Bye Sweet Carole
Developer: Little Sewing Machine
Publisher: Maximum Entertainment
Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox Series X (Reviewed), PlayStation 5
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $24.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
When it comes to presentation there are plenty of ways to go about it in a video game and while many have opted for some form of pixel-art or try to be as realistic as possible, a select few have taken the classic animation route with even fewer going as far as to hearken back to the classic ’80s style of Disney animation. That is where Bye Sweet Carole manages to not only make its mark, placing its entire identity and storyline within this animation style, but even plays like a living movie. That being said, while these charming visuals may draw in potential players, does Bye Sweet Carole manage to deliver the gameplay and storyline to go along with this strong foot forward?
Story
Set sometime in the early 1900s, Lana Benton lives a dreary life in an orphanage called Bunny Hall where she is regularly bullied by other orphans who exclude her from their “clique” and even the teacher often scolds her for not acting ladylike or even attempting to defend herself. The only shining light in Lana’s life was her best friend Carole but just as the story begins, we learn that Carole has gone missing for an unknown period of time. With the mysterious events surrounding her friends’ disappearance, Lana begins to find herself drawn into a haunted nightmare that sees a tall man named Mr. Kyn leads an evil force full of ash and oil that seeks to corrupt everything it touches, stalking Lana in an effort to claim her kingdom known as “Carolla” that she is apparently the princess of.
This nightmarish creature blends into the real world as well, grossly affecting those around Lana and even displaying some rather unique knowledge about her circumstances even as Lana does her best to uncover what secrets lie within Bunny Hall and the actions the facility’s staff are taking, sending her spiraling into a horrific and heart breaking journey that is as predictable as they come but still manages to land some emotional punches nonetheless, even if its secondary storyline is as subtle as a hammer.
That isn’t to say that Bye Sweet Carole‘s storyline is a bad one by any means, it just happens to be a bit on the predictable side all while withholding far too much information until the last couple of chapters before info-dumping on players in such lengthy cutscenes the controller disconnected at one point. While we won’t go into too much detail about the specifics of the cultural and emotional elements that come into play within the story, as doing do would spoil some of the bigger reveals, it is worth noting that it is at least portrayed well-enough, even if the Bunny Hall and its antics about how a “woman” should act is as blatant as they come to the point that a late-game reading of a long list of names felt more like checking boxes than actually being inspiring.
It is also worth noting that while Mr. Kyn and the various monsters and “hunters” that end up chasing Lana throughout the game are deformed and have monstrous appearances and there are some rather terrible looking death sequences that can be triggered here and there, this will not be a horror game for most people. There are some spooky elements and monsters, but anyone that has played any type of horror game before won’t find much to impress them here, as the horror is kept as low-key as possible, probably to aim for a younger audience that may actually be frightened by the hunters’ threats and appearances rather than the long cutscenes that come with getting caught or glitches they trigger.
Gameplay
Mechanically Bye Sweet Carole is as traditional as they come as the game is designed as a side-scrolling puzzle game with light platforming, stealth, and combat elements. Lana herself moves very slow while walking and “runs” at a normal walking pace, can lightly kick obstacles, and can push various boxes around to climb on them. She also can only fall about five feet without dying. Thankfully not too long into the game Lana gains the ability to transform into a rabbit. In rabbit form Lana can not only squeeze through spaces, she runs faster, jumps higher, can wall-jump, and even survive long falls all while being able to interact with nearly everything her human form can. The only real downside is that Lana’s health does not recover in rabbit form.
Throughout exploring Bunny Hall and surrounding areas Lana will occasionally encounter “Hunters” that will pursue her. Most of these hunters will pursue Lana whenever she is spotted or breaks an object in an environment but they can be easily avoided by hiding underneath a table, within a shadowy alcove using a “hold your breath” mechanic, or simply running through them. Hunters are incredibly poorly programmed to the point that they either get stuck in the environment, swing so slowly that they will miss Lana entirely if she zips by in her rabbit form, or just randomly teleport around the location to fit the plot progression’s needs. You see, every one of the ten chapters in the game has some kind of puzzle players must solve and generally if a Hunter is around they’ll pop out randomly as players make progress even if it means that players may have just seen an enemy move off screen to the right only to pop out of the ceiling to the left.
