Are you: mom is always mom. And, even when you mess up big time, she's at your side putting the world right with a sneaker in her hand. Jala is putting her life back together after the disastrous end of her last romantic relationship and decides to return to her parents' house in the charming town of Timber Hills. Except that a troublesome past of hers is on her heels and she takes the form of her ex, to be faced in impeccably choreographed confrontations and to be taken with harsh or sweet words: the choice is entirely up to us.
However, if things go wrong, we can always turn to the fastest power strip in Southeast Asia. It is that of Jala's mother, a solid Indian woman who towers over her daughter's opponents to return them to her place with the sound of flip-flops. It is the best symbol to understand that Thirsty Suitors is all about the power of relationships: family, friendship, sentimental. And how they can help us grow and advance. Always - in Jala's case - riding a skateboard.
We tell you about this hilarious skate adventure in ours Review of The Thirsty Suitors.
Family reunions/clashes
Returning home is, for Jala, a real necessity: after theAnother sentimental blowShe feels like she can't recover on her own. Here he returns to the city where he was born and raised, Timber Hills, to try to rebuild his relationship with his older sister - who is about to get married and whose calls he has ignored for months -, with his father and mother, as well as with his extended family.
It is a story, that of Thirsty Suitors, in which The relationships between the women of the family are placed at the center of the narrative, and also the gameplay. Jala's mother and aunt are the first to go out into the field to help the girl in her battles against ex-boyfriends, suitors sent by her grandmother, misfit skaters willing to do anything to put a brake on the protagonist's wheels. And most of the cooking sessions take place with Jala's mother, the repository of immense knowledge of Indian recipes. For the filthiest, well, there is the dad, always eager to escape from the rigid diet to control his high blood pressure...
Thirsty Suitors' writings vividly capture the complicity, the misunderstandings, the generational distances, creating Moments of encounter and clash full of meaning., often anchored in Indian culture - to which Jala's family belongs - but which, therefore, does not escape universal reach. And if sometimes the dialogues get a little lost in themselves, falling into occasional verbosity that could derive from a more effective synthesis, that does not mean that Jala's adventure loses its strength, managing to convey meaning in each part of the plot. Thirsty Suitors Gameplay.
This is also thanks to a absolute merit list, totally different from what we are used to seeing in the gaming world. The protagonist of Thirsty Suitors is actually an Indian family, and Timber Hills is inhabited by numerous people from the most diverse ethnic groups. He is the choice of a team that prides itself on diversity and is made up of people from the United States, China, India, Great Britain and Australia and has brilliantly characterized each character. In other words, each of the inhabitants of Timber Hills is a universe unto itself, unforgettable and full of life thanks to Outerloop Games' ironic and exaggerated writing.
Only feelings get hurt
We said that Jala is called to confront your exes in battle. The peculiarity is that these