I really wanted to like this game, but the warning signs were there right from the very start. The concept of a world gone mad and only kept peaceful due to a dystopian drug is one of those types of creepy that isn't on the surface, but done right permeates everything and makes you really feel the world it creates. I was hoping for something like that as a fan of horror, both creature features and (in this case) the more subtle kind with staying power. However, I can not say I was pleased with what I found. This game was never meant to be what it is, and sometimes, that fatal flaw kills everything because the supports from the old can never hold up what it ultimately becomes. So it is here.
Story: If you decided to play this game, this is probably what drew you in. You are about the enter the town of Wellington Wells, a small isolated town in England in an alternate 1960s where happiness comes in the form of a little pill called Joy and the law demands everyone take it or else. In this blatantly dystopian world we find ourselves following three "heroes" in sequential order. First of which is Arthur.
Arthur works for the newspaper as a censor for the department of archives. His job is to go through archived news clippings and pages, approving stories that the people will be able to handle and blacking out those that are unfit for the people to read. Most of the time, this is not a job that gives him any real issues, but today, he would find an article that reminds him of his brother Percy at just the right time for Joy to not blot out the memory of how he was taken away by the Germans towards the end of the war when they were just kids... and your first of the few real choices you will be given in the game. You can either have Arthur take another Joy, forget it all, and continue life as always (credits roll) or you can make him face what he remembers and refuse the drug... letting him see the world for the first time in years for closer to what it really is. Of course his abject horror to what he sees will quickly have him noticed and his refusal to take the Joy his boss offers him will have him marked as a Downer: someone who won't or can't take Joy... and as such wanted by the police.
Luck would have Arthur escape this harrowing rundown and true intro to the game, however, leaving him alone as a newly minted Downer and outlaw of this land... but with a mission on his mind. Percy is out there somewhere, and he will find the brother he was separated from and rescue him from wherever he is.... but first he needs to get out of Wellington... and there is only one way out... right back through Parade area he had once lived in. He will need to survive the outskirts, sneak back in and from there take the train out of there.
Of course this will not be that simple, direct, or even without several twists on the way. You see, the fact that your first choice is if you wish to take Joy and forget the whole thing was not an incidental one: Joy has the side effect of making people forget things they don't want to remember... and that include details of that fateful day when Arthur lost his brother, leading the man closer and closer to a reality in who he and everyone in this village really are behind the drug induced stupor.
And this is where Arthur's story really takes off. While playing his story, you will be treated to a masterclass of telling a story with the world itself. You will see signs of what happened, why it happened, and how the town is both coping and letting itself collapse under a neon colored mass euphoria in response to what happened. It is kinda dark and depressing despite the bring colored world it's happening in. Nor is his story the only one to point this out as two characters you meet will each have their own story for you to play out.
The second of these characters is Sally. She was a childhood friend of Arthur's you will first meet in his story as the girl who is always complicated but always gets her way. To say their history probably involves some serious heart ache is not an exaggeration. But this is in the past and right now, Sally might just be the one sane person in this entire town. Having hidden that she is off her joy for a long time, she has a much clearer picture of just how bad things have gotten, but her cover only works because she is a brilliant chemist and has made a new kind of Joy that the officers of the law just adore so they actively avoid bothering her too much.
But she also has another secret... a baby who she can not trust anyone in the village with even knowing about. But the reasons for that I will leave her story to explain as it further pushes just how bad the situation in this town is. Still her mission is rather direct. She too wishes to leave, take her child, and find a place where she will know peace growing up she herself never did.
And finally we have Ollie. This third member was once a sergeant in the military during the war and once a friend and neighbor knew Arthur quite well growing up. So when the two meet up, he helps the man get what he needs to continue his journey to find his brother. Still this isn't the end of his troubles, as Ollie finds himself under attack by a gang who wants his survivalist stash of supplies and is willing to blow up his stronghold to get it. With nowhere else to go after his home is destroyed, he does the last thing he can do, go tell the general what Arthur found out about the forces the Germans had threatened them all with so long ago and how the people could have risen up and overpowered them pretty easily.
