🔪 Party Hard 2 | Nintendo Switch | Review | @partyhardgame #IndieGames #GameDev🔪

“Andrew... Buddy. What’s up? 

Yeah, it’s Jimmy here. 

Yeah, JIMMY. Ya fuggin’ agent. Calling up to see how ya doin’. Don’t mean to bust ya balls, but the guys up here at Island Records are getting real twitchy. 

They loved Party Hard man, LOVED it. Great tune. 

But that was then and this is now. They need another hit. Tell me you got another hit in that monkey brain a yours? Another smash for your pal, Jimmy?  

You have? Really? So what’s it called? Party Hard 2...

Oh, ok. Just as long as it’s not a rehash of the first one…”

I liked Party Hard. The game that is (though the song is a guilty pleasure). 

The original game from 2015 was a neat little stealthy stabbathon. 

You play as a man whose sleep has been disturbed one time too many by loud party goers next door. 

Rather than call 101 however, you give them a lesson (Psychopathy 101 maybe?) by brutally butchering them all. 

And so we have the basic pattern for both Party Hard games. Your mask-wearing, knife-wielding protagonist roams from noisy party to noisy party, dispatching his victims without being caught by the police. 

This is achieved by either making kills without anyone seeing, or making sure there are no witnesses. Many failed attempts taught me that the second option is a lot harder as each time you bump off a witness, there’s another watching that, so you end up running around while the Benny Hill theme plays in your mind, taking people out before they call the cops. 

Luckily, you don’t just have a knife to deal with your unwitting prey. A vital part of the gameplay is employing the environment to deal out death. Anything from a lorry ‘accidentally’ rolling over people to speakers in a nightclub exploding while you’re the other side of the room, twirling your moustache and laughing wickedly to yourself. 

And despite it being a game about killing many, many innocent people, it’s done in a very silly way, so you won’t feel to morally bankrupt. 

So what does Party Hard 2 bring to the, erm, party? Well, it looks a lot better, for a start. The graphics are still deliberately pixelated, but it has upped the detail, and this is not only prettier, but helps with one of the challenges in the first game, seeing what you’re doing and, critically, who you’re killing.

But the two other main differences with this iteration are not welcome ones, for me. First off, there are boss battles. Little stealth here, just running around a map, evading the boss and getting in attacks where you can. Different to the main game I suppose, but I found them repetitive and dull. 

The other difference is the difficulty. Maybe it’s just me, but I died or got arrested A LOT. And on the Switch, the levels reload pretty slowly (given the simplicity of the game) and I was left frustrated as trial, error and a big slice of luck were usually what it took to get through.

If you liked the original Party Hard though, you’ll like the sequel. 

Slow loading aside, it works well on the Switch, handheld or full screen. Be prepared for some frustration and your patience tested at times, but the thrill of the (multiple) kills is still alive and well.

Party Hard 2 is available for Switch (and other platforms) now.

❄️💦 RATING: MELTING ❄️💦

Ratings Explained

ICE COOL (Great Game Recommended)

MELTING (Recommended with reservations, one to consider if you are a fan of the genre)

MELTED (Not A Recommended Purchase)