Hello, everyone. Philip Buchanon from Nyctodream Creations here. Sooo, I'm back again, finally. This time we are making a list on which FNaM entry has the best stand alone story. Meaning, I will rank each game in terms of the lore that's present within their own game and not how they connect with other entries. That's pretty much gonna be the rule. This list serves for me to talk about the story of these games since, with the exception of 3, I never did spoke of the story, but I do have my reasons... Now, before I begin, I should make a disclaimer... I may not have nearly as many positive things to say regarding the story because, quite frankly, I think the story of the FNaM series, is the worst part of the series. Now, remember, ny thoughts on the stories of these games, don't reflect on the quality of these games. Now don't get me wrong, I've seen worse stories before in fnaf fan games, and hell, in games or any medium in general (Sonic '06 and TRTF), but this story to me, is a bunch of cliche'd nothing half the time. Why do I think this? Well, let's get into the list...

#5 - Five Nights at Maggie's (2016)

Wow. FNaM '16 is last. Who could've guessed? The story... Is... Well, a bunch of clich'e nothing. Okay, so what's happening here? Like most fnaf fan games, or games in general, there are two acts to this story. Act 1 being the backstory of the events, Act 2 is the story of the protagonist. Now, like most story telling, Act 2 is usually told first and Act 1 would be told after everything in Act 2 is established. So, we talk about Act 2 first. The games begin with a nightguard named Steve Genaro, our protagonist. It's here we learn, he got a job from the mail for a nightguard position at Maggie's Magical World and must work there for 5 nights from 12 midnight to 6 in the morning, he realises animatronics are moving at night, are possibly haunted, and may want to kill his ass yet decides to come back every night for some reason, for a bonus 6th night, and I assume he goes nuts on the 7th and decides to make his office his personal toilet, tamper the robots' AI to maximum rampage, and gets fired shortly after. I guess he was just THAT desperate for money AND karma. Then, the whole restaurant soon closes down because of insects being found in food, potential paranormal activity, the drama surrounding the missing kids, and because Fazbear and CTC entertainment made them, which unless they're all subsidiaries under one parent organization, makes 0 sense and is extreme hypocrisy considering they're guilty of similar things, the former especially... Oh what the hell, I am looking too deep to what is essentially just shoddy fan service. Now we talk about Act 2. We take in a perspective of... Whoever, looking at an Arcade machine with TV like static, even though arcade machines can't really do that but, whatever, with the game 'Follow Cerdi' in it, where you, yea. Follow Cerdi. The animatronic pig, which these minigames takes the style of the ones seen in FNaF 3. And just like in FNaF 3, I thought these minigames are just utterly repetitive and predictable after you play the second one. They show Cerdi taking each kid to a hidden room where he presumably, murders them, and you can assume they become the souls that posess the animatronics. So, why do they want to kill you? Hell if I know.

So...

...

Yea. That's the story of FNaM 1. Obviously, I do not like this story. Sorry if I come off as a negative Nancy, but this story is as cliche as cliche gets for fnaf standards. Everything here has been done to death even back when this game released in 2016. I know this is the first installment but regardless, I've seen better elsewhere even for first installments.

#4 - Five Nights at Maggie's 2 (2016)

FNaM 2's story is better, in my opinion, than FNaM '16's. But not really by much to be honest... Okay, so we discuss Act 2 first, then Act 1. ...or at least I could if there were any multiple acts. Yea, unlike most stories, FNaM 2 is confined to one act. Everything presented in the story is happening as the story progresses. Well, I guess this makes this easier to talk about. Sooo, the story begins with a museum opening, containing old artifacts from restaurants owned by Maggie's Entertainment and its predecessors. Yes, that includes the deadly animatronics. You play as Stacy McAdams, who was hired to be this game's security guard and animatronic victim and came back for the entire week because I guess she's desprate for money, only to then be duped when she is now suspected by the police for burning down the building when really it may have been an animatronic, possibly Cerdi and Jerry trying to free his and the rest of the others' souls from their robot bodies.

