Have you ever been trying to sleep, but someone is making too much noise? It’s an annoyance that most people can relate to. However, most people don’t go on a kill-crazy rampage to get some peace and quiet, which is exactly what the protagonist of Party Hard does. Party Hard is a stealth-based murder simulator where you need to shut down parties by killing everyone there.

Please note, I am terrible at stealth games. I don’t have the patience. If my goal is to kill everyone in a level, my instinct is to do it quickly and with abandon. Party Hard is a stealth game, through and through. So, when I discuss my time with the game and difficulty of it, please take my impediment into consideration.

In Party Hard, you play as a maniac that is fed up with all the parties in his town. All he wants is some peace and quiet. His solution? Murder everyone. However, in order to do this, you’ll need to be methodical and covert. Getting arrested or killed certainly won’t help your situation. So, you need to kill in secret, hide bodies, and trigger traps to clear out the parties.

C-C-C-C-Combo!

Party Hard stays true to its name – this game is difficult. There is a short tutorial, but it doesn’t teach you all of the mechanics. Thankfully, the button layout is available at the pause screen to fill you in on the missing details. The first real level wants you to stealthily kill over 40 people in a crowded environment. There is very little hand-holding here; the game throws you right into the deep end.

Also, Party Hard leaves very little room for error. You can be killed or arrested in one hit. Some of the party-goers can become aggressive, traps can misfire, and police walk significantly faster than you can escape. There are shortcuts to help you get away, but even these become unusable if you utilize them too much. So, even if you’ve killed 44 out of 45 people, you can fail in one hit and have to restart the entire level.

I became very familiar with this screen. Thanks for the encouragement, devs!

My clear-time for the first level ended up being under 10 minutes, but that was after over 20 attempts. So, it took me quite a while to even pass Level 1, and Level 2 wasn’t any easier. Since there are 19 main levels included, this game is going to have a long life-span for me. Despite the difficulty, I found myself wanting to keep playing. I was driven to beat the levels, rather despondent or irritated. This was mostly due to the variety and style of the game.

For example, the levels are different on each attempt, which adds variation and nuance when playing them over and over again. The traps available change, there can be special events, and the movement of the party-goers is dynamic. This makes every attempt unique and adds to the difficulty because you can’t just memorize the layout and character paths of a level. This is true for all 19 levels included in the base game. Also, there are different characters to unlock and choose from. These each have individual abilities that allow for and promote different playstyles, like a Crank-inspired madman that requires quick kills in order to stay alive.

You can dance to try and blend in, though I’m not sure who I’m fooling with the dead bouncer right out front.

Even though the game is basically a murder simulator, it is not serious. I might have a hard time playing levels over and over if the game was grim and dark. I just don’t have the stomach for that kind of thing anymore. However, Party Hard has a tongue-in-cheek, cheesy storyline, neon lights, a pumping techno soundtrack, and dumb NPCs. If I was at a party where people were dying, I’d leave right away. Not these crazy kids, they’ll keep dancing right over the body bags. The traps are ridiculous as well. You can kill people with everything from an exploding fire extinguisher to an angry horse. Party Hard is able to maintain levity which keeps the game fun.

Don’t mind me, just taking out the trash.

Although I found Party Hard difficult and felt that I wasn’t very good at it, I still had a fun time playing. I keep wanting to go back to it, finally beat the level I’m currently on and see what wacky party the devs have cooked up for me to ruin next. While frustrating at times, it definitely got its hooks in me.

As always, thanks for reading and let me know what you think in the comments! To read about something completely different, check out our reviews of Project Highrise and ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS. If you want to keep seeing ad-free content like this, please consider donating via Ko-Fi and Patreon. As volunteers, we appreciate all the support! Also, come find us on Discord, Twitter, and our subreddit!