REVIEW

Happy Birthdays Switch Review

by Jake Stewart, June 11th, 2018

“God” games have always had a certain pull to me, as there’s something fascinating about being able to control the lives of digital beings through the press of a button. Happy Birthdays delves fairly deep into this sort of appeal, yet simultaneously remains shallow in the execution.

Happy Birthdays kicks off with a really strange story segment, with some confusing exposition about wandering through a cave. The reason that this portion is so unmemorable, is because it is literally never referenced again. There is no story to the game other than the first five minutes, which makes me wonder why it was included in the first place. Luckily, these sorts of games rarely require any sort of backstory, and Happy Birthdays is no exception.

The actual gameplay section kicks off with a small shiny companion named Navi instructing your character on the mechanics that the game has to offer. Clearly this companion was inspired by companion-type Navi character, and unfortunately retains a solid amount of the annoyance as its inspiration. This may sound nitpicky, but such a large part of the experience is spent speaking with Navi, and the sound used for Navi’s “voice” is like nails on a chalkboard. I tried to stomach the initial sections with the sound on, but eventually, I had to mute my Switch as I literally could not stand to hear that noise any longer.

As previously mentioned, the tutorial seems to be substantially longer, which normally would be necessary in a world-building game with tons of mechanics, but somehow, I still felt uneducated on how the game actually plays. Despite hearing multiple lectures from Navi, once I was set out on my own, I still felt lost on how to actually accomplish anything.

The entire purpose of the game is to take a world and evolve it over time to become a home where humans can be created. This idea is actually very interesting and I found it to remind me a bit of Spore, in the same sense that you are given the opportunity to watch species evolve and die off as the world clock continues ticking forward.

The world won’t evolve naturally, however, as it requires input from the God. The extent of the impact that you make on this world is from raising and lowering terrain. This sounds like a simple mechanic, but a lot of thought and numbers go into making things work. Certain species require different amounts of moisture, minerals, temperature, etc. and all of this is guided through moving terrain up and down. While the mechanic certainly is interesting, it can be difficult to find any real patterns in what makes certain numbers change the way that you intend it to.

The majority of your time playing Happy Birthdays is spent either drastically changing the landscape blindly, hoping to gain the climate you require, or fast-forwarding time and watching the world slowly grow. While working on the planet itself, your creatures can be seen exploring the landscape, but don’t provide any more entertainment than that. I never spotted any creatures interacting with one another or doing anything beyond walking aimlessly. This creates a real disconnect from caring about or even noticing the creatures on the world beyond the one you need to be focusing on to create humans.

While the terrain tool is simplistic, there is some blind fun to be had through manipulating the world to see how the life reacts. While I found it hard to care much for the obligatory goals that the game presented, the sandbox aspect was more appealing to me. Drastically moving terrain and causing an intentional ice age certainly had its strange charm. As you sculpt the landscape, the climate will adjust to fit the new terrain. This allows for some wild experimenting to see how the world would evolve or perish at your changes.

Despite all the negatives, I can see a real effort was made to make an engaging title here. The visuals are simple, yet colourful and appealing. The music isn’t memorable but rather just fits the scene well enough. Lastly, despite the confusion and lack of real control, the terrain system seems like it had a lot of thought put into it, though much of that thought does not get conveyed very well to the player. I was hoping that Happy Birthdays had improved since its release on PS4, but unfortunately, it seems to have remained mostly the same. It’s impossible to recommend this game at the current price point, but perhaps after a significant discount, some may find some fun to be had in this title.