Warning: this review contains minor spoilers for the game “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location.”

As if I didn’t have enough of a problem with procrastination as it is, on Friday my friend gave me her Steam login so I could finally play the fifth installment in the “Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) series – Sister Location.”

Although “Sister Location” is not part of the original saga and has been confirmed by the game’s creator, Scott Cawthon, to not fall into the exact same lore as the first four games, there are plenty of nods to the first games that it feels like a nice walk down memory lane. You know, if memory lane was a crawl space where you had to try to escape from possessed animatronics.

I wasn’t sure what to think when I first started the game. A lot of the key elements were very similar to the games preceding “Sister Location”– determining the whereabouts of the animatronics, being instructed on what to do by a disembodied voice, hiding from the vengeful spirits of dead children, and getting through mini games whenever you’re eventually killed by the same loveable characters designed to entertain children.

At first it felt like a cheap cash grab to milk the franchise for all it’s worth – like the 466-page novel, “Five Nights at Freddy’s: Silver Eyes,” and the upcoming FNAF movie. However, once I got past night one (which, true to form, served more as a tutorial than actual gameplay) I started to realize there was more to this game than the desire for money.

In “Sister Location,” you have significantly more freedom than you did in the first four FNAF games. In those games you pretty much just got to look at the cameras, close doors, put on masks and wind music boxes. However, in the newest installment you are able to move around, escape from the animatronics, and interact with them one-on-one – such as in the final night when Baby has been deactivated.

As for the horror aspect, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I’m a sucker for a good clean scare, something which I felt was missing in the first four games, where the only scare you got was from jump scares from being killed, completing some of the 8-bit mini games, and an increased sense of dread when you notice Foxy emerging from Pirate’s Cove.

At first, it felt like there wasn’t much of a difference between the original FNAF games. Sure, you have to actually fight for your life, such as when you have to crawl into the panic space under the desk at Circus Gallery and hold the door shut, but that’s really not so much more different than putting on a mask and praying for Balloon Boy to go away.

However, I was glad that Cawthon added in more jump scares besides the ‘Oh, Bonnie got you’ – which gets old and, by the third game, you’re expecting it. By incorporating more jump scares into actual gameplay, it did get me to jump a few times and actually scream once (shout out to my roommate for not getting mad).

That being said, I didn’t feel any sense or horror, and I feel like that is something that can still be improved greatly.

All-in-all, I enjoyed the additions to gameplay. The twist at the end of the first play through was highly unsuspected. I’m eager to see how the plot develops in upcoming games (because this is Scott Cawthon, you know there’s going to be a “Sister Location 2”) and what else Cawthon does to improve the quality.