Originally posted December 11th 2015 on the Seafoam Gaming forums

Thanks to Retroid Interactive for the review code.

Title: Pictoparty

System: Wii U (eShop)

Price: $7.99

Release date: 10/29/2015

The main game/story

In this multiplayer party game, you and a group of friends can hang out, and have fun drawing pictures and having your friends guess what they are supposed to represent! In other words, it’s a Wii U version of the classic Pictionary game. Despite the huge variety of party games on the Wii U, does Pictoparty manage to bring fun to the whole family, or is it yet another generic party game hoping to make use of the Wii U gamepad?

Graphics

Considering the fact that the entire game revolves around the pictures you draw, there’s nothing I can really judge here, except for the fact that the menus look really bright and easy to read, making the interface not seem cluttered or overly complicated. Besides that, the quality of the visuals you’ll see will depend on how good of an artist that you are!

Music and Sound:

Outside of an incredibly generic music track, there’s nothing to talk about here. Honestly this is a game that you could mute the sound on and it wouldn’t make a single difference in how you feel about the game, so there’s nothing for me to really judge here.

Gameplay

If you’ve ever played a game of Pictionary with your friends before, then you pretty much know what to expect with Pictoparty. You choose from one of many categories, (or create your own) draw what it wants you to on the gamepad, (without telling your friends) and give points to those who guess it correctly, all while passing it to other friends to see who can rack up the most points in the time limit! As a concept, the game has barely changed at all, which is a shame for those hoping for a different take on this sort of game. The good news is that the developers followed the rule of “don’t fix what isn’t broken”, which means the game is just as fun now as it always has been, and with the small benefits of the Wii U Gamepad (Such as having your own screen to look it, having a tablet touch screen to draw), along with the ability to make your own categories and words, this is pretty much everything you’d expect from a picture party game on the Wii U.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Pictoparty manages to play it safe. Like, really safe. Thankfully this isn’t that big of an issue, since my friend and I still had a blast playing the game with our own made up categories, and I could definitely see this as a great game to play if you have a big group of friends coming over. The only big downsides with this game are the fact that it doesn’t even try to be different from what it’s inspired from, and there’s no way to play this game in single player. (although the latter is understandable) Still, if you have friends over often, and want to give them a fun game to play, then Pictoparty isn’t a bad option, and I’d say that it’s well worth the $7.99. I give Pictoparty a 7 out of 10, and recommend it for anyone interested in a great party game for the Wii U.