Poppy Playtime Chapter 5 Sucks 
I don't personally play poppy playtime myself, I usually watch YouTubers playing it as background noise when doing other things like drawing or cleaning the house. While I don't like mob entertainment, poppy playtime does touch on some themes I adore, mainly the whole living toys thing and how they actually have like human organs and shit going on inside them, abandoned factory and survival elements. I like dark themes, or eerie ones and I love a good lore ridden game.
Anyway, I didn't enjoy chapter 5, it was a downright mess of a chapter compared to the previous ones. Both in terms of writing and actual gameplay.
To start, the chase sequences were like 80% of the gameplay this time, which was ridiculous. Then on top of that the layouts for the chase sequences were appalling, it wasn't clear where you were supposed to go or what you were supposed to do in the slightest. In previous chapters it was made more clear on what you were supposed to do or where you were supposed to go, sometimes even characters even guiding you (doey pointing to a door to guide you ect). But this time there was no indication, glowing objects weren't reliable either because some objects would glow that had nothing to do with anything you were actually supposed to do. As Mark said as well it was a lot of trial and error, I didn't watch mark play, I watched ash at game theory play and even they were visibly getting frustrated with the lily chase. They straight up knocked their coffee onto their laptop and had to take a breather.
Also, usually when I watch people play these games, I usually have moments of frustration because I can see what they're supposed to do and they're not doing it. But I didn't have that experience at all with this chapter. I, the audience, couldn't even figure out what they were supposed to do. Imagine what it's like for the person actually playing the game. That's bad.
The writing, this chapter didn't have direction, you can tell chapter 5 was written as they went. The lore is inconsistent with other lore we've had in previous chapters, while conditioning was mentioned in previous chapters, it was never mentioned in this way. There was also no mention of a specific person being in charge of it like lily, had a character that important been written in from the start they would have been mentioned from the start in the lore we find. But we never actually got any details of conditioning till chapter 5, at least this specific form of conditioning. Lily's character is what I would describe as a Fortnite celebrity feature, where the character has no real connection to the game but was made specifically just to feature a celebrity. We've had YouTubers featured previously of course, but with lily it's much more intrusive and out of place. No hate against the actor, she did great, my issues simply lay with mob entertainment.
Lily's lore is also conflicting, we have some lore that says she was turned into a toy by the toys after they took her during the hour of joy as revenge. But then there's conflicting lore to say lily was made before the hour of joy by staff. It's also conflicting because of the environment designs too, if she had been made by the toys after the hour of joy, she wouldn't have cardboard cut outs throughout the place in chapter 5. So Thier not even consistent with their own lore in chapter 5 regarding certain characters.
Also I don't even mind the doctor coming back at the end of chapter 5, I'm all for plotlines where you have to turn to your enemy for help. However, my issues lay with that we had nothing that indicated that's where we were heading, we never knew where we were going or what we were doing in chapter 5. It was like walking around in the dark, patting random spots on a wall till you click something and none of them are light switches. But it did something somewhere.
The additional characters, giblet and chump are just another Groot and rocket duo, giblet is obviously going to betray us. (I'll actually be surprised if he doesn't.) Both of them served no purpose in this chapter other than to fill the silence and patronise the players in an already patronising game. I would have much preferred to see toys we've already seen in posters ect, but ya know, alive. Like candy cat, when tf are we going to see any candy cats that are alive???
It's clear that additional characters' only reasons were a cash grab. Much like Hasbro, mob entertainment only introduced more characters to be able to make and sell more toys. Also I'm sorry I hate the stupid scene of them doing their handshake cause…. It is so out of place in this story that supposed to be grime, it's giving “gen z/alpha loves this kind of thing add it in”.
So yeah I hate chapter 5, It sucks in terms of writing and gameplay. Also I don't like how “clean” the chapter was either. No bodies were really about the place or blood , sure there was the weird flesh stuff, but I don't count it cause it didn't really come to anything. Just here's some random flesh for some reason and no bodies, except this singular human one on a hook that's untouched for some reason.
If you like poppy playtime you do you, but chapter 5 wasn't good and y'all need to accept that. I don't mean objectively bad, I mean literal gameplay wise it's bad and unplayable to a certain degree, I wouldn't be surprised if there's many people who just quit it cause they couldn't get past lily's chase scene. But yeah I think I'll leave my rant there. That's this week's hot take lol.
