Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry – PS4 | Review

By Jordan Demoulpied
| 14th June 2019
| PS4, Review
| 0

I’ve got to be honest and say at first I was hugely worried about reviewing this game, given the somewhat panned games in recent years. Yet after reading up on this iteration, my worries were somewhat lessened. This is a new beginning for the sex-obsessed Larry Laffer.

With the oddly titled Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, which is a ridiculous name by the way. You once again control the sexist relic that is Larry Laffer, who awakens from what he believes to be a one night stand. Only to realise he was kidnapped. What he doesn’t realise until a little bit later is that he’s been ‘frozen’ for 30 years, meaning the world has changed around him. Especially when it comes attitudes towards sex, and things to that nature.

The premise for the rest of the game is Larry coming to terms with how the last 30 years have changed society, from the glowing things (phones) to how dating is handled. It pokes fun at a lot of it, an early example of this being a woman taking her time to have a drink as she needed to video it for the Instagram equivalent in this universe. Larry is quite rude when it comes to hitting on women, often been disgusting and to the point. Luckily in this game, this tactic never works, much to his confusion. Using the dating app Timber, Larry must go on successful dates to increase his profile rating. All of this to impress Faith who holds a high level position at Prune, so that she’ll accept to go on a date with him. The story never verges on Larry becoming too much of an insensitive idiot, luckily the writing makes it that Larry is often seen as an oaf but likeable. He starts to change throughout the game, as he learns more and more about this new world.

It plays much like the original series did, a point-and-click adventure. Clicking on points of interest to see what use it will be to progress the game, and interacting with the NPCs scattered around. It’s fairly straightforward in that regard, yet I ran into some issues with what I was meant to be checking. Luckily hitting the R3 button displayed each element that I could interact with, making it less frustrating experience rather than clicking every pixel on the screen. One annoyance I had with interaction was the option to investigate something; it would always bring up a menu despite not needing it.

With the game set in modern times expect parodies of well-known companies such as; the dating app Timber, taxi service Uunter, and the phone company Prune. It’s pretty obvious which companies these refer to, as with most of the humour it’s pretty on the nose. Some may not appreciate the rudeness of the jokes, and towards to end of my play through the novelty soon wore off. So expect an abundance of penises and vaginal looking things scattered across each area, as well as other risque jokes which I can admit made me chuckle.

Final Impressions

Overall the return of this franchise is a step in the right direction in more ways than one; it’s good to see old behaviours challenged whilst still keeping that wild humour that fans will certainly enjoy.

Some gameplay elements leave a lot to be desired, some of the puzzles and means of progressing were at times frustratingly hard. Luckily the story is interesting enough to want to carry on.

Here’s hoping any future Larry adventures continue in this right direction.

*Code kindly provided by the publisher for review*

Developer: Crazy Bunch Publisher: Assemble Entertainment
Release date: 13/06/2019
Platforms: PS4, PC, Nintendo Switch
Platform Reviewed: PS4 Pro