Alright hello! This is something new I wanted to do because I have quite a bit to say about this game, mostly positive. I also want to talk about a bit of the games design as well, this isn’t a “traditional” review but it’s my opinion on the game. Oh and that being said, this is my opinion, so take this with a slight grain of salt. I think I’ll split this into sections to make it more organized. Oh and spoilers, you have been warned. 

Story

Alright so the story, well it’s the same story as the original. I am not huge into looking into the deep lore of fangames but here’s the basic plot. You were hired as a security guard to work the night shift at Candy’s Burgers and Fries. While working there the animatronics tend to move around, so it’s your job to… well… not die. This plot is simple but it gets a bit deeper as the nights progress, after each night a “cutscene” starts of security footage showing things like a sad puppet, some bloody metal pieces, animatronics being ordered to get you by the sad puppet? I’ll get back to you on that one. The point is it’s put together in a pretty ingenious way, it’s not spilling all this narrative on you and then expecting you to put the pieces together, it gives you some neat cutscene that get casual and hardcore fnafrs thinking alike. An issue in some other fangames is that they expect the player to be a theorist and know what to do with all of this information. And for the theorists that want more there is a whole secret night where if you beat you unlock some more lore for the next game, something to keep people excited. Overall this story captures what the first few fnaf games did best, simple at face value, but can get deep when you look into it. 

Gameplay

Gameplay, where do I start? Well the controls are solid, and the new “hybrid scrolling” took a bit to get used to but it is also great. The gameplay is at face value your average fnaf game, two doors (plus another for a window), cameras, close doors on robots, simple, right? Well not exactly, FNACR brings new life to the fnaf formula in a few ways. The cameras now have a night vision mode, without it the cameras are pitch black. If an animatronic is in a camera and you aren’t in night vision mode most of them will have glowing eyes, others will be invisible completely. Now in all honesty this mechanic really isn’t utilized that much, sure the old animatronics don’t appear when there’s no Night Vision but nothing is really stopping you from keeping it on night vision other than a small power usage boost that doesn’t really affect the gameplay. Now in the original this mechanic was mostly a “oh that’s neat” type thing, BUT in the remaster it has a totally new use. Now for most of the game the night vision is not a problem, there’s no real punishment for using it, but there is one night where a characters mechanic is centered around the night vision. Enter: Shadow Candy. In the secret “corrupted” night shadow candy has a mechanic that utilizes the night vision in a great way. In this night shadow candy will start at camera 13, he will then leave and go to any camera he wants, he can appear at your doors as well. Now the trick is Shadow Candy can appear on either the night vision OR the non night vision camera modes. This will finally give you a reason to switch between the two. If this was a mechanic in the main game it would make night vision an important mechanic, sadly it is only for this night. That is a bit of a lesson, a great game designer can use what they have instead of making something entirely new, when they can of course. The other mechanic I wanted to talk about is the doors, or more how the animatronics are seen.  Now in the first couple of nights when the animatronic appear at your door you can see them in two ways, the cameras, and their glowing eyes in the door. But Emil contrasted that in two genius ways, the penguin, and the old animatronics. Let’s start with the penguin, on Night two the phone guy mentions “the last penguin” which is the last of three penguin waiters. Apparently the third one messes with the systems in the restaurant, and that you shouldn’t let it in your office. Alright that’s all good but why am I mentioning him? Well you know how the animatronics can be seen mostly on both the door and the cams? Well the penguin can only be seen on the door, he is visible on the cam, but he’s so short you will miss him a lot. And then to contrast that the old animatronics can only be seen on the cams. With having these two opposite sides of the spectrum the gameplay becomes more fun and engaging. Difficulty wise the game is well balanced, having that controlled chaos of the original fnaf games. After playing the original the remaster is a bit easy but that was more on my part. Overall the gameplay is even better than the original and, while having it’s flaws, makes the game crazy fun to play. 

Graphics

I’ll keep this short but the Graphics are 10x better than the original. Since Emil is now using the Cycles rendering engine everything looks so real and clean. The lighting is amazing and works really well with the environments. Even the character renders are great! My only compliant is the establishment is a bit too bright, kinda losing the “dingy” style of the original. But really great work. 

Characters

So not too much to say here either. The animatronics are the same models as the original just edited and they still look great! Looks like they came straight out of fnaf. But what I really wanted to talk about was the phone guy, because this is probably the best phone guy… ever.

And that’s thanks to the great writing and acting, he actuallys sounds… human! Yes it took us this long for a phone guy that is really just a normal dude. He has his own opinions, he doesn’t spout expositional crap at you like crazy and he even goes places! The phone call with him in the cafe(?) was really great, made him feel like he had goals and relationships. Honestly one of my favourite parts of the game. 

Final Statement

Five Nights at Candy’s: Remaster is honestly one of my new favourite fangames and is (in my opinion) one of the best in terms of dialogue, gameplay and story. Great job on this one Emil. 

I guess this is where I give a rating? Uh… I give it 5 Shadow Candys out of 5.  

Okay now give us Chef Wanted.