WE HAPPY FEW Game Review

 

 Play as Arthur, a "downer" trying to get to Wellington Wells, his home, after his mental crisis and career fall. The game is about a country where everyone is happy, thanks to a pill called joy. They even make it with flavours, they even have strawberry! Seems interesting I know, but for quite a price for an indie, We Happy Few at first might seem expensive, and you might consider if it's worth it. In this review, we'll try to explain if it is. It is, it is!

 

We Happy Few is an interesting adventure for you, for sure. It's easy to understand, easy to like with it's well developed story. Gameplay keeps you tied up, you just can play it for hours, wondering arround. It's puzzle making escape mechanics make it even more addictive to play.  Graphics are just stunning, we played this on the max settings, and I was quite impressed with what I saw. Soundtracks make it even more intriguing. The game offers a whole lot of missions, and opportunuties, even so much that you get undecided about what to do next, since most of your options will be pretty fun and you know it. In personal experience, I played this for a few days, nonstop, and then, played it more. My playthrough took about 27-28 hours to complete. General players take arround 25-30 hours to beat it, but you can always skip most things, and get to the end in 14-15 hours, maybe even less. The game uses Unreal Engine 4, which makes it quite impressive and reliable.

We Happy Few, with it's long, sometines repetitive but always intriguing story keeps you entertained for quite a while. The game offers a path for you anywhere you are on the map. It doesn't force you to do side missions to continue on the main path, but you still want to do them since they're always fun. Well, mostly, sometimes, in general.. Anyways, the missions look all the same to you, they all look like story missions. All the missions are actually well built for the general story. Background story is strong, but tough to break. It makes you wonder how there can be this much downer in the first place, if that's the background of the country. Story, generally, won't tire you out or make you rage quit because of repetitive missions, it's easy to like.

Character development is minimal, characters are becoming public more and more on the way, but that's not by developing into something more. It's rather by being solved, like a puzzle. Arthur, is not becoming someone else along the way, even though in his pick-up lines and killing lines he tells you otherwise. Arthur is just remembering, and he hates himself more every time he has a "memory crisis" In the end, your main task is to keeping your memory fresh. Forgetting is more hurtful to him than a knife wound. So, even though the character development doesn't exists, the game is still on a valid path, since it was designed to be. Yes, maybe bit of a cheesy escape for development phase, but it's an indie, and this is not ubisoft with hundred writer. Therefore, understandabe at least. Arthur is a strong character, his background story is really rich and we all love playing his character.. but, can't say the same about the other playable characters, most of them look basic in the surface, and rather far to the gameplay.

Mechanics are plentiful, UI is simple-ish at most. It's hard to understand early on that even the easiest things make a difference, like wearing as you should, or walking, or even the importance of talking to people, all the times. In-game menus in general seems minimalistic, crafting mechanic is not so brutal, but also challenging, nice touch there. Speaking of talking, in-game dialogues are pretty vague and repetitive at most. Even though it can be explained with everyone being happy, therefore using all the same sentences, that seems like a cheap attempt. I would like at least like to see some more small talk options for the AI.

To sum up, We Happy Few, with it's stunning graphics and intriguing gameplay is a great option to play, if it's on sale. Impressive, and promising when it comes to creating a unique experience, easy, yet challenging when it comes to mechanics.

Reviewed By: Batu

VideoMortals Rating: 7/10