Hello Neighbor 3's Guest is peak
Having played the Hello Neighbor 3 Pre-Alpha, the more and more I play it the more I realise The Guest is by far my favourite aspect of it
Hello Neighbor 2 Guest, while definitely memorable and fitting the style of the game it's for, is still rather silly looking and looks more like a burglar than an enigmatic entity to me. This design does so well to lean into the latter aspect.
Starting from the bottom, the shoes are nice, and I really like the detail of one of the shoes having the shoelaces tied around the leg rather than the actual shoe, it's just strange in a good way. His jeans are nice looking, noticeably mud stained which makes sense given he lives in the forest.
His sweater is really interesting, it's not typical horror villain clothing but it fits really well with him, and I love the detail of all the branches and foliage caught in it, it makes perfect sense with him crawling around the forest, and really helps to make him feel mangy.
Towards his arms, I love how long they are and how big the hands are, it uses the exaggerated proportions of the new artstyle to very creepy effect, giving him a body that would debatably be human in this setting but absolutely does not look it. The left arm with the trash bag tied around it is just cool looking, and it's a nice way to reference the black gloves that The Guest and The Neighbor used to wear, especially since the latter is no longer wearing them. Meanwhile, the right arm, despite being the most 'human' element of his design, is actually one of the freakiest in my opinion. The human, yet unnaturally long arm poking out of the sleeve would already be eerie, but the watch is such an amazing design detail that really makes it stand out more. Everything else about his design is consistently 'inhuman', but the watch is a very, very human aspect that brings up so many questions, whether this is an entirely 'normal' person who willingly decided to become a moaning, whining kidnapper hiding in the woods, or if this is an entity utilising a warped human body to do its actions, it's such a cool detail.
Finally, the head is also great. I love how long it is, and the strings are such a clever design detail. They both look like strands of drool, emphasising the monstrous nature, while also giving a reasonable explanation as to how the person underneath could move the mouth closed and shut, emphasising the human aspect. I also like that rather than being mounted on the front of his face, it's mounted facing directly up, which further emphasises the unnatural nature of the Guest where anytime he's looking at 'you', he's actually staring at the ground. It also creates a really neat effect for his animations where when he's not pursuing you and is facing forward, it looks like he's staring up at the moon like a woodland predator.
His animation and sound design is really good too, I love how his wandering animations have this pensive look to them, with these occasional creepy, guttural moans, and then when you get into his territory, he starts chasing you on all fours.
Gameplay wise, I think he has really interesting mechanics, especially the fact that as the night begins, more and more previously locations become unsafe, including peoples' houses potentially (I've had Janusz get caught by The Guest while at the supermarket before he even returned to blow up the bakery). I think if the loop period gets extended, perhaps the second night of the storm could have all of the streetlights getting knocked out, giving zero safe place for refuge except peoples' homes, that would be very scary.
That being said, my main complaints with the Guest right now is that firstly, the mechanic where he runs away when you blind him often causes him to path towards you in order to 'run away', which both looks weird and makes him tedious to handle. Secondly, that if you have a flashlight and a good understanding of his mechanics, he becomes very very easy to deal with and not much of a threat unless it becomes night at a dark location like the weather station. I'm not sure how to fix the first bit, but for the second bit, maybe it would be interesting to have a hard mode where flashlights have heavily decreased battery life and/or you can only stun him while he's dragging you once.
What do you think about him in this game?