Thirsty Suitors tells the story of Jala, a younger grownup with a love for skateboarding who’s returning to her hometown to face the troubles of her previous after struggling one more breakup. However, the rocky relationship along with her dad and mom isn’t the solely drawback Jala must navigate. Her ex-partners appear to be popping up throughout the place, difficult her to battle.
Sound acquainted, anybody? On the floor, it carries a really comparable strategy to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Don’t let this deter you, although, as Thirsty Suitors places a little bit of a spin on issues. More importantly, you get to play as the badass ‘Ramona’ character and combat off your exes as an alternative of following the story of one more, nicely, you already know, ‘thirsty suitor,’ as this sport would label him. Sorry, Scott!
However, whereas the inspirations from Scott Pilgrim are definitely evident to anybody a minimum of considerably acquainted with the franchise, the sport nonetheless manages to really feel distinctive sufficient in gameplay and story to face aside. This sport is not only a clone however reasonably a mixture of all the things that made that quirky story so nice – with the addition of different good influences and focuses.
Thirsty Suitors additionally has robust story points of tradition, pressures of household relationships, and id, which I’m sure shall be reasonably intriguing and relatable to discover for a lot of gamers.
My expertise with the Thirsty Suitors preview was break up into three gameplay demo sections – a character quiz and battle towards Jala’s first ex, a glimpse of the skate park and numerous skateboarding challenges, and cooking with Jala’s mom.
Personality Quiz
Upon launching into the first demo gameplay choice, I discovered myself dropped into Jala’s footwear and taking over a weird and quirky relationship character quiz.
This happens at the starting of a brand new sport, to initially decide your ‘Thirstsona’ – a relationship sort that can offer you distinctive abilities or perks to make use of as harmful weapons towards Jala’s exes. While this may increasingly sound just a little cliche or boring to some at first look, I used to be pleasantly shocked with the tone this set for the sport. It seems Jala’s love life is a number of several types of disastrous, and also you get to affect which archetypes stand out the most.
This part additionally introduces you to the Narrator character. She’s a snarky, sarcastic, and judgmental internal monologue of Jala that displays the components of herself she dislikes whereas bearing an uncanny resemblance to her elder sister.
All the whereas, you’ll use Jala’s skateboarding abilities to navigate throughout a sequence of ramps, rails, zip traces, and partitions to achieve the following platform, the place the subsequent query of the quiz shall be introduced so that you can reply. I discovered this way more interactive and entertaining than every other character quiz sport intro I’ve skilled earlier than. I loved the undeniable fact that it helps you to begin to get a really feel for the skateboarding controls proper from the very begin.
The writing of this section is stuffed with humorous dialogue and sarcastic quips, too, which had me genuinely laughing out loud all the means via the quiz.
First Suitor Battle
After finishing the quiz and receiving my preliminary Thirstsona, I used to be thrown into the first part of the story correct. Jala steps off the bus into her hometown and heads to the native Diner, the place she should seek for somebody to offer her a trip dwelling.
Unfortunately, it’s right here at the Diner that she runs right into a reasonably sudden particular person: Sergio, one among her exes, who challenges her to the first Suitor battle.
Suitor battles are simplistic turn-based cinematic battles that permit Jala to face off towards her exes, get into the nasty negatives that triggered their break up, and even hash issues out in the finish. Suitor Battles concentrate on 4 mechanics – Attacks, Taunts, Skills, and Items.
Attacks are fundamental strikes that Jala can deal to inflict smaller quantities of injury to her opponents and restore WP. Taunts are standing results and de-buffs that you may inflict in your opponent, every having numerous outcomes. Skills are particular highly effective assaults that eat WP and deal further injury if the goal is inflicted with a selected standing impact from a Taunt. Lastly, gadgets are numerous consumables that Jala can use to revive HP or WP.
Much like the character quiz, I used to be dying of laughter via this whole Suitor battle. The personalities on show are hilarious, and every turn-based fight spherical is interrupted by traces of dialogue between Jala and the Suitor she is battling with, permitting you to decide on a flirty or insulting response every time. I guess Sergio needs he by no means aggravated me now as a result of, rattling, Jala is a complete savage with these insults!
After defeating a Suitor, you’ll obtain some rewards, corresponding to potential gadgets and EXP to stage up. When you improve Jala’s stage, you’ll obtain factors so as to add to your Thirstsona, creating your selection of three archetypes.
Skateboarding & Skate Challenges
The second demo portion I obtained to check out in Thirsty Suitors was the Skatepark, the place I obtained to mess around with the skateboarding mechanics and check out some Skate Challenges.
These Skate Challenges had been introduced to me by Soundie, the chief of the Skate Park, who can also be only a unusual man in a bear costume. I don’t know why, however I’m right here for it. After all, if he’s the kingpin of the Skate Park, he have to be critically gifted — skating round in such apparel can’t be simple.
This gameplay part was pleasant and gave me imprecise reminiscences of video games corresponding to Skate 3 and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, clearly with a way more cartoonish and unrealistic strategy. Most fundamental methods are tremendous simple to get the dangle of, so earlier than you already know it, you’ll be cruising round, grinding rails, wall-running, zooming throughout ziplines, and pulling off some killer Finisher Combos at sure zones inside the park.
The Skate Challenges even have fairly a superb selection between time trials, studying new methods, needing to build up scores from trick factors, and difficult your self to skate the hardest sections of the park. Challenges additionally discover a good steadiness between being too simple and too difficult. For instance, I needed to strive the Neon Burger Challenge a number of instances to work out the finest pathing, however after I had this down, the problem was fairly chill to finish.
My solely grievance right here is expounded to the feeling of pulling off methods. Although the skateboarding is extraordinarily satisfying, considerably stress-free, and straightforward to get misplaced in, some methods can really feel just a little clunky and difficult to drag off in repetition. On display, the controls for the numerous wheelies/manuals look easy sufficient, however for some purpose, they had been simply such a ache to drag off with out stumbling round like some complete skate beginner.
The mixture of holding the Shift key and in addition having to alternate tapping W and S for 2 of the Manuals felt almost unattainable for me to get proper right away, particularly in the center of one other trick combo. This made me wish to simply use one hand for Shift and the different for the alternate button tapping, which isn’t all that supreme. I’m positive I’d decide up the trickier skateboarding stuff if I spent just a little extra time skating round, however there was a minor hiccup in getting the dangle of nailing sure methods easily this time round.
Cooking With Jala’s Mother
The third and ultimate part of the demo gameplay I obtained to expertise was Jala’s dwelling, the place I used to be capable of strike up a dialog along with her father and courageous a cooking lesson along with her mom.
Cooking is a comparatively simple minigame, because it primarily depends on the timing of your button inputs to observe the directions of Jala’s mom to the better of your skill. However, whereas this is probably not the most superb ‘minigame’ function in the world, I completely loved it for a number of causes.
Firstly, it’s right here the place Jala makes use of the time spent along with her mom to try to restore their rocky relationship and take the first steps to getting near her once more. While they primarily stick with a dialog about the meals (a minimum of on this demo gameplay), there are small hints at the awkward dynamic that has developed between the two, corresponding to when Jala’s mom insists she wash her fingers a second time with a stern “are you here to cook, or to argue with your mother?”.
However, it’s additionally clear that cooking is a means for Jala and her mom to search out some center floor and reconnect. The Narrator is even extremely shocked at Jala’s option to take the excessive street and attempt to get alongside along with her mom, so it’s clear she goes out of her means. Plus, the moments the place Jala manages to impress along with her abilities provide a small glimpse of real happiness and bond between them, making all of it really feel price it.
Not solely this, however the cooking side additionally dives into Jala’s tradition, which is fascinating to observe. There are loads of tasty-looking dishes to finish, together with Parathas, Aasmi, Katte Sambol, and Kathi Rolls.
On prime of this, the directions are damaged down into simple and clear steps. This even had me pondering if I might make a random try at producing these dishes IRL someday down the line. Unfortunately, I’m a horrible cook dinner, so I shortly wrote this concept off as a bit formidable. I do favor my condominium to not be burnt to the floor, in spite of everything.
While I’ll be sticking to the less complicated stuff on the subject of my dinners, I do need to admit, I genuinely felt like I used to be studying fairly a bit about South Eastern meals and tradition via the cooking exercise and surroundings of Jala’s dwelling, and this was a pleasant expertise in itself.
After finishing all the content material obtainable in these demo sequences, I used to be blown away by how a lot enjoyable I had with Thirsty Suitors. The graphics will not be notably excellent, however that’s completely superb. The lower-poly mannequin model fits the entire quirky feeling of the sport reasonably nicely, and the addition of wacky and quirky characters round each nook will hold you in your toes. The music can also be fairly gratifying, a potent mixture of moody, lofi hip-hop vibes with very evident South Asian musical influences tied in right here and there.
Thirsty Suitors is brilliantly weird and downright hilarious. It navigates matters that loads of people wrestle with, placing a lightweight and humorous spin on issues to remind us that it’s certainly okay to snicker at our flaws and failures and that they don’t make us any much less of a badass. I imply, simply have a look at Jala; the Narrator is there antagonizing her each step of the means, however she nonetheless rocks up with all the confidence in the world. Have I taken a web page from Sergio’s guide and grow to be thirsty for Thirsty Suitors? Well, I’m satisfied I’ll be selecting this sport up on launch, so most likely. Send assist.
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