There's probably a good three or four nuggets of pure nightmare fuel to be had playing Reanimal. At times it's an absolute feast of twisted weirdness; conjuring up unpleasant imagery and dark world building. It's full of 'nope, don't like that' moments as various creatures and grotesqueries chase the children you control. And there's definitely one bit that's going to be burned into my memory for probably the rest of all time. So, yay, playable trauma.
But it's also a little disjointed and unconnected, feeling more like a series of vignettes shuffled together than a coherent experience from start to end. Individual sections are impressively crafted and full of the atmosphere you'd expect from Tarsier Studios, who also made Little Nightmares and Little Nightmares 2. But there's something missing when it comes to binding it all together. At any given time the thing you're evading, or the horrorscape you're navigating, creates a beautifully formed microcosm of nasty, but I spent much of the game desperate for some kind of glue to better stick it all together.
