A Heartwarming DLC That Is All Mine
I hadn’t played Lil Gator before agreeing to review In the Dark. What a cuddle of a game it is. No one warned me that it was perhaps the most wholesome experience I could have with an Xbox controller in my hands.
In the Dark is a second cuddle after the first. I was thoroughly cuddled. Everything that made Lil Gator so optimistic, friendly, accessible and joyful is present here. None of the charm is lost. While the events of the DLC may take place in the dark, this is as light as they come.
Keeping The Spirit Of The Base Game
You’ll need to complete the three main quests of Lil Gator to access In the Dark. That’s not a huge trial: the base game took me roughly three hours to finish, and I was snaffling all of the subquests and cardboard cutouts on the way. It kicks off from where the first game finishes: in the newly refurbished playground, the self-proclaimed ‘Darklord’ appears and warns that they will be invading soon. Being Lil Gator, this isn’t really a Darklord at all. It’s a young piglet with a chip on their shoulder, and their hordes of enemies are actually cardboard and plywood.
Lil Gator has a newfound determination to resolve other people’s problems, so he heads off to meet them in their hideout. That’s on the tutorial island, where you learned to play the game.
The Darklord has teenage babysitters, who seem – at first – to be enabling his tantrums and fantasies. So, your task is a bit like the base game. You first need to convert the three babysitters to your cause, before taking on the Darklord. And converting each babysitter means finding and helping the people in their region. You’re back to altruistically making people’s lives better.
Going Underground, Going Underground
This all takes place in a vast underground cavern that can’t be much smaller than the larger island above. It’s colossal, with stuff to thwack, find or help in every corner. It is, however, not quite as enjoyable to explore as the island. That’s mostly down to the inherent nature of a cave system: there aren’t any opportunities to stand on something like a mountain and get a sense of where you are. Everything is confined, and the rooms are relatively uniform. It means there are more opportunities to get lost than in the base game. It’s a slight dink in the overall enjoyment.
The quests are cracking, though. They run the same gamut of hitting things, finding things and interacting with the environment in fun ways. Highlights include two ants that run in circles to catch each other, but never meet (so you have to create a wee blockage for them), and a long-necked axolotl who is on the hunt for cryptids in the cave. Every single quest has you cracking a smile, warming your heart, or chuckling over a dad joke. It’s just brilliantly written as always.
Charming Rewards
The rewards have been souped up a little. You’re not only getting a wide range of cosmetics for your Gator, you’re getting some that have Charms attached. Charms are mechanical benefits to the item. Some are essential, like a Smash attack that can destroy walls. Others just make things easier, like a spinning, higher jump. These charmed items are a clear leg-up from the base game, simply because they have an effect on the world.
The boss battles with the babysitters are, of course, only boss battles in name. But while they may not be combat-heavy, they do require some twists on the main gameplay. One gets as close as Lil Gator will ever get to stealth gameplay, while another uses the game’s races to strong effect. None of them are particularly onerous.
It doesn’t take a PhD to work out where the story’s heading. In Lil Gator (spoiler incoming), the main character learned to respect other people’s needs. In the Dark pushes him to take that thinking to the next level. What happens if someone doesn’t want to change? It’s not hard to see Darklord as a version of Lil Gator from the start of the core game.
Drinking The Gatorade
I gobbled the Lil Gator Game: In the Dark expansion up in a single play session. It was almost rude not to. That’s not to say I felt short-changed: it was three hours, and I relished every minute. It’s more a comment on the quality of what’s here. There was nowhere that I felt like I could, or wanted to, stop.
In the Dark doesn’t quite reach Lil Gator’s previous peaks, but it is close. As we’ve mentioned, the caverns come with their foibles, namely a diminished sense of place. I didn’t necessarily know where I was at any given time, and I certainly didn’t know where I was heading. But the nature of Lil Gator means that you can live in the moment. There’s almost always a nearby cardboard monster or a character with a ? above their head. They will lead you somewhere new.
If anything, I’m thankful to In the Dark for getting me to play the whole Lil Gator saga. I’m not sure I was feeling down, exactly, but I was certainly bathed in a Gatory glow after playing the Gator of the Year Edition. In the Dark continued the good work, adding a fitting and heartfelt coda to an already brilliant game. And there’s no finer compliment than that.
Important Links
Lil Gator Game: In the Dark Expands The Adventure Beneath The Surface – https://www.thexboxhub.com/lil-gator-game-in-the-dark-expands-the-adventure-beneath-the-surface/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/lil-gator-game-in-the-dark/9n0rpmb7x17f
The Gator of the Year edition is available too – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/lil-gator-game-gator-of-the-year-edition/9pb9qkzzm33r
