We Happy Few Did the Reviewers Play the Game?

Manners maketh meh.

But like the forcibly stretched grins of its inhabitants, the joy plant in Nosotros Happy Few is a facade. The game's fascinating setting of a drug-fueled social club wasting abroad in faux happiness is squandered on repetitive environments, poorly paced and downright boring quest designs, and a multifariousness of confusing mechanics that never find harmony with each other. Its three individual tales of survival manage to deliver some surprisingly poignant moments, but We Happy Few does its best to dissuade you from wanting to play long enough to see them through.

We Happy Few takes place in a timeline where Federal republic of germany reigned victorious after Earth State of war II and has England bowing to their whims. Children are sent to the German mainland without reason, and the serenity town of Wellington Wells is plunged into a drug-induced mirage of peaceful, happy co-existence. With pills called "Joy" helping citizens forget the atrocities of the past, insurgence is far less likely. Merely this false sense of quiet brings about its own problems. Citizens refusing to alive nether Joy'south medicinal spell are outcast to the borders of city, forced to alive in decrepit, crumbling houses while they expect to starve to death. The citizens of Wellington Wells are e'er happy to see you, merely simply if y'all bide by their rules.

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Enter Arthur, Sally and Ollie--the iii characters you'll control throughout iii acts that show all sides of this horrific guild. Arthur suffers from post-traumatic stress, reliving the moments where he lost his brother to the German kidnappings. Emerge hides a hush-hush within the walls of Wellington Wells while besides providing blackness market place drugs to those who pay plenty. Ollie is just a confused war veteran, disturbed by events of the by that take shaped his future. The more personal aspects of each character finish upward being more than interesting than the mythos surrounding them. Each new perspective lends context to previously puzzling interactions to create clever "aha" moments, and the stories have powerful themes of abandonment, parental cede, and overbearing guilt. Each finds a satisfying (if non always happy) cease to their journeying, despite the mechanics fighting actively confronting yous reaching their climax.

In Early Access (where the game sabbatum for almost 2 years), Nosotros Happy Few was a survival game. That's mostly stayed the same, despite the construction of its blueprint changing around it. As whatever grapheme, you'll need to manage meters for hunger, thirst, tiredness, and more (Ollie actually needs to sentinel his blood saccharide, of all things), which impose penalties and buffs on your fighting and motility abilities. Early, managing these statuses is difficult, with a scarcity of resource while you lot're still coming to grips with We Happy Few'southward many rules. But they soon finish up beingness just frustrating. The resource to replenish them aren't hard to find, but constantly having to tend to them when you're just wanting to get along with the story is arduous.

There is an unbelievable number of items to pick upward and carry in Nosotros Happy Few, but but a pocket-sized scattering end up being useful. Y'all'll frequently exist forced to pick upwardly flowers to craft healing balms or bobby pins for lockpicks, for instance. Simply vials of toxins that can knock out or impale enemies don't give you a reason to choose 1 or the other. The crafting menus for each character modify based on their abilities, simply the cadre items that are shared between all iii are likely the but ones you'll really utilise--the specialized items hardly necessitate their circuitous requirements. Information technology feels like such a waste having a vast crafting system fastened to a game that never puts y'all in a state of affairs where it feels necessary. We Happy Few has many ideas strewn across its menus just nothing mechanically that requires their use.

This frustration is simply exacerbated past the lack of interesting quests to undertake in We Happy Few's relatively large open world. Its inhabitants treat yous as their commitment boy, never giving you anything more circuitous than walking to an area, picking something up, and walking all the manner back. Quest design works counterintuitively to the idea of having to scrounge to survive. Even if you wanted to reach into the world'due south nooks and crannies to discover something interesting, inquisitive eyes are rarely met with whatsoever rewards bated from the plethora of items you probably already take stashed in your inventory. There's a point in Arthur'due south story where he exclaims, after a multi-staged questline, "All that, simply to reboot a span?" and it feels like he's crying out for help from you directly.

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What attempts to suspension up this straightforward structure are the rules of Wellington Wells. Exterior of its walls you'll exist forced to don tattered clothing to fit in with the rest of the depressing oversupply, likewise as fighting off temptations to steal from their strewn-almost dwellings. Inside is another story entirely. The inhabitants of Joy-infested cities volition exist quick to throw up artillery should you exercise anything but walk. Haunting guards and eerie Joy-sniffing doctors pose a threat to your blending in, which tin strength you to pop some pills from fourth dimension to time. Their effects keep you hidden for a time only have devastating withdrawal symptoms that foreclose you from masking your low, which tin have an entire city on your tail in mere seconds.