Like the others, Ollie is also not on Joy, though in his case, it's not by choice. He has bad reactions to it, puking under it's influence like a man with food poisoning. He's still not sane though... with his brain foggy, it's clear early on he's talking to a daughter who is dead. And he's fully aware of it, but he still adores her and keeps her as the only company in his life. His story too will discover details of this world I would rather not go too in depth about as they just paint an even bleaker view of this town and everyone in it.
This is not a happy tale you are embarking on, but it is an amazingly well written and presented one that it would be a shame to miss.
8/10
Graphics: Unlike so many games we see today, we are looing at a game that went for stylization over realism, and did so rather brilliantly. The world itself looks amazing, taking the 1960s psychedelics to the world, both literally and in feel all around you. The decor of any given building in the main city of Wellington will just scream of the era, from clocks to signs to even just the rounded shapes of the doors and windows and technicolor of everything around you, this world just screams someone designed this place like it would fit right in with the kind of things you might see from movies and music videos of the era, and yet surreal enough to suggest the feel more then the reality most of the time.
At least when you're in the good parts of town. You see, people who don't take their joy are not welcome in the actual village, but stuck in the decrepit outskirts, living in the ruins there... and this contrast plays up further the issues this little space in the world is facing, holding people who are drugged up on Joy in what can only be described as their own little place that behaves like an adult playground while everyone else who can't or wont take the drug are forced to live in squaller, serving setting exceptionally well.
And then we get to the "Joy effects." And yes I said effects, as the drug changes your view of the world in a few ways. When you're on it, the world's colors get brighter and more saturated while butterflies may occasionally float into your peripheral vision. The world itself really doesn't change, but your view genuinely feels more warm and cheery, even as you (and your character) are fully aware of how fake this feeling is... and then you come down.
Joy doesn't just have a positive effect on your screen. When it first wears off, you will go through withdrawals. During these times, the world will lose most of it's color, including what is there when not in a drug induced euphoria and there is a good chance something you are looking at now is rotting and has flies buzzing around it, painting the world as even worse then it actually is for a while.
And while the people look more cartoony then real through all of this, they fit into this world effortlessly. It all looks fake in the best way possible. In the decrepit outskirts the downers are forced to live in, the cartoony look takes center stage, but the people are wearing rags as they sift through rubble for useful bits or rotten foods they can still try to eat. It's depressing when you stop to think about it, but that really is the point looking at who this town is trying to leave behind.
And when you are dealing with people within the village itself, things go from depressing to straight up discerning. Yes the people are clean and stylish, but everyone is behind these white masks with plastered smiles on them, hiding their identities ever so subtly and just screaming about the fakeness of it all. But then you have the doctors and the cops (bobbys... this is taking place in England, after all). Unlike everyone else, the smile on their masks is a little too large and their expressions a little too energetic, making them genuinely disturbing to run into. When you have to face off with them you will really desire to do nothing more then to hide from them.
Overall the effect of the world is very surreal and frankly a beautifully horrifying place to be... sometimes directly, sometimes with the menace hidden just under the surface... and often not to well. If it wasn't for the bugs we will cover later destroying this immersion on occasion I would have been singing the game's praises here. But as it is, it still does a REALLY good job.
7/10
Sound: And even the sound here was actually done really well with a surprisingly good soundtrack to get you started. Like the visuals, the music here takes heavy inspiration from the pop styles of the 60s, using this motif to go anywhere from making you ask where the super-spy in the room is, to genuinely creepy enough to fit the era's B-rate schlock horror films, depending on the mood the game itself is aiming for. Most of the time, it will do exactly what you would expect with these vibes, however: blend into the world and the moment, really only standing out for times like the "party house" you will likely find yourself having to visit early in the game where it itself is meant to be a character and not just background to enhance the "groovy" veneerer of the world.... or the eerie effect as it gets shattered around you. It feels right at home with the game when it is used.
