STEVE MILES·MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2019
Switch owners get the release of HAPPY WORDS.A clone of “SCRABBLE”,in every single strand of its DNA,that poses the question..with this particularly well received word game across PC format,just how will it manage on Nintendos portable Handheld?
First up, we get onto the 2 Modes in the menu.ONLINE and SOLO. Online is really the bread and butter of games like this,giving you that ability to exercise your word prowess and beat human players from around the world. If that is not really your thing,then SOLO is for you,and this game caters by pitting you against intelligent AI robots of varying difficulty,so…so far.so good!
HAPPY WORDS,like SCRABBLE,for those of you that don’t know,is a word game requiring you to make words from a random set of letter tiles.These can be placed on a squared board where certain squares,can double or treble the letter or the complete word.The letters are given from a bag of a certain number of tiles,that are slowly depleted over rounds,until there’s no more tiles left.Winner is declared with the highest score,and game ends by the player who can get rid of all their tiles first.
Graphics are pretty good,and the board is nicely displayed with clear views of the tiles and the bonus tiles on the board. Controls are Left stick to move to an area on the gameboard, A to select the area,then Right stick to filter through the game tiles on the bottom of the screen,and A again to select. For starters,i found these controls to be pretty fiddly to execute.There is also a countdown timer,meaning you must work out your word from your tiles,then go through this control method to put together each word before your timer runs out,or you lose your turn and it passes to your opponent.A turn that is just not quick and smooth enough,that relies more on skill placing your words,more than working out what word to place!
ONLINE mode from this reviewer’s experience,was non existent! The lobbies were completely empty and although there is an option to create a lobby,the lack of any online player support,is in my view,worrying and concerning.This game a prime example,of Nintendo Multiplayer unsupported and half of this particular game..missing! SOLO mode,is the only way to play then,and from the options before your game,strangely no option to change difficulty level of your opponent!? and moving blindly forward onto the game with an opponent,named ROBOT 1. On all of my games with ROBOT 1,you immediately find your opponent is totally reluctant to play ANY word over the first 8 rounds! Maybe its Life Cells are still plugged in on charge,or it just wants to sit there and sulk and refuse to correspond,who knows? What is serious is that “Intelligent Opponents”,are just not playing ball,leaving you to wonder on what is the point of playing? There is solace after 8 rounds though,and you then get an opponent back to life and willing to put up a challenge,but 8 words later you are so far in front that winning is inevitable,should you not have lost patience and quit sooner! Win the game(and unless you have brain freeze like Robot)there’s no reason not to,and you are given XP for the win,and also XP for any achievement earned in the game. XP is all well and good,but at the time of writing this review,i cannot access ANY profile screen to see if i am at any level or what exactly my XP is for?!?
In summary,HAPPY WORDS has potential,but its journey over to Nintendo has left a lot of the fun sadly lacking! Maybe it will gain Online support,and maybe updates will sort AI Solo out!? but at this time,HAPPY WORDS are not so happy!
Thanks to LAN GAMES EOOD for the code
