Party Hard is one of those indie surprises you weren’t expecting to see on the Nintendo Switch, since normally Nintendo has had a reputation of being a “kids console.” While that upsets me a little, I am glad to see Nintendo taking bold steps to change that perspective by allowing the console to be a console for everyone. Party Hard puts us on a role of a serial killer whose only purpose is to go from party to party across twelve locations and kill all of the attendees. All of these taking into account that you have to be like a…fart silent but deadly (sorry for the pun, but you get what I am saying).
The game’s story is told by a police officer who was investigating the “Party Hard” murders, and his pursuit for the killer across all USA. It’s a really engaging story, even more because his daughter was a victim at the first party. But what sets Party Hard apart from other games is that everything must be done subtlety. You cannot go full Michael Myers or Jason Voorgees because if you do, as soon as one party goer sees a dead body, they will call the police and can identify you. The best way is to be stealthty and be patient because, in this game ,patient pays off big time.
In each level, there is between 40 and 60 people, and you must kill them all to get to the next party. Armed with your knife, they go down in one clean hit. Besides your knife, you have a series of traps and items you can use to make short work of them in no time. You can poison their punch bowl, rig the speakers to explode, or even set things on fire. A good thing is that traps and items are randomized on each stage, so you need to adapt and overcome what the game throws at you to be successful.
Your character’s movement speed is normal. You can sprint, which is useful when hiding a body to prevent any calls to the police, but the stamina meter drains quite fast, so you need to use it accordingly. Holding down the A button has your killer start dancing. It is a useful skill, since sometimes people get upset about your dancing skills and flee, so it is good for crowd control. There’s always bound to be one that has the need to party, making it easier to rack up the kills without being seen. If you are seen killing or near a dead body, they will run to call the police and identify you, so you will need to run away from the cops. Sometimes, they give up if they can’t catch you, but other times they are persistent. If you are caught, you need to start the level from the beginning, but because of the randomized nature of traps and items, no replay will be the same as before.
To add more to the strategy element in Party Hard, you can pick items and clothes to kill easier and to avoid the police. When near a phone, you can call special characters that help you lower number of victims, making it easier to beat the stage. However, party goers don’t call the police only for dead bodies. Randomly someone beside yourself can cause trouble, and the police come to pick them up. If you are bold, you can score some kills during the confusion. In one of my play-throughs, I called a guy that set up bombs near the DJ. After exploding and killing everyone on range, the police came and even a swat team was knocking out cold some party goers, making it easier to rack up kills.
Graphically, the game looks good. I like the pixel art and all different animation for each character on the level,. Some are dancing. Some are asleep. And, some are just drinking or walking around. I like that you can see the whole area on the complete screen. No need to zoom in or out to get a better grasp of the stage, although because of that, sometimes it is hard to read the letters (on handheld mode; on TV mode they look fine).
The music is varied, and I like how each stage has a different tune. Even I felt like dancing to it.
Besides the 12 areas in which the game can be played, there are seven unlockable DLC stages. The first one made me laugh because it was like Castlevania of sorts, but instead of killing the evil undead, you are killing the undead party goers. There are skeletons, vampires, and such. This the game also has co-op play and six unlockable characters, so there is enough content and good replay value and that means more hours of game play.
Bottom Line: Party Hard came crashing to the Nintendo Switch party bringing a really good stealth game. With awesome music, cool visuals, and overall interesting game play elements, I can definitely recommend it, since Party Hard is a party that you don’t want to miss.
A Review copy was provided for this review.