But this is not the highlight the vocal works is... for both good and bad reasons. To get the bad out of the way, this is a game where you can talk to literally everyone, but it will show you quite quickly why you probably don't want to as the results destroy the illusion of natural conversation the game desperately wants to give you. Talk to anyone at random and your protagonist will say hello, it's a nice day, or (in the bad parts of town) try to raise the spirits of someone there only to be treated to a random line that if you are lucky might make some iota of sense as a response, but likely will not. Not that the voice actors involved were not trying. The lines themselves are delivered well and in the case of who you are playing as feels like the character saying it. They just don't make sense together... at all.
But when you are dealing with an actual scripted event, be it for a main or side mission, these same voice actors shine just about every time you hear them, playing up the personalities they are playing brilliantly. Even characters you see maybe once or twice tops fit in brilliantly and naturally in the moment to make the scene absolutely pop. There is one in particular during Ollie's story where you straight up destroy her Joy pills right in front of her, and the absolute anguish in her voice as she begs for the drug is almost hard to listen to. I have to give her actress a special ovation.
But of course the ones who really need to stand out are those main three characters: Arthur, Ollie, and Sally. And the talent here rose up to the occasion. Arthur, no matter what is going on, sounds like the kind of nervous sort who wouldn't be comfortable with enough physical contact to give someone else a hug, much less beating the tar out of a guy with a cricket bat (which WILL happen, I assure you). He does not want to be here taking part in any of this madness around him and you can hear it in every line.
Sally is a single mother who is doing her best to keep her child secret from the world and appeasing them with her chemistry skills so they don't come looking.... and the desperation of a mother who knows her child will not be safe much longer but is still required to act like everything is normal oozes out of every ounce of her delivery.
An finally we have Ollie, who I honestly think the voice actor playing him got to have the most fun in this part of the project. He is an insane Scottsman who absolutely knows he's crazy but doesn't give a damn talking to a ghost he knows isn't really alive in front of everybody. He's chaos in a bottle and you honestly want to hear his take on a lot for that reason alone.
With all that in place, sound effects really don't have a lot of lifting to do, but they generally are more then up to the task, The sounds of paper pages turning when you look at note, or the hum of nearby devices, dripping water in bathrooms or even your own steps add to the atmosphere, quite nicely. These are to be praised for the realism and attention to detail here. It just doesn't stand out like the voice acting all the time or even the music at particularly key moments.
So yeah it's obvious a lot of polish and quality went into what you hear are you play and may well make this one of the best sounding games outside of anything combat heavy I've played in a long while.
8/10
Gameplay: But for all the praise I have given this game, I'm afraid the gameplay itself is the weak link of the package... by a lot. We Happy Few is a first person adventure that started as a first person rouge-like where your goal would have been to survive the collapse of a drug-based 1960s society, and it still carries a lot of that DNA, including survival meters requiring you to eat, drink and sleep or face various penalties depending on your choice of difficulty: anything from no penalty at all at the easiest to these can kill you if you ignore them. Thankfully the developers did think about players who both love to deal with this and hate to as you can adjust the settings individually via a custom setup when you start the game, leaving it independent of everything else, and honestly I would recommend setting this specific part of the difficulty to easiest myself as I do not particularly enjoy my mission interrupted by the need to take a chug of water. I have to do that in reality after all.
Nor is this the only issue to come this particular stage of development. It also does not use a manually crafted world so much as a randomly generated map for your adventure to take place in. As a result you can wind up wandering vast swatches of the area well before you find anything interesting to do or see. And while the game looks good, you will quickly find yourself running out of new things to look at as the same trees, fields, and buildings populate each part of the map in cookie-cutter fashion.