Yyyyeeeaaa... So, my thoughts on this story? Okay... It's a little more unique than your typical FNaF starter... By like 4%. Yea, I didn't enjoy this story much either. I thought the museum setting was interesting, only to be no more different than being a diet FNaF 3 story. Sooo, yea. FNaM 2's story is also not up to my preference... Next.

#3 - Five Nights at Maggie's (2021)

Okay. Finally, we left after what is considered the "bad stories" of the series. Now, we are onto the mostly okay stories of FNaM. FNaM '21 is structured... Almost similarly to FNaM 2 '16's story where there is really only one act. Okay, yea there is an act one sort of, but it's mostly ambiguous to the point where it really isn't worth discussing. It's possible it may be explained in the upcoming sequel, but who knows. And remember, we are talking about the FNaM stories based on their own installments and not how they connect to other installments. So, for FNaM '21, we are gonna combine the two acts into one.

So, the story begins sometime in mid 20th century, with John McAdams being a successful engineer, going as far as to make his own robotic pizzeria for kids. Eventually however, he passed away for a seemingly unknown reason. The death is speculated to be related to the animatronics he created (presumably Cerdi), but it is unknown for sure. There were also rumours he possesed the pizzeria which would partially explain what happens during the guard's shifts. Oh, speaking of... We play as Steven Caddel, who is now the new nightguard for Maggie's Magical World and is guarding the place from 12-6 AM while getting harassed from animatronics. After his laft shift, something happens. Robert Madden, the manager of the restaurant, was shot clean in the forehead and the safe had been completely emptied. Police suspect our protagonist, Steven, to have been the culprit since he was the only one in the building at the time, which makes me wonder... Was Robert behind the animatronic attacks? Probably, but it isn't confirmed. We'd probably get our answer in the sequel but... You know our rules here.

So, yea. I'd say this story is a definitive upgrade from the last two by a looooong shot. Again, not the BEST story I have ever heard, I still have POPGOES, Super Paper Mario, and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs to fall back to when it comes to amazing stories. But this story is interesting on its own right. It is ambiguous enough, but not so much where it feels like lazy writing but like it's encouraging theories or like it's setting up for things to come in the next entry. So, yea. This story gets the official Nyctodream Approval of Not Bad.

#2 - Five Nights at Maggie's 3 (2018)

Okay... Choosing a spot for this story was a difficult one for me to decide. This was going to be number 5 at one point, 4, 3, or even 1. But I felt 2 is, RIGHT NOW, the best option. Why? Because I both like and hate the overall story of Five Nights at Maggie's 3. To be specific, I liked Act 1's story, but I hated Act 2's story. Here's why... This time, we talk about Act 1's story first, and then Act 2's.

Okay, so Act 1 begins with two people getting a job at Cerdi and Jerry's as mascot performers for the springlock suits for the main mascots of the restaurant. Manuel Genaro (huh) being the owner of said restaurant with Daniel being his assistant. Soon, Manuel dies and Daniel takes over. Daniel, being more so in for the money and not the passion, decides to modernise the restaurant by adding two new animatronics and making them the main mascots while making Cerdi and Jerry the secondary mascots. Um... Wow. Evil. Buuut, he still kept Cerdi and Jerry springlock animatronics despite them being VERY clearly safe to use. Okay, I guess that's where the bad stuff starts. The two people operating the springlock suits being worried for their jobs, contemplate about the future of the restaurant. Years later, they both die because the springlocks failed them because they made extreme sudden movements like jumping and running. After that incident, Daniel decides to finally make the springlock suits into animatronics, and was pissed about the mess the two made (oh so... He didnt plan this or was he just saying that to not be charged) around the diner and the damaging PR. However, he SHOULD be fine since, I guess. he has amazing lawyers that could fend off the suing families. The now posessed Cerdi and Jerry hear this, and I assume they kickstart the events of the FNaM series.

Now onto Act 2.

