PREMISE

The Gamejolt description for this game doesn't give much away for the premise, simply saying that you're working at Freddy's. From phone calls, newspapers, and official statements from Tyler himself, we find out that this game takes place at Fredbear's Family Diner, in 1975 (we'll talk about a specific retcon about this later). Our player character is called Cawnoth Cotts. Three guesses for the reference.

Now, I know that the Fredbear's fangame trend was kickstarted by Five Nights To Remember (wich I plan on reviewing someday), but this game did it first. Wich means that, off a pure technicality, TRTF 2 is the first ever Fredbear's themed fangame. Congrats for this achievement Tyler.

GAMEPLAY

The game, to quote the video about it by FNAFtuber KC Maximum, is "FNAF 2 bought on Wish". And this description is really accurate. This game kickstarted a trend visible in the other TRTF games: Tyler trying to emulate Scott as a developer and copying the game's atmosphere, visual style, and story.

TRTF 1, as a repurposed fan made FNAF 3, was mostly original in concept. TRTF 2 instead, is mostly a FNAF 2 ripoff from a gameplay standpoint. The office is like the FNAF 2 one, same for the hallway and the vent (wich btw is reused from FNAF 2). The only difference is, the animatronics won't actually enter your office, but will attack you as soon as in the hallway.

This game also marks the return of Sugar The Cat (here cosplaying as Withered Chica) and the debut of 3 of the most iconic TRTF characters: Kitty FazCat (OC of Suki, who asked Tyler to model her, and later became his GF. They have long broken up. Won't talk about that drama), Lockjaw/Frankburt/BFP (Tyler's own OC, who is possesed by a self insert of Tyler himself. Appears as an easter egg in Parts/Service), and Shadow Lockjaw (shadow variant of Lockjaw, appears in the office and crashes the game).

The cast is, in mechanic order:

1) Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Golden Freddy, Sugar and Kitty (Use the Freddy Mask, but keep an eye on the toxic meter).

2) Foxy (use the flashlight, altough it's strange because Foxy should have the facial recognition sistem if he's brand new).

3) The Puppet (keep an eye on the Music Box)

4) Dug The Dog (a probably Sparky inspired animatronic, you have to use the Audio Lure in CAM 1 to get him off your tracks)

So, how is the actual gameplay?

Hell.

The difficulty is already a pain in the ass, but this game is also full of various bugs. The 2 most infamous are:

1) Dug's jumpscare, even if you fail to lure him, doesn't play. This one actually helps you tho.

2) On Night 5 and 6, if you check the hallway, there's a possibility that whoever is in there will immediatly kill you. Wich means that Night 5 and 6, already hard, are made almost impossible to beat. I managed to beat Night 5, but I gave up on Night 6, at least for now.

And, to top this off, this game's power mechanic has a second music box that you have to load to prevent the power from running out. This idea is original, but having 2 music box like mechanics makes the gameplay even worse, all while adding the bugs and the difficulty. This game, at least for me, was a nightmare to play.

I won't take a jab at the models, considering that from the Alpha ones to the definitive ones there was a big improvement. They're not great, but they're okay.

LORE

Alright, let's talk about this game's lore and minigames.

Now, something that must be told is that most of the things implied and said in this game were retconned in the next games and in the lore dump/novel. For an early example, in TRTF 4 is stated that this game takes place in 1987. Let's move on.

There are between night cutscenes, but they are mostly useless, and were probably added for cool factor. They have Sugar and Kitty FazCat. Again, they have 0 use to the Lore.

So, the phone calls are much more useful in this game compared to TRTF 1. In the first, Phone Guy greets you and explains the Mask, power, and music box mechanics. On Night 2, he explains why they have The Puppet (Sugar was torn apart), mentions a "Yellow Suit" that Freddy replaced (probably Golden Freddy), and mentions how the animatronics are glitching. It also drops that The CEO has OCD. On Night 3, we discover that Sugar could start to roam from the Parts/Service Room (wich is really empty and depressing), and that they also store there their first animatronic, who was too scary for children (supposed to be Lockjaw).

We'll expand on this later.

On Night 4, Phone Guy explains that the glitch the animatronics have makes them mistake us for endoskeletons (like in FNAF 1), and that someone wants to buy Fredbear's. On Night 5, we discover that a child was kidnapped, and that everyone is blaming Fredbear's. Oh, The Puppet is glitching too. On Night 6, we discover that The CEO is selling the restaurant due to the incident. Then we get our paycheck. After Night 7 we deliver a complaint about the animatronics roaming around.

Now, let's address the minigames, wich are really unoriginal and can't be accessed through codes in the CN menù. They are:

1) Lockjaw Minigame. We play as Lockjaw in a copy of the TCTTC Minigame, and it ends when we leave one of the children angry for too long.

2) Spring Bonnie Minigame. Another copy of TCTTC, where we play as Spring Bonnie and witness Purple Guy kidnapping BFP.

3) Follow The Marionette Minigame. A copy of SAVE THEM where we, as Freddy, follow The Puppet around and see dead kids, pools of blood, and BFP running around. This minigame can start in the security office, but if it does we're stuck in the room and have to restart the game. Occasionally we can meet Purple Guy.

4) Follow Golden Freddy Minigame. Another copy of SAVETHEM, where we play as Lockjaw.

5) Scott Cawthon Minigame. We are Scott Cawthon and approach a crying BFP (symbolizing Tyler). This references that Scott, trying to help Tyler kickstart his dev career, gave him early access to both FNAF 3 and 4. And Tyler didn't leak them. Good job Tyler.

6) Shadow Lockjaw Minigame. We are Shadow Lockjaw in a room with Spring Bonnie and 4 kids. We have to glitch through another room and approach a crying BFP.

So, what do we learn? Lockjaw was once an active animatronic, BFP probably is the kidnapped kid who controls The Puppet/Lockjaw, and that Phone Guy/Purple Guy is the kidnapper. Lockjaw's lore was explained and partially retconned in TRTF 3, and we'll cover that in the TRTF 3 review.

Now, back in TRTF's glory days, it was speculated that Purple Guy was paid by someone (probably the same person who wanted to buy Fredbear's) to kidnap and kill BFP, to create enough controversy so that the restaurant would close. And it worked. The game getting retconned to take place in 1987 was supposed to tie TRTF 2 with FNAF 2 lore, because Tyler thought that the FNAF 2 location was the 2nd one.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Honestly? While I do like some things about this game (The power generator idea for an example, and actually giving Sugar a personal style), there are also so many things wrong with this game (bugs, difficulty, gameplay mechanics being ripped from FNAF 2 with no shame).

Probably, this is because TRTF 2 was actually made in Clickteam, instead of an older version (The Games Factory 2), and so Tyler had trouble adjusting to it.

From a Lore standpoint, it starts Lockjaw's story, but most of it was retconned later on, making this game's story really confusing in retrospect. The minigames are unoriginal, but do their job, and the cutscenes are useless.

And... That's it. I'll see you next in my TRTF 3 review. Until then, bye.