That isn't to say there is nothing to do in the map, but side missions are not marked so much as found and there are several places they are really spaced out leaving you with nothing but travel/wandering aimlessly. And while most games with this issue can annoy players, it's extra annoying here as most NPCs watch how you behave and while you can run, it is often frowned upon. So unless you want the entire village chasing you down in maniacal glee and the beatings to continue until moral improves, you don't really want to charge down the avenues in their view; making travel take far longer then even those distances should. Add to this a realtime clock and events specific to night and day (including a curfew turning the entire good areas of town into trespassing zones) and this quickly gets old.
On top of this, you may well find those side missions are very hit and miss. There are some which are actually pretty interesting as you get a glimpse into the life of a few members of this society by finding out what happened to the butcher delivery boy in town or a secret cult worshipping a sacred sweet potato while on shrooms (no I am not kidding). But just as or perhaps even more often you will find yourself looking for a random spot the game decided something you need to dig up is or watch events at night like a sordid affair between forbidden lovers in some random clearing at over several nights you need to go repeat visiting to see the whole thing of (unfortunately I am also not kidding).
But these missions are how you will level up your character as you play. Each completed quest will award you with points you can spend on your current character's skills... which if you ask me, is one more slap in the face this game offers you letting you think this just might help you out for the entire game. But if you think spending a little extra time doing this stuff as Arthur will help you with any other character, think again. Any skills you buy and any items you make or collect as any character will not carry over to the remaining ones. And while this makes sense, you also can not carry your unused points over, pretty much rendering any time you spent on these side missions wasted since you generally won't need many of these traits. Rather the game will rely much more on your ability to blend in with the people around you when you can, and your sneaking/fighting skills when you can not.
And let's get to that for a moment too, shall we? Blending in is perhaps the most competent system in the game as doing so will require you to basically follow rules the society of the game gives you... or at least look like you are. You have to dress appropriately for the area you are in (for example wear a good suit in the downtrodden areas and people will get mad, reminded of what they once had, while rags in a good part of town makes you look like a wasterel, pissing the happier people off), never run or be caught sneaking around in places you are not supposed to be, or steal other people's stuff. And of course, do not show yourself when your Joy just ran off as they will see the withdrawal symptoms and know you aren't doped up like the rest of them. This part of the mechanics works exceptionally well, both in solid rules and world building.... but that's about all that does.
When you have to sneak, you will be taking cover behind solid objects and using distance for the most part. Yes there is foliage, but the game does not recognize this beyond obvious yellow flowers: this game's version of the infamous yellow paint we all deal with to guide the player unnecessarily... and even then if you already angered the NPCs, they see right through it anyway.... so you now have to fight or run. And you may think running sounds like a bad idea, but this game acts like everyone is a hive-mind and once one of them is pissed, everyone is angry the moment they spot you, rendering just about any sneaking option useless at that point. I say just about because these NPCs are also idiotic and if you can get to an area they can not (and they can not jump, climb, or crouch) you can wait it out and go again once the heat blows over.
And when you do have to fight, it is incredibly basic. You will basically have 4 moves: Hit or swing depending on if you have a weapon equipped (and you will just about always have a weapon, they are common place), push someone away, block to deflect damage, or throw a weapon. First and formost the last option is just about useless, Anything you throw shy of a grenade will do little more then make an enemy stop for a moment. Better to save thrown weapons so you can try to make noise to lure enemies out of places you need cleared for the sneaking side. Pushing is also just about useless for the same reason as you can bring up a block pretty quick. The other options both have their uses, but they are very basic as melee combat will basically involve blocking for a hit or two before hitting back at the enemy now that they are open, rinse and repeat to the point of boring. And yet this can get incredibly awkward if you have more then two people trying to beat you senseless at once however, which can make even this limited play feel wrong.
