Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Dry Twice

Genre: Graphic Adventure

Players: 1

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Review:

Note: This game is included in the Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Saga bundle, along with Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Don’t Dry.

Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Dry Twice, released on PC in 2020 and ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2021, is an “adults only” Graphic Adventure that is the direct sequel to the 2018 game Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, with the story of this game taking place immediately after the end of the previous game. After the last adventure, Larry Laffer finds himself on the tropical island of Cancum (yes, I spelled that right… unfortunately…). The primary object of Larry’s affections, Faith, is seemingly deceased after a terrible explosion that Larry caused, and Larry is now being compelled to marry a woman he’s never met. Upon learning that Faith may have survived the explosion, Larry sets off in search of her.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the Leisure Suit Larry games wear their “adults only” status proudly, with tons of innuendo, talk about sex, objects that look like various erogenous bits, and in this game even a bit of nudity here and there. In this world, everyone seems to constantly be talking about sex, not the least of which being Larry himself, who despite being engaged to one girl and supposedly in love with another, doesn’t hesitate to hop in bed with any decent-looking woman who shows an interest in him.

While that is a long-running element of the Leisure Suit Larry series that continues here, Wet Dreams Dry Twice is a bit of an oddity in that it recognizes that the series up until this point may have been a relic of the past and seems to want to try to do something about that while still maintaining the same sort of personality the series is known for. The game opens with Larry being lectured in a brief sensitivity training class (that goes about as well as you might expect), and this time around the game’s characters aren’t all universally terrible people and one-note stereotypes. However, the characters who are stereotypes are so egregious it seems to be trying to make up for this, with one character in particular a pretty egregious Asian stereotype seemingly ripped right out of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. At the very least, this time around the game isn’t focused on making tired pop culture jokes, and instead much of the humor is character-based, so that’s some progress, I suppose.

Being a direct sequel, Wet Dreams Dry Twice is pretty spot-on for the first game in terms of its presentation – this game once again makes use of a cartoony art style that’s decent but nothing particularly interesting, save for the game’s fixation on making virtually everything seem dirty and disgusting. The characters here are all fully-voiced, albeit at times in a somewhat cartoonish sorta’ way that won’t appeal to everyone (again, Larry himself is the main offender here). And once again, the game’s soundtrack is suitable for what’s going on, but not in any way memorable.

The gameplay this time around is a marginal improvement. Using items to interact with objects this time around is more straightforward, and the menus are not quite as bad as the previous game, though they could still use some work. And once again, those who play this game in handheld mode may also opt to use the touchscreen, which is better in some ways, worse in others – you can more freely interact with objects on-screen, but navigating menus is worse, and using the touchscreen to navigate conversations works horribly.

And yet again, you have puzzles that are often unintuitive, and many players may feel compelled to consult a wiki. Also returning is the need to revisit every available location again when you get stuck as circumstances may have changed without the game notifying you. Wet Dreams Dry Twice isn’t quite as bad as the previous game when it comes to this, but it’s still frustrating.

In the end, I have to give Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Dry Twice a bit of credit – it is clearly trying to address the many problems the previous game had. Unfortunately, it is not extremely successful in doing so. The characters are more likeable this time around, and the humor is better, but there’s still characters and jokes that are horribly tone-deaf, groan-worthy immature puns, and frustrating game design that makes playing this game without a wiki a frustrating chore. If you enjoyed Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, I think you’ll find this to be an even better follow-up. But if you never played that game or didn’t like it, Wet Dreams Dry Twice isn’t going to be for you.

tl;dr – Leisure Suit Larry – Wet Dreams Dry Twice is an “adults only” Graphic Adventure and sequel to Wet Dreams Don’t Dry that is once again about the titular girl-obsessed anachronistic 80s sleazeball. This game’s story directly follows the previous game and tries to balance the series’ usual smutty references and innuendo with more modern sensibilities, only succeeding some of the time. The controls are slightly improved here too, but the game still has some basic gameplay problems due to outdated design. In the end, only fans of the previous game should bother with this one.

Grade: C-

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