This game was originally covered as part of our Nindie Round Up series that sought to give coverage to a wider breadth of Switch eShop games beyond our standard reviews. In an effort to make our impressions easier to find, we're presenting the original text below in our mini-review format.

A static horror adventure that takes the premise of Toy Story and gives it a horrifying twist, Bedtime Blues crafts tension competently for the most part and will likely leave more than a few players with sweaty palms.

You play as a small child, armed only with a torch to ward away your sentient teddy bear (it’s never clear if it’s the same bear, or many) in various different ways. There is also a story running between each level, urging you to find clues to discover what’s going on and the history of the toys in your family. Each level is classed as an hour, with your character attempting to survive until dawn. Sound familiar?

Though the creepy atmosphere and diegetic sound are effective, once you’ve seen the jump scare animations a few times you’ll likely breeze through repeat playthroughs, fear-free.

It’s impossible to discuss Bedtime Blues without at least giving a passing mention to a certain other static horror franchise that uses cuddly creatures for jump scares. Unlike Five Nights at Freddy’s, however, which juggled a genuinely unnerving atmosphere with an intriguing plot, Bedtime Blues doesn’t try anything particularly new, despite being released five years later. Even the jump scares feel weaker and only shock because of their immediacy and loudness, rather than any scary visuals; after all, it's just a bear.

That said, the aforementioned sound design is strong. The recording of "Mama, please kiss me goodnight" is particularly disturbing and the bumps in the night do help to create a sense of dread. However, the pixel visual style, while novel at first, quickly becomes tiresome. It’s clear that the retro aesthetic was an intentional choice to enhance the distorted atmosphere, but it really doesn’t add a huge amount and makes the whole thing look ugly.

Overall, Bedtime Blues isn’t awful, but it lacks a lot of the depth and production value of the franchise it clearly emulates. It’s serviceable and might be nice for fans of survival horror looking for something to take on the go, but certainly isn’t ground-breaking.