And then we get to the final frustrations that kill this game... at least if you haven't gotten to Ollie's story (and you have to beat the other two to see it). In the case of Arthur, RNG has way too much power over his missions. You see, he relies heavily on finding bits and bobs to make things and several of his missions require you to have found or made things to finish them. The problem is those things are randomly found in places like drawers and bureaus you find along the way. Inf act about halfway through you will find yourself looking for either the parts to make or a store to buy a boiler suit, and depending on your luck you may not have what you need to do either, halting your progress.
In fact this was why I quit the game: not for that mission (I found a guy in an alley hiding in a dumpster who sold me the suit... once again I am not kidding) but late in the game he has a main mission that requires you to stumble on a side mission to complete as it's the only way to unlock gates to reach the end of his story. That was one moment of RNG too much.
Sally doesn't get much better as one of her core mechanics is a timer where you have to keep going back to her home apartment to feed her baby, interrupting whatever you are doing to complete the game. Frankly both are obnoxious, changing what is pretty rough to insufferable as far as gameplay goes.
3/10
Bugs: Oh where do I even begin with this one. Despite being "patched" I ran into several bugs in my time playing. Thankfully most are minor, but some have the potential to RUIN your game.
- Fullscreen behind Windows: Before this game even really get's started, it's already showing cracks in the code with a fullscreen mode that does NOT take over the screen. Rather every window and the task bar will remain over the game like it is being played as your wallpaper when it starts until you either click the icon on the taskbar or the game itself. Although the latter option will stop the opening video if you want to see the introduction.
- Screen Tearing: No matter what you do, you are probably going to see some screen tearing while playing this game. This is an issue I have not seen in any game in a long time, but I can not find a way to fix it. (Oddly enough it never appeared in any of the videos I recorded to get clips for this review)
- What's that crash? I do not understand how this happened or why, but there are saved games I had for a while where whenever I opened them up a sound like something crashing to the floor happened just before the game actually loaded. I never heard the sound effect any other time, so I have to wonder if it was supposed to be there. It did not appear to mean anything, but the first time I heard it, it scared me as I thoguht game's sound in general was glitching up.
- You are... sitting... very... funny.... I really can't describe this bug any other way, but my title for it. It happened basically for one night of gaming, but that night literally every other character sittig down could not sit right. Be it sitting in empty space staring at the bench they were supposed to be resting on or even waving their hands at empty space in front of them as they sat sideways in their chair which faced the typewriter they were clearly supposed to be typing on. It's funny, but takes you right out of the atmosphere... or maybe more in since they are doped up on Joy and might genuinely not know better.
- The guy you rescue ran off (and took the quest with him)! I'm being very cheeky with the title of this one, but I was attempting to rescue the butcher's delivery boy from a gang for a side quest and when I was told to check on him, he was gone. The quest simply broke, denying me the skill points I should have gotten at the end. And when quests break, that is REALLY an issue in the game... especially when there are side missions that are not really side missions.
Digital Rights Management: While the game has a LOT of issues, DRM is actually not one of them, at least in most cases. The game is available on GOG, Steam, and the Windows store. And while GOG is assumed to be DRM free, Steam in this case is as well, using it as a distribution system alone. The only store with DRM is the Windows store, although you do get the "play it anywhere" feature so if the idea of playing your one purchase on PC and/or Xbox at will is worth it to you, that 's the tradeoff you are taking on DRM for.
Source: PC Gaming Wiki
Score: To say I was disappointed with this game is a vast understatement. The concept and the world is really something special and to spend some time in it should have been an absolute joy (pun intended). But alas, this was made with a bad batch of parts for another type of game entirely. And as such it simply can never live up to the promise the world itself makes when you open it.
I would recommend watching a condensed let's play because the story really is something special, but it is not worth the game itself.
System Requirements:
- Tri-core 2.0 Ghz processor
- 8 GB RAM
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 460, GTX 580M, AMD Radeon 5870 HD
- Windows 7 (64-bit)
- 6 GB Hard Drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 7 (5700X) 3.4 Ghz
- 32 GB RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 6650 XT (8 GB VRAM)
- Windows 11 (64 Bit)
Source: Steam
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