Hardway Party tries to bring the party to a bigger screen. Developer Digital Melody has been known for their easily accessible mobile games. Putting some “Party” into their Hardway game is their shot at making it on the console scene. Hardway Party adds some multiplayer elements to spice things up but for the most parts stays true to the original mobile game. Mobile games are often a short-lived experience during a break or – let’s be honest – a lengthy bathroom visit. Can Hardway Party live up to be more than that? Or won’t we think twice about deleting it from our system after the first few plays?
Endless roads, take me home
Hardway Party is an endless road building game. The goal of the game is to build roads from island to island one at a time. All this happens while a car is already driving along the road. If you miss one island it’s game over. Pretty relentless gameplay is what ensues right from the start. You can “pivot” a road into place from the point you ended your first road. You can either swing the road to the left or to the right. At first, this doesn’t matter but after a while, you’ll encounter some obstacles you’ll have to avoid by choosing the right “swing”-direction.
The pace at which you need to make decisions is what gives this game a real arcade feel. As if the frantic speed at which you need to make decisions isn’t hard enough, the margin for error is so small you’ll overswing your roads constantly. After a while, I got used to the rhythm of the game and I could advance to newer areas. Each area change adds some speed to the game which makes it a nerve-wracking experience. To make it even harder some islands started moving in the later parts of the level.
Simple controls
Hardway Party needs only 2 buttons to play. The Nintendo Switch offers many ways to operate the road swinging mechanism. The first I tried was by using the joystick. This felt most natural but often lacked the precision needed to advance further in the game. The game can also be played with the shoulder buttons which became my preferred way of playing it. I did find it weird that Digital Media left out the touch controls since those were the way the original had to be played on the phone.
Short-lived single player
The concept of Hardway Party is simple and therein lies its main flaw. It’s almost to simple to be anything more than a game you wouldn’t play twice. Although Hardway Party tries adding some variety with different colorful areas and different cars, I couldn’t help but feel bored quickly after only a few minutes. The addition of missions tries to mask the blandness of the game with some change of themes but alas to no success.
Multiplayer party mode
Hardway Party on the Nintendo Switch adds the option to play the game with up to 3 friends. I can’t think of a better way to alienate yourself from your friends than to force them into playing this. If you feel your epic dinner party took long enough and some guests persist into staying, playing this game might be an alternative method to get rid of them quickly. Throw a party but stay away from a hardway themed party.
Conclusion
Some games should just stay on the small screen of a phone. Hardway Party was a good phone game concept which isn’t translating well onto other platforms. Save your money and stay clear of this one or you’ll be partying alone for years to come.
