Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dry Twice Review

Larry Laffer is a man out of time and out of touch, the bumbling lothario who is unlucky in love makes his return in this sequel to Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don’t Dry. This point and click adventure series has a long-running legacy but does this latest entry stay true to Larry’s past?

Wet Dreams Dry Twice literally picks up where the prior game Wet Dreams Don’t Dry ended but it does a good job of getting you up to speed with the basic events of that game. Finding himself lifted from the 80s he knows and loves into the modern day, the game starts out on the island of Cancum after Larry discovers the love of his life is still alive and begins the adventure of finding her.

Assisting him on his island-hopping adventure is once again the voice of modern reason Pi who is a Cortana/Fi style assistant who exists on his PiPhone. She acts as the morale centre, rebuffing or correcting Larry as he blunders his way through the modern day with his crass sexism and obliviousness.

As well as Pi, a few characters reappear from this games prequel including Lefty who ties these new games to the original series of adventures. A lot of these appearances clearly include references to events that happened in the earlier game so if you haven’t played that then their cameos and dialogue might not be as amusing or engaging as they should but even so it’s nice that there is some consistency in worldbuilding.

There is a degree of self-awareness in the writing too, most of the characters interact in funny ways and there is a bit of a role-reversal in that typically Larry is a hopeless case with his attempts to woo ladies ending with him in embarrassing situations. Here though he’s uncharacteristically effective in his endeavours.

Like the later entries in the original series, the game will often nudge against the fourth wall, in those games the Narrator would often comment but Pi often voices what you, the player, is probably thinking in her retorts and recommendations to Larry which is a fun twist.

One thing I couldn’t help notice was that the background art for this game goes all in on carnal imagery, barely a screen goes by without you noticing male and female genitalia represented somewhere. The older games rarely were so blatant in the visuals, relying purely on puns and innuendo to get the humour across, Larry’s nature was often the joke, not so much the visual design.

The visual style and art in general is really well done, it almost gives off a Day of the Tentacle vibe which is no small feat. The story and adventure itself has its moments although it is fairly predictable. It can still raise a smile but it’s the puzzle design that might well grind your progress to a stop.

You have a to-do list that indicates what you need to do to progress and one great thing here is that you often have two or three things you can be working on at any one time. This is extremely handy for when you get stuck, which you will most likely do at least a couple of times through the game.

Most of the time the logic for the puzzle solutions make sense, or at least do in hindsight, but there are definitely a couple of places that feel unfair. To get an item at one point you have to obtain a cockerel from a toilet roof, to do so you have to place another item nearby to lure him. The problem here is that even when you have the solution, you have to wait for around a minute before the bird reacts.

There are no visual or audio clues that you’ve “solved” the puzzle and you might think you’ve missed something. This is really bad and there are a few spots like this where the game doesn’t give you good feedback. More than once I had to resort to trying everything in my inventory on things because there wasn’t enough good hinting. This is something the old Lucasarts titles were always fantastic at, giving you gentle enough nudges at what you needed to accomplish without spoiling it. Wet Dreams Dry Twice is not good at this.

Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dry Twice is a competent, enjoyable adventure. It has some funny moments and an interesting roster of characters. The overall puzzle design as well as some polish issues (typos in the subtitles, subtitles not matching the spoken words) stop it from being more than just average. I also encountered an issue where the mouse cursor disappeared making the game unable to be started if I had a controller connected at all.

If you enjoyed the prior game you know what to expect and the story can definitely be entertaining but it doesn’t rock the boat or try to do anything new with the series. The humour can definitely feel like it’s trying too hard but the voice actors manage to pull off most of it without making too much of a mess.