably thinking. "These mechanics are basic as hell." and that is true but... does it really matter? Honestly, I feel like fangames nowadays have a precedent to have a ton of mechanics to keep everyone engaged instead of just having some more similar mechanics. I think that's because as the community grew, we learned that we need to have more engaging mechanics and make it so that the cameras and office are used more. This is fair but I feel like Candy's does that in a good way. You have your power you need to manage so you don't want to be on the cameras all the time. You have to check the hallways, you need to watch Blank, and it's not like you have to use the cameras. Of course I will be mentioning the cheats, it's honestly crazy. Well, not really cheat(s), more like cheat. Basically, characters have a camera timer and a door timer, and you can abuse the hell out of those timers by not looking at the cameras unless you need to watch Blank but if you're good enough, you can predict Blank. You can close and open doors constantly, which does drain a lot of power. I don't really see a need to do this cheat unless it's max mode, which is pretty dang hard for a game with such simple mechanics. And I don't even consider the cheat bad, it's actually really fun to try juggling the power and not leaving the doors closed too long.

Now I think the gameplay of the main nights is alright, it's challenging at times and it's not like it's insanely difficult. It's the perfect balance and gives off a good challenge unless you are paying attention. I sure hope one recode doesn't change the mechanics completely and makes the cameras fucking shit to control with even more bullshit mechanics.

Anyway, if you are playing the Remaster, you actually get a special prize. After unlocking the extras, you can go into the extras and look at the characters, coming across The Rat. If you stare at The Rat's face long enough, he will display a code and tell you to look at Cam 13. The code is random so don't think you can just put any silly code in, you can get all zero like me, or a random assortment of numbers. Alright, just did that and now let's look for Cam 13.

Hey... hey wait a second... THERE IS NO CAM 13!!! WE'VE BEEN DUPED! BAMBOOZLED! SMECKLEDORFED IF YOU WILL! THAT'S NOT EVEN A WORD AND I AGREE WITH MYSELF! HOW COULD THEY DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS?!? I BETTER-

Uh...

UUUUUUHHHHHHHH...

Welcome to the final character and secret night of the game. Shadow Candy!!!:

Originally an easter egg in the original Fnac 1 and could sometimes show up in the extras of Fnac 3, Shadow Candy makes an actual threat debut in this game. It's basically a boss battle, Shadow Candy will hide in the cameras, night vision or not, doesn't matter. You have to find Shadow Candy and scare him back, if he gets close, shut the corresponding doors. If he gets in, Shadow Candy will make you lose an hour and to gain that hour back, you have to look on the cameras for a small Origami Cat toy and click on it. This is a very fun night and requires you to be fast as the hours go by, Shadow Candy is fast and if you run out of power, you better pray you are close to six am because you get no fanfare from Shadow Candy, he just kills you.

Once you beat this night, you unlock Cam 13, which is where The Rat resides, as well as some lore for an upcoming game... more on that later.

Overall, I love the gameplay of Five Nights At Candy's. It's basic yes, but does it really need to be anything special? You use the cameras and the office, you don't need to click around every camera just to have fun with the game. Sometimes being simple is the way to go.

Ambiance and Jumpscares:

The ambiance of Candy's is great. You can go from a creepy droning noise to a cheerful and calm music box playing in the background. My favorite is this https://youtu.be/wuA2zr727Zc?si=FvnG2d14Vh6wXo2A

It's a great ambiance that feels like you're visiting a childhood place in the middle of the night. Can be really creepy at times and overall just feels warm and welcoming while also still feeling creepy.

Now the same thing happens with UCN here for some reason, you don't get to see a lot of the jumpscares from the game. But let me tell you, they are great. They are very fluid and full of life, the screams are great and it's not like there is only one scream for the characters. Candy, Cindy, and Chester have one scream, Blank and Old Candy have their own scream, and so does The Rat. They all have their own screams and even Candy gets two jumpscares, one that I can actually show off thank god.

It's fast, straight to the point, and there's movement. Oh my god, MOVEMENT! Coming after UCN which has some fairly bad jumpscares to a game with some good ass jumpscares was great.

Ignore the text I work with what I can here I'm not cool like other gamejolt reviewers and I'm stupid as hell to learn how to download gifs and upload them to gamejolt.

Anyway, Shadow Candy's jumpscare that kills you is really cool as he basically glitches the game, even the game over screen is glitched. It's crazy I tell you. CRAZY!

Anyway, the jumpscares are very cool and you should go play the game to see them all. I would show them all here but they're just not in the gifs and that makes me sad. I want to throw hands with people who make gifs it would make my job a lot easier if you just showed them. Anyway, you're probably wondering if this game has a story, and it DOES!!!! YIPPEE! I GET TO TALK ABOUT STORIES!!!!

Story:

Five Nights At Candy's does have a story. Probably not a story like the game that spawned it, but an interesting story that I feel isn't really touched upon. The description of the game basically tells us something very interesting about the story of the game.

"No company is without a rival.

Freddy Fazbear's New Pizzeria has closed for good. And so, another restaurant is going to take its place in the world of entertainment.

What could go wrong?"

WHAT?!? FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY'S IS CONNECTED TO THIS GAME?!? Yep, you heard it right, if you play the original or the remaster, they talk about Freddy Fazbear's Pizza closing down very briefly. The remaster doesn't explain why though? Probably like, tax fraud or something. Imagine a bunch of kids going missing at Freddy's.

Anyway, the night guard we play is actually... A WOMAN?!? Her name is Mary Schmidt, female. Wow, crazy right? We learn later on that Mary is... well, she's someone alright. Anyway, we play as her and there is no relation to Mike Schmidt according to Emil Macko, it's coincidental. There was a post about it but now it's gone. Hooray, things just keep getting better and better for these reviews. ANYWAY! You play as Mary and the phone guy doesn't actually die during this time. He instructs you on what you have to do and talks about how the previous security guard took a wrench to Blank. He accuses us of doing something to Frank on Night 6 which is... weird. How could we ever do anything to the obvious Frankburt reference? Oh you Emil Macko, not even you can escape The Return To Freddy's.

There isn't much in the way of the lore during the phone calls, phone guy does mention the Old Candy animatronic and how there was an incident with an adult customer, but that's saved for the next game : ). You do however, get some interesting lore.

You can't make it out much, but if you look closely, it says "Children Murdered In Robot Factory". Children dying? IN MY FNAF GAME?!? They better not have been silly or I'm gonna throw hands.

But after each night you get CUTSCENES WOOOOOAAAAAHHHHHHH! Cutscenes similar to that of Fnaf 2, but you're not inside of Candy... or Freddy. You are a camera that loads up footage for you to see.

Alright so you open up in some sort of factory with a conveyor belt. That's nice, very nice. You look to the right, nothing there. Now let's try the left.

Hi Puppet from Fnaf 2 but with blue cheeks and he's sad. This, is Vinnie. Say hi to Vinnie, he's a lore important character. Vinnie doesn't do much the first night. He just kinda floats there and if you look away and look back. He moves closer.

And then... HE GETS YA!

Spooky!

Night 2's cutscene is here and-

Oh yeah, keep in mind that these are all dated 1987 for now. I'll get to the other dates later. But that's an error code, and we get this error code for a while until.

Oh... oh that's blood.

Yeah, this is the two children that were murdered, luckily we don't see it.

The third night, it's the same thing except Vinnie shows up and shakes his head.

Hey Vinnie, do you want to solve my three riddles?

Hey Vinnie, want to play Fnac But Better?

Hey Vinnie, spell ICUP

Okay I'm done now.

The cutscene ends and then on Night 4, the cutscene shows up once again. This time, we are treated to the twins sitting on the conveyor belt.

They're a little tired.

Oh hey Vinnie, what are you pointing at?

Oh, oh that's the two children possessing Candy and Cindy. What's weird about this is, what's up with the other characters? Rat gets explained later on on why he's moving and everything, so what's the deal with Old Candy, Chester, Blank, and The Penguin? Why can't they be possessed? It's a weird thing that is never explained upon nor is it like a Toy Animatronic thing. The Candy's characters are never specified to be tied to a criminal database... so what's up? I don't know, moving on.

The third to final cutscene is here and it shows a fixed version of Blank and what looks to be a prime version of Old Candy slumped over in the conveyor belt room. Vinnie appears slowly and says the words "A Mistake... My Mistake" over and over before switching to "A problem... your problem..." and the cutscene ends there.

Wow okay, pinning your problems on a woman, I see. You sexist Vinnie? Anyway, we get our check and go back for Night 6 to get the second to last cutscene of the game.

Holy shit it's The Rat. He struggles a little bit before he stands up... and then walks away. I should mention that these aren't live footage, this is recordings from the 60's. So we have a timeframe of when Old Candy and Blank were created, and maybe The Rat as well?

See ya Rat. He then places his hand on the camera or if you're playing the original, jumpscares the crap out of you with his face. And... that's all the main game cutscenes. This is basically the story of the first game, but I did mention one more cutscene setting up something else.

The last cutscene after beating Night Null (canon name) is that you see a variant of Candy appear, it's very similar to the cutscene of SL as it slowly pans upwards towards this new version of Candy. A man says that he feels that time is bleeding from his hands. He questions his sanity and that nothing works. It should work, but it just doesn't. It's like he's... the man would chuckle after that and says that he should get some sleep. Though, he hates sleep or something because he hates being motionless and lifeless like the variant of Candy. He won't stop until he's absolutely perfect, with an "end audio log" at the end.

And then, the eyes turn on.

And two eyes light up. This is Forgotten Candy, the variant of Candy that is going to show up in the Fourth Game, titled "Five Nights At Candy's 4". I love this series so much that I still am waiting patiently for this game and this teaser and speech still goes hard to this day. We have FNAC FUR as well but I really want to know more about this game and what's in store for us. Either way, it's a cool teaser and you can see him in Cam 13 on a poster saying "Have Fun". It's interesting how this version of Candy has a poster all the way in 1987 when the classic versions of the characters are still here...

Five Nights At Candy's has a good story, sure, there are some weird decisions, like the possession of the animatronics being only the twins and not the others aside from Rat and TO BE NAMED and... you know, that's the only weird decision right now. I'll get to other story decisions later, like the sequel.

Closing Thoughts:

Five Nights At Candy's is a great game. It has a lot of simple mechanics that work for a very affective game, and the Remaster enhances it tenfold. The graphics look really nice, the character designs are all iconic and really look good. The story is engaging and interesting with only one weird decision. And overall, solid game and a solid way to start off Fanverse Reviews. This will be the first of many so buckle up folks, there will be more on the way.

Speaking of Fanverse, the next game I will be reviewing is Five Nights At Candy's 2!!!!!!!

I wish it was Fnac 2 Sugar Rush...