| (Image property of La Poule Noire and ARTE France) The game follows handsome himbo and proud virgin Rock Bailey who is on the hunt for a mysterious cabal of shadowy power-brokers after he is kidnapped and has a sample of his sperm stolen. Yeah, that last bit really caught me off guard too. As you can imagine from a game for which man milk is an important plot device, To Hell With The Ugly's storytelling has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek which is brought across effectively by the pulp detective novel dialogue and colourful, jazzy style of its visual design. Charmed Silly For me, the game's style is probably its strongest aspect with its unique colour palette composed predominantly of shades of red and black combining with the constant underscoring of upbeat jazz to make you feel like you're being suffocated with Dick Tracy comic strips. Hand-drawn art styles are rapidly becoming a dime a dozen on the Steam indie marketplace but, to its credit, To Hell With The Ugly pulls it off by having a clear style which is complimented by the smooth, exaggerated animation. You wouldn't catch a Triple-A studio pumping out anything as niche in its styling as To Hell With The Ugly for fear that it might turn the audience off by giving them independent thoughts.
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What also helps is that the game is funny. I'm not sure whether this is something to praise the game for seeing as it could have easily been using the original book as a cheat sheet without me knowing. You might think that perhaps I should've read the original book before forming an opinion on the game. Perhaps you'd be right but, quite frankly, this game's audience is limited enough as it is and I don't think adding homework to it is the solution. Regardless though, the game provides some consistent chuckles and even when it isn't trying to be funny, the ever-present charm in all of the environments and set pieces makes it hard not to smile to yourself whilst playing. Rock and Roll You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned To Hell With The Ugly's gameplay yet which may or may not be because I'm stalling over what to say about it. You see, the game is only around three hours long. For me, this is no bad thing. Quite frankly any game that can reasonably be played around having a full time job is to be celebrated at this point. However, the game's short length also means that it feels like half the game is spent introducing new mechanics which makes it hard to narrow down what to talk about first.
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In theory, the game is a point-and-click adventure based around dialogue with NPCs and inventory puzzles. It comes together well overall as a core gameplay loop, even if it does have a habit of going AWOL at random points throughout. The inventory puzzles are perhaps a little on the simplistic side but the characters make up for it by providing intriguing or humorous nuggets of information that teach you about the hyper-stylised world you all inhabit. In addition to that, like anyone aspiring to a basic standard of living in this economy, To Hell With The Ugly has several ongoing side gigs to put food on the table. There are 2-D stealth sections involving hiding behind objects and causing distractions to sneak past guards. These sections are about as varied and impactful as this sentence. Then there's the turn-based combat which did a little bit more to engage my brain on a moment-to-moment level. It operates on the Paper Mario system of pressing buttons in time with your hits to do additional damage or block enemy assaults which continues to be more fun than your standard turn-based approach without edging onto the side of being one of those abominable hybrid systems like in so many JRPGs.
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What will probably stick with you the most in terms of gameplay though are what I'm going to refer to as the detective sections. A good example of this was at one point where you visit a police station and the game presents you with a case file that some tool put together in the wrong order. It is then up to you, with the information in the file, to piece together what happened to each victim. Moments like this were by far the highlights of the game for me because it immersed me in the game's world and felt like I was being trusted to work things out for myself. Having gathered your information, the game then asks you to construct your conclusions by matching three statements together from a jumbled-up list. While it was never overwhelmingly complex, this system clicked for me by giving me just enough ideas of what to do that I didn't feel lost while allowing me to actually use my brain like a good detective game should.  | | (Image property of La Poule Noire and ARTE France) |
In all honesty, my only real complaint with these sections was that there weren't enough of them. While it might sound like I have a perverse book-keeping fetish, I probably would've preferred to have spent the game organising the police station's filing cabinets than spend anymore time sneaking past thugs that look like they were called up on the way back from auditioning for a Matrix sequel.Overall, To Hell With The Ugly plays well even if it does perhaps suffer from having slightly too many ideas for its runtime. In fact, I would say that I wholeheartedly recommend the game. Unfortunately, as you can see from how much of this article there is left, it's not as simple as that and it all comes down to one simple thing: the game's tone. Tonal Whiplash Upon reflection, I should probably have twigged early on that the game was strapping me in for a tonal roller coaster ride. After all, the inciting incident for this colourful, pulpy, satirical detective story is a kidnapping-cross-sexual-assault. At the time though, it was still early in the game so I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Hey, this arguably isn't stranger than most 20th Century detective stories and besides, I enjoyed playing Persona 5, the anime schoolgirl fetish outfit simulator so who am I to judge?"  | | (Image property of La Poule Noire and ARTE France) |
The game then continues to be its colourful, fun and lighthearted self for most of its runtime after this which makes the whole spunk pilfering plot point feel all the more like one slightly grinding gear change at the beginning of an otherwise smooth road trip. All of that is still the case right up until the game's truly bizarre, massive downer of an ending. I won't spoil it for you here. Instead, imagine a game like Wolfenstein where the villains, amongst other things, are murdering eugenicists. In Wolfenstein, this culminates in a battle against Mecha-Hitler in order to rid the world of their evil. Instead of that happening, imagine if Wolfenstein ended with your character having a sit down chat with Mecha-Hitler who successfully convinces you that, actually, some people really don't need to be in the gene pool and it wouldn't be the end of the world for them to disappear permanently. This might sound like a weird comparison but, in essence, this is exactly what happens at the end of To Hell With The Ugly.  | | (Image property of La Poule Noire and ARTE France) |
Once again, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be blaming the book for this. Presumably, the ending is the same and I can understand the satire it's going for with how shallow and easily the public can be tricked into supporting lunatics who appeal to their self-interest. However, when you play the game and spend the entire runtime learning to dislike the shadowy organisation and you watch Rock's character grow to learn that the superficial isn't all that matters, it's still a very sudden lurch for Rock to turn around and declare allegiance to Mecha-Hitler. According to my own research, the original novel was intended as something of a satire of detective novels as a genre with a lot of unnecessary nudity and a plot intended to make fun of classic detective fiction. The game, on the other hand, feels more like a colourful love letter to those detective stories which takes advantage of the genre's trappings to make itself upbeat rather than to poke fun at anyone. It almost feels like half of the development team wanted to make a colourful, funny adventure game and the other wanted to adapt Vian's novel and it's only where the two objectives meet at the ending that it becomes clear that those visions weren't always compatible. .jpeg "(Image property of La Poule Noire and ARTE France)") | | (Image property of La Poule Noire and ARTE France) |
Conclusion To Hell With The Ugly is a diamond in the rough of sorts. The tonal clash caused by the arc of its plot runs almost directly counter to the fun-loving, comic strip atmosphere established so well by its gameplay and presentation. Yet, I struggle hold it against the game. You see, in many ways To Hell With The Ugly, resembles the jazz music that it makes such frequent use out of. At times, jazz can be messy and you wonder whether some parts of the band even know what they're meant to be doing, and yet the upbeat energy and obvious passion on display makes it all come together in such a way that you can overlook the flaws. To Hell With The Ugly is a lesson in the power of charm. The game is not perfect by any stretch but what La Poule Noire has done is create a game that has such a charming energy and style to it that, despite the slightly rougher elements of the piece, it's still very capable of leaving you with a positive experience to look back on. It isn't perfect, but it is memorable, and in the world we live in with so many so-called epic, generation-defining masterpieces demanding our attention, a short game that leaves you with a few happy memories is sometimes exactly what you need. All images and titles belong to their respective rights holders and are utilised here for the purposes of criticism and review.
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