Either way, it is also worth noting that among the Hunters that simply do damage to Lana and will eventually kill her, there are also certain heavily stealth based ones that will instantly kill Lana if she is seen or caught by them. Unfortunately these happen to be some of the worst in the game requiring some trial and error and a bit of luck as the game is incredibly touch-and-go with what it thinks a hunter’s vision is as well as how precise, or imprecise given the animations, of the wall-jumping come into play, and combining it with nearly ten seconds of “death animation” only to reload at the beginning is a bit frustrating. Hunters in these sequences can feel like easy to bypass once players get lucky, but being randomly seen when clearly behind cover or missing a wall-jump despite clearly being in position and chaining multiple together beforehand is annoying, not entertaining.
As mentioned before, there is some light combat that also comes into play here and there and that is usually when Lana is joined by her mysterious protector known as Mr. Baesie. Baesie will wield his umbrella in some mediocre combat elements to occasionally break debris or fight off enemies while Lana runs around in the background. The best place where combat shines happens to be the final battle that, we won’t spoil here, opens up a few more combat options but still keeps things quite limited. If anything Baesie is primarily used as another puzzle solving mechanic as his head can separate and be crushed to fit through tiny spaces, lit aflame to ignite tinder or other things, and even electrified to power generators.
As for the puzzles themselves, players will generally find that they are rather simple and can be easily finished simply by exploring all of a location, properly combining items or making use of them with the right objects, and occasionally some platforming. There are some environmental puzzles and clues that are a bit more challenging to help make sure players need to at least remember a bit here and there. The game also features a lot of… padding. While fitting for the theme of the game, there is a nonsensically simple “dancing” mini-game players are forced to do twice that take far too long and even balancing mini-games when sliding along ledges. It is also worth noting that the title absolutely loves to require “frame perfect” positioning at times to interact with environmental objects or switches. So much so in fact that it required a reload from the main menu to properly trigger a switch that just wouldn’t work prior. This is an unfortunately common occurrence but thankfully a patch today may have fixed how precise some of these interactables need to be and prevent softlocks.
Audio & Visuals
As mentioned more than a few times already, Bye Sweet Carole is an absolutely gorgeous looking game. Producing an entire game that uses classic Disney style animation is something that definitely deserves praise, even if it gets a bit rough looking when the cutscenes zoom in too close to some character models and how annoyingly specific character placement needs to be to properly interact with some objects or even perform standard platforming. There is a very dreary and gloomy atmosphere built into the Bunny Hall as Lana searches through the environments, whether it be in her human form or in her bunny form. Interestingly enough, there are even some key death animation sequences that only vary depending on what form the player is in if they happen to be caught. As mentioned before though, this isn’t really the scariest of games around even with some attempts at creating spooky enemies, though perhaps those who aren’t used to horror or younger audiences might find themselves scared here and there.
Bye Sweet Carole‘s gorgeous visuals are supported by a fitting voice acting cast whose English, and other, accents work perfectly in the English dub throughout the game, though it does appear that there are a few instances of dialogue cutting out for no reason, but this issue was fairly rare. The soundtrack features a great collection of background music throughout the player’s exploration of Bunny Hall and its strange surroundings but the credits song really deserves a special highlight as it feels like a perfect conclusion to the player’s journey and also mimics the same type of bold songs that helped bring classic animations to a close.
Overall
Bye Sweet Carole tells an emotional story of a young girl too small for a world that is changing without her but it takes far too long obfuscating things while stringing players along with simple but effective puzzles, mediocre combat and simplistic stealth that is only challenging when it is cheap. Thankfully an excellent classic Disney animation style makes the entire game absolutely gorgeous even if the whole “horror” aspect will only be for those on the younger side.
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