You can tell it’s that time of year again when the eShop tends to get hit by a deluge of horror-oriented titles looking to capitalize on gamers in search of some scares. While I don’t tend to be a fan of the majority that have come to the system, and that’s for a wide variety of reasons, I do enjoy finding ones that show some effort to stand out and do things their own way.

In the case of Camp Sunshine the main deviation from the norm is to go with a classic 16-bit-ish era top-down adventure as the format for the experience. The genre tends to be dominated by what mostly play out as jumpscare-laden walking simulators or some ripoff of the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise, but I actually enjoyed the more old-school feel of things to go with its very classic weirdo slasher movie vibe. While I wouldn’t consider your nemesis in the game, a creepy knife-wielding Bear Mascot, to be terribly scary, his tendency to pop up close by when you’re scrambling around in limited light while trying to conserve your flashlight can be startling at times.

At the end of the day, this is more of a snack than a meal of a game, but I also find that it suits the season pretty appropriately. It tends to be stuck in a mode of one fetch quest after another, forcing you to go from one side of the camp to the other, but I at least appreciate the well-implemented map that makes that less painful. It isn’t terribly difficult, the scares aren’t plentiful (though there are a few shocks), and compared to much of what’s out there it at least feels novel. If you’re just looking for a snack-sized experience for the season it isn’t a bad option.