Welcome to our review of Happy Birthdays, a game that can only be described as the one where you relive evolution.
From legendary creator Mr. Yasuhiro Wada (TOYBOX Inc.) comes Happy Birthdays: a sandbox game in which players create cube-shaped worlds that give rise to diverse and unique lifeforms. With careful experimentation, players can shape the geography and alter the temperature of the world to create the conditions for life and witness the birth of an entire ecosystem!
This game starts off with a small sandboxed world, your world. You need to evolve it into a modern world where humans can live and strive. Basically, you get to experience and manipulate the ground. You can make it sink or go higher. As you create more sea, the temperature goes up, create more mountains, the temperature goes down.
Everything you do, influences the world you take care of. The extinction of the world as you know it is in your hands. But the idea behind Happy Birthdays is to prevent that from happening and making your little world flourish.
Basically, the world can advance and prosper when certain conditions are met and thus creating the ideal circumstances. There is a book of life where you can see what needs to be done in order to create the ideal circumstances. Life itself lives in Micro Mode and in that time, everything is happening real time. You use this time to explore and capture the beings currently in your little world.
In Micro time, you also edit the world. As you build waterways or rivers in new areas, over time they will grow plants and trees. I love how the editor is easy to use, but at the same time, the camera is a bit of a mess. It feels like this game should be played in actual 3D and you move your hands around to edit things. I know this may sound strange, but that is my honest feeling like this game is ahead of its’ time.
Next up is Macro Time! The one where time passes at a very fast pace and you can even fast forward everything. When you are at this time, you replenish your HP, the one you use building the world or when you fast forward time.
As time progresses, you will slowly but surely be shown more and more new animals, new mechanics, … While it may be slow, the game does drag you down into its mesmerizing gameplay and this may be a sleeper hit for some of you.
While you can in a way compare it to several other games, none really bring to life the story of evolution, pun intended. Realising this game is a slow paced on, it might not really be for everyone but let me confide you one thing. It surpassed all my expectations by a long shot.
I had seen the movies on YouTube, the reveal trailer, … I must admit this game did not fully appeal to me. The tutorial was a little complicated and lengthy and it did not appeal at all. But then I got to play it.
Once you look past the camera controls and how long-winded the introduction really is, you get to create your own little world. As the time passes, your initial boredom turns into admiration. This game is very well made and like I said before, it may be a sleeper hit for some. I intend to at least invest a few more hours into Happy Birthdays and let’s see from there on!
Happy Birthdays will be available both on the eShop and physically on carts. It is one of the few NIS games out there not getting a Collector’s edition.
In conclusion, if you can endure the initial boredom, this game will surprise you in a positive way and my rating of 85% should be clear that this game has great potential.
