We Happy Few — [PC] Review
Visuals 9/10: Bloody lovely art-style, very 60’s, it’s like Yellow Submarine meets a Peter Gilliam cartoon
Voice acting 10/10: wide variety of British accents
Controls 6/10: took a lot of fiddling to get the mouse sensitivity to an area where I did not feel car sick when moving the camera
Difficulty 7/10: I am bad at stealth, leaving the train station took multiple tries and I wound up bludgeoning my way out
Replay value 9/10: There are multiple side quests and little areas to explore, meaning you can complete the main story and still have much to do.
Overall score 8.2/10
When I first heard about We Happy Few I was super excited to see the game in its final form. The setting, the accents, the art style… it all felt super new and exciting; a cool twist on the usual dark, brown post-apocalyptic worlds we’ve come to know and love — and quickly tire of. I am pleased to see it pulled away from the survival and crafting it was heavily geared towards during Early Access release on Steam.
The story is a good mix of V for Vendetta, A Clockwork Orange, 1984, and Big Brother-type aesthetics. This lends itself to a creepy tone, giving you a sense of dread and foreboding throughout. That is, of course, until you take your Joy, and then the world is all sunshine and lollipops. The difference in scenery between being on and off Joy is quite remarkable, I’ve stopped a few times to marvel at the bright colours, the pretty lights, and the butterflies that erupt from no where when you take your happy little pills.
As mentioned before, the first iteration of this game was heavily centered around crafting and survival. The release version still has aspects of this, but the focus is on the story. Both still exist, but in much milder formats than before. You still get hungry, thirsty, and tired but at a much slower pace, and it does not take much to refill those stats. For example, each time I’ve needed to sleep it has only needed to be for an hour before feeling fully rested. Likewise with food, a quick nibble on a carrot and the hunger meter is filled.
Combat took some getting used to, especially when faced with multiple enemies. I learned the hard way (read: I died. A lot.) during a few scenarios, before I figured out the best way to dispatch the baddies. The NPCs health bars are indicated by an inverted triangle above their heads, drain it and they die. You can avoid combat by sneaking up behind them, and strangling them until they fall asleep. Poor Arty has quite the hard time with either option.
I have heard and read about people experiencing game breaking bugs, glitches, and just general screw ups across the game. So far this floating… something, and some poorly rendered grass are the only hiccoughs I’ve encountered. I am not sure if this is due to playing on PC or not.
All in all, I’ve enjoyed playing We Happy Few. There is a lot to see and do thus far, I feel as though I have just scratched the surface in terms of content. While the combat, camera controls, and graphics could use a patch or update, on the whole We Happy Few is a solid game and worth the investment.
Unless otherwise stated, the images were all taken from my play through.
Copy of We Happy Few provided by Compulsion Games — provided to Girlstreamers Inc for the purpose of this review.