The setting sounds intriguing on paper: a system where stealth is managed by social interactions and conformity. Just its execution is defective. Obeying the strictly imposed rules is trivial and only slows down your progress towards the next quest marker, negating whatever sense of tension they might have imposed. Outside, the rules are looser, merely there'southward as well far less to look at. You'll spend a lot of time just sprinting through empty fields with no discernable landmarks, only to be greeted past some other span into some other strict state that brings progress to a crawl. Information technology's a disappointing misuse of a arrangement that might take otherwise been engrossing.

It feels like We Happy Few understands many of its mechanics are a chore to begin with.

The character progression system is even more underdeveloped. While each of the three characters has some unique characteristics, the abilities you're able to purchase are largely shared between them, and many requite you ways to plow some of We Happy Few's rules off entirely. One allows you to sprint through cities without rousing alarm for example, while some other lets you ignore annoying night curfews entirely. It feels like a concession--like Nosotros Happy Few understands many of its mechanics are a task to begin with.

When rules aren't being (mercifully) stripped away, they oft just don't piece of work. The night curfew, for example, will take guards turn hostile should they spot you. Only conceal yourself on a demote, and they inexplicably ignore y'all entirely. Melee gainsay is monotone and predictably boils downwards to you exhausting your stamina swinging your weapon and then just blocking until it recharges. When yous're not being forced to contend with that, you'll be sneaking effectually enemies with a barely performance stealth organization. Enemies are inconsistent in their power to spot you, sometimes walking across your path without a whiff of suspicion. Their patrol lines are piece of cake to spot and never deviate, making the advantage of a successful infiltration feel remarkably hollow. Most times they're simply far as well anticipated. They'll stare for extended periods at distractions yous conjure and fail to search an area later on spotting y'all briefly. We Happy Few's stealth is and then transparently binary that it just feels similar you're adulterous the organisation most of the fourth dimension.

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Information technology's a shame that so many of these systems never fit together in a cohesive style, specially when the earth itself is overflowing with potential. There'south some rich environmental storytelling in We Happy Few, even if its visual multifariousness is shallow. It'southward striking to transition from dilapidated walls with mad ravings written across them to neatly structured hollows parallel with rainbow roads. The way We Happy Few mixes upwards its visual representation based on your graphic symbol's mental states is clever, too. On Joy y'all'll witness double rainbows equally far as the heart can meet, with a shiny veneer encapsulating the overly cheery nature of your graphic symbol. Withdrawal sours this into a dreary gray world where the sounds of flies and visions of decay supercede usually unremarkable facets of the environment.

This blends well with We Happy Few'south interpretation of the era. Monochrome television screens hang from awnings and play the propaganda-filled ravings of the enigmatic Uncle Jack swing towards you lot as you laissez passer with a startling red hue. The stretched faces of Wellington Wells' nearly behaved citizens are off-putting in a brilliantly creepy way, fifty-fifty if there's such a lack of distinct character models that you'll find multiple identical faces hanging out on a single street corner. Cartoonish robotic contraptions mingle in more strictly secure areas and whistle off cheery tunes equally they pass past. They also tend to mess about with the pathfinding for Wellington'southward human inhabitants, which is hilarious merely the kickoff few times. For everything that Nosotros Happy Few gets right in terms of world building, its gameplay leads it astray.

For everything that We Happy Few gets right in terms of world edifice, its gameplay leads it astray.

Technical issues plague We Happy Few too, ranging from mildly abrasive to borderline game-breaking. Characters will ofttimes prune through the flooring or disappear entirely as you approach. Shifts betwixt nighttime and 24-hour interval see characters appear and disappear from 1 2nd to the adjacent. The framerate suffers on capable PC hardware. Quest logs will sometimes not refresh, while getting an item at the incorrect time failed to trigger a quest milestone, forcing me to reload an older save. Sound tin disappear from cutscenes entirely for long stretches of time. From numerous angles, We Happy Few is in rough shape.

But even if you are able to overlook its technical shortcomings or perhaps wait for more than stable patches in the hereafter, We Happy Few's biggest problems are ones that are difficult to remedy. Its unabridged gameplay loop is underpinned past dull quests and long stretches of inaction. And fifty-fifty when information technology forces you to interact with its world across just walking to waypoints, gainsay, stealth, and otherwise fascinating societies neglect to impose the correct remainder of claiming and tension. In that location's a clear lack of direction that Nosotros Happy Few is never able to milkshake, which wastes its intriguing setting. Information technology does manage to weave each of its iii stories cohesively into a larger tale, but it's likewise one that'southward never critical enough to earn the right to echo "happiness is a pick" any chance it can. In that location are merely likewise many hurdles to overcome to enjoy We Happy Few, and not enough Joy in the earth to cast them aside.

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Source: https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/we-happy-few-review/1900-6416956/

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