Party Foul | Party Hard Review

Party Hard is one of the most inconsistent games I’ve ever played. At times, its brilliance shines and the methodical planning required to succeed is rewarding; however, the uncertain rules the game fails to explain can be downright infuriating, which can lead to unfair game overs and exposes the game’s repetitive nature.

Party Hard’s premise is simple: you’re a person that isn’t too fond of parties, so you infiltrate them to, well, kill everyone. No one in the party knows your intentions from the start. Everyone thinks you’re there to have a good time just like everyone else. Think of Party Hard like a stealth version of Hotline Miami. The game has a top-down perspective with some great pixel art and animations.

You’ll roam around the party only equipped with a knife in search of blood from the party goers. Your goal is to kill everyone, so you’ll have to plan out exactly how to dispose of them. While killing people isn’t hard by any means, keeping the deaths a secret is another story. If an NPC sees a body, they’ll call the cops, who will then body bag the deceased. If you’re spotted mid-kill, the NPC will call the cops and you’ll have a set of handcuffs above your head, which means the cops know where you are and will try to arrest you. You can escape the cops by trying to outrun them, but they’re faster than you are and you’re given only a brief sprint before you have to go back to walking. On most levels, they’re trap doors that can transport you from one side of the map to another. This is the best way to evade cops, but if you use these trap doors too often, Mario (yes, that Mario) will appear and seal off the trap doors, which will make them unusable for the rest of the level.

Your knife isn’t your only weapon against the party. Spread across each level are traps you can activate to kill one or more enemies. This can range from pushing someone off a ledge, feeding them to sharks or even lighting the entire dance floor on fire. If subtlety is more your suit, you can also elect to be patient and get an enemy alone to kill them. If you find too many people are on the dance floor, you can have your character dance which can lead to either the people loving your dancing and staying, or hating you and they then leave. The disgusted enemy may then go to the bathroom or go into a room alone, which then leaves them open for attack.

While all I’ve described so far may seem fun – and it is – the real problem is Party Hard’s inconsistent information that’s relayed to the player. Things happen so quick, that sometimes the game does a terrible job of telling you what’s going on. When you or a body are spotted, a yellow dotted line indicates what the NPC discovered. This can tell you either that the person saw a dead body and that’s all they’re reporting OR it means they saw you and you should prep to run from the cops once they arrive. Sometimes, though, the game won’t indicate that the cops know it’s you. When I killed a person that was then discovered by another, I was well on the other side of the map, so there was no way they knew it was me. But somehow, someway, the cops knew it was me and arrested me. It’s not that getting caught is the issue, it’s not knowing how or why you’re being arrested that brings forward frustration.

This issue also leads to a more glaring issue: Party Hard is repetitive. What makes games like Hotline Miami stay fresh is its fast-paced combat and quick restarts upon failure. Party Hard is the exact opposite. It’s slow, meticulous and can take a good amount of time to complete a map. Most levels take about 8-12 minutes to complete. Now, that may not sound too bad, but when your failure is so quick to come (and like I said earlier about the unknown arrests), those minutes add up. What’s unfortunate is that Party Hard will have some really neat random events take place like bank robbers robbing the bank next door or aliens invade, but sometimes these random events can lead to your death.

One excellent part of Party Hard is its killer soundtrack. Each level features a thumping dance beat that really adds life to the, ehm, party. Even as my frustration sunk in with Party Hard, the soundtrack was a consistent positive element that I actually sought out the music for listening outside of the game.

I’m left depressed by Party Hard, because the game’s fun, rock-solid base is mostly ruined by design choices that make a difficult (yet satisfying!) game simply unfair by its inconsistencies. You may play a few levels and fall in love, then play a few more and absolutely hate it. Party Hard is close to being something worthwhile, but in its current state, it’s hard to recommend.

This review is based on a PlayStation 4 review copy of the game Party Hard by Pinokl Games. Review copy provided by tinyBuild Games.