You play as a Private Investigator investigating the events of another murder that happened in Crackie's. Now here's where the story goes downhill for me... We are supposed to be investigating the potential murders at Crackie's. How? By collecting animatronic blueprints, newspaper scraps, plushies, and kids drawings! ...huh??? And then we have to stay here until 6... Okay. I'll give FNaM 3 this. We HAVE a reason to stay until 6. That being said, why are we doing the things in game? Let me go into detail why collecting the things in FNaM 3 make no sense whatsoever. First, kid drawings. Why? Why kid drawings? Besides night 5, they show basically nothing. Just how a kid enjoyed themselves in Crackie's or their favourite animatronic character. And even with Night 5's drawings, can't it just be shrugged off as a kid being edgy with their creativity? And plushes... You got me. I have no clue why we are getting plushies, animatronic merchandise of all things. What do they prove??? And I don't know what makes less sense to collect. That or newspaper scraps. Why? Because, well... If we are collecting Newspaper scraps... Doesn't that mean these are published and already available for the public to see? Isn't it kind of pointless to collect these? Why send a private investigator in a death mission to get something that you could already get for a few bucks? The only things that make sense to collect here would be the blueprints since... I don't think you could get them elsewhere, and they may explain why the animatronics go nuts, but even then... Couldn't they collect them during the day when the aninatronics are less likely to be aggressive? Actually, yea. Let's get to that. Why are we doing this at night where it was established in Night 1 that these animatronics are indeed aggressive? Until 6 in the morning no less? Do they WANT him dead? So there's my little rant. In between his shifts while this guy sleeps, he has nightmares of the animatronics... I assume getting his stuff, his evidence for his job? Idk, really these parts exist just so we could shoehorn in a nightmare animatronic for the third game. During all this, there was another private investigator was leaving notes for the our guy to find, where he is later found dead in a safe room where all the "evidence" to real events in FNaM 3. Yea... Reward for most incompetent private investigation agency goes to... Then, the our guy shows the evidence to his employer, but he thinks he is crazy, and proceeds to fire him. Soon, he posts his findings online and it gets enough attention to the point where the new Maggie's Magical World got closed down for a new investigation... Wait... So, Fazbear and CTC didn't force close them? Soon, I assume before FNaM 2, the Private Investigator finds Cerdi, and his ghost now tells him the events if Act 1 of this story.

Okay... So in my opinion. This is so far, the best story of the first three FNaM games... But man, Act 2 could have been so much better. Act 1, I thought had mostly okay execution. But Act 2 had some great concepts that got blasted by meh execution because a fnaf situation had to exist. This story has more interesting things than the previously mentioned installments, but is cancelled out by "ew" execution.

#1 - Five Nights at Maggie's 4 (2020)

Five Nights at Maggie's 4 has the best story. While imo, less interesting things happen here, I do think this story makes better sense and has less plotholes. Now, the lore here is similar to FNaM 2 '16 and '21. So Act 1 IS there. But is hardly THAT detailed. So, I will combine the summary. After FNaM 2, the owners of the museum decide to recreate a new pizzeria using what was left from the museum. Our private investigator, from last time has recurring nightmares again, similar I assume to FNaM 3's nightmare sequences. As a result, he gets his old pal, Steve Genaro from FNaM 1 to be the new security guard to help him set up his plan to "free the animatronics". Soon, Steve gets the job as nightguard and gets to reexeperience the nightmare he had in FNaM 1. After tampering the AIs to 0, FNaM 3 Investigator comes in, sets fire to the place using the vents which management threatened Steve over, and freed the animatronics. Steve, I assume got out unscathed, and management is now getting sued for the very obviously horrible ventilation system. We'll see you in court indeed.

So, yea. This was FNaM 4's story. I liked it. Again. Not the best ever, but I do think it's better than all the plots from FNaM. Here, we HAVE an explanation as to why things are the way they are going with little plotholes. Sure, there's the whole "Why are the animatronics killing us? Why are the vents poorly designed? Why does CG exist and how did they get into THAT state?". It wad also partially explained that the new animatronics may be the same ones fundamentally from the old animatronics. So, yea. FNaM 4 imo has the best story in the entirety of FNaM. Let's hope FNaM 2 '22 can be a major step up.

This is Philip Buchanon from Nyctodream Creations signing off... And take care.