The year is 2007, the heyday of cinematic platformers is behind us. But just like most old genres which have faded with time, that means that the dedicated fans are becoming more and more motivated to create what the industry won’t.

Enter Chris Darril and Remothered, a labor of love which appeared aimed at fans of Clock Tower, a classic survival horror game (one of the earliest in the genre). This project and Darril’s future work would inevitably lead to Bye Sweet Carole, a game which attempts to capture both the cinematic platformers of the 90s and wrap it up in a nostalgic Disney-esque art style.

But does the game have more going for it than nostalgia? Find out in our review of Bye Sweet Carole.

Bye Sweet Carole
Developer: Little Sewing Machine
Publisher: Maximum Entertainment
Platform: PC, Xbox, Switch, PlayStation
Release Date: October 9th, 2025
Players: Single
MSRP: $24.99 (Review Copy Received)

In Bye Sweet Carole, players take on the role of Lana Benton, a girl in the care of the Bunny Hall orphanage. Lana lives in England in the early 20th century and with it comes a lot of political baggage. She’s a young lady in a time where that came with a set of rules and expectations that we’ve since done away with in polite society.

Unfortunately, Disney Princesses and feminist discourse are so inextricably linked these days that it was almost predictable. As soon as Chapter 2 started I feel like I had a very good idea of where the story was going to go.

The very first scene of chapter 2, orphanage headmistress Ms. Hinman proverbially beats you over the head with the underlying narrative of the game as she gushes over the “opportunity” of the orphan girls to stand in the shadow of rich and powerful men.

I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel about the way these topics were handled. On one hand, as a love letter to old horror and cinematic platformers like Clock Tower I imagine the target audience is old enough for a more nuanced narrative.

On the other hand, given the Disney princess aesthetic, maybe the goal was to tell a more easily digestible story for all ages? Either way, I feel like the themes could have been handled with more interest.

Admittedly, the game does get better about this further in. We learn about characters who have had opportunities stripped from them by the patriarchal social norms of the era, and we discover how even other women can become co-conspirators in their own oppression due to peer pressure.

Clearly the team at Little Sewing Machine knew the kind of story they wanted to tell, and from midway through to the end it certainly got better. However the writing around the beginning felt stiff and perhaps a little patronizing.

Speaking of stiff, the voice acting was very hit or miss. But once I leaned into the fact that this is a fairy tale, I began to forgive the game for it.

Fairy tales are direct, with an almost poetic quality to them that’s borne from the simple way things are described and stated. When I started treating the game like a fairy tale both the writing and the voice acting made more sense.

The gameplay, unfortunately, doesn’t compensate for the mixed feelings I have about the writing. Bosses in Bye Sweet Carole are… goofy. The only time I considered them a threat was during chase scenes with quick time events.

When I first heard about this game, I was excited for something like Heart of Darkness in terms of difficulty and lethality. You get that during chase scenes, but otherwise hunter enemies who would otherwise define scenes are… kind of a joke.

Hunters can generally just be outrun or ignored thanks to a generous health bar and exploitable animations. In fact, the only time they felt like a threat was during Lana’s own animations.

There’s virtually no reason to stealth in most scenes, just turn into a bunny and run right by them. Kite them to the other side of the screen. Then run back and do your business before they catch up. Rinse and repeat.

My immersion was completely ruined early on. The game introduces mechanics like hiding spots where you hold your breath, bells and objects which can be used to lure hunters, and even background decoration which discourages running around because it’ll fall and alert the hunter. I started to ignore all of that.

A majority of the time it wasn’t necessary to consider these things at all. These awkward animations extend to Lana as well.

I can’t tell you the number of times I tried to climb up a ledge, thought I had a prompt, and then just jumped instead. There’s also objects that are wedged between two points of interest and you virtually need to stand pixel perfect to get the prompt to interact with them.

Later chapters do things better, with chase scenes and enemies who will insta-kill you if you’re spotted. But by the time I got here, my immersion was already spoiled. The weak first few chapters feel more like a proof of concept and it’s later that the game really shines with forcing the player to be tactical, stealthy, and clever.

Puzzles rely on a lot of backtracking, and some items require experimentation or are otherwise confusing. There’s two achievements in the game, one for beating it in less than four hours, and another for beating it in more than 10.

Depending on how much you make yourself backtrack while puzzle solving, I could see either one being accomplished on a first playthrough.

Ultimately, I admire the ambition of Bye Sweet Carole but I can’t help but feel the execution falls flat. The Disney art style really carries a lot of the game’s good will but I feel like it doesn’t live up to its own hype.

Maybe it’s due to the genre, 2D survival horror can be tricky, but unlike other love letter style games, Bye Sweet Carole doesn’t come as close to the classics that inspired it as it should have. If the first few acts of the game played like the second half, it’d be much better.

Bye Sweet Carole was reviewed using a copy provided by Maximum Entertainment. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Bye Sweet Carole is available for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, Switch, Switch 2, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.