Leisure Suit Larry Wet Dreams Don’t Dry review

The Leisure Suit Larry series is an adult-themed point-and-click franchise with raunchy content and constant sexual innuendos which was first released way back in 1987 on PC. The games feature titular Larry Laffer goes around various areas trying to flirt and hook-up with a variety of young women. Unfortunately, Larry ends up striking out more often than not. The series was initially published by Sierra until 2009 when Codemasters took over as the publisher. As of now, the games are now in the hands of Assemble Entertainment.

Leisure Suit Larry Wet Dreams Don’t Dry tells the story of Larry Laffer as he awakens in a dark room wondering what happened and where he is. He roams around trying to figure out how to escape. Larry finds an elevator which brings him up to the surface. He comes across a familiar place: Lefty’s. However, as he looks around, he notices that the scenery has changed… drastically. Larry is now in the 21st century! After a drinking mishap, he finds a secret PiPhone prototype which he needs to bring back to the Prune head offices. For his efforts, he’s rewarded with an older model of PiPhone where he’ll set off to meet new people via the Timber app.

When first booting the game, you’re required to select an option that determines if you’re old enough to play the game. There’s an option for Too Young, Old, and Old Enough. Picking either of the last two, the game will make you go through a quiz depending on your age (old or old enough) so it can verify if you’re allowed to play the game. Even at 40, I didn’t know any of the answers so I googled them. And it won’t stop a 16-year-old to do the same so this is quite pointless.

Now onto the game itself. Leisure Suit Larry is a point-and-click adventure where players need to talk to various NPCs, search for helpful items and use said items to solve puzzles. Interacting with certain NPCs will require you to go on the hunt for items or objectives to help them solve their issues. For those unfamiliar with the genre, point-in-click requires players to highlight available items, characters or surfaces with the right joystick and press A to move Larry over to either talk to the NPC, pick up an item or get a clue as to how to solve the selected puzzle.

Interestingly enough, while most point-and-click games require players to move around the cursor until you find something that can be interacted with, thanks to the LT and RT, the game lets you browse through all interactable items or NPCs available on-screen which avoid a bit of random element that requires players to hover *everywhere* to make sure you don’t forget anything. It does alleviate the cumbersomeness caused by the P&C genre.

The game isn’t really helpful with a lack a tutorial; while the genre doesn’t necessarily call for it, it would’ve been a nice touch that the game explains the most confusing, counter-intuitive way to combine items. You have to « select » the first item in your inventory by press A then move over to the next item to use and press Y. At no time does it explains this and it can cause unnecessary frustrations at first when you *know* you have to combine items but don’t know how. The game gives no indication that it’s possible either.

Leisure Suit Larry Wet Dreams Don’t Dry looks great; it’s bright and colorful which suits the game’s premise to a tee. The game almost looks like an adult-themed cartoon; clunky robotic movement aside (I’d actually watch a Leisure Suit Larry show). Menu-ing is counterintuitive and very cumbersome; takes a bit of time to get use to the navigation with the PiPhone. The soundtrack is a soothing, relaxing jazz-y score to make the game an enjoyable, relax experience.

While the point-and-click genre isn’t in my top 5 of favorite genres, I was actually looking forward to give this game a shot. Unfortunately, Leisure Suit Larry Wet Dreams Don’t Dry doesn’t change my stance on the genre. Vague hints for puzzles, the constant peaking and poking everything/everywhere makes for a tedious experience. Fans of the genre will definitely enjoy this more mature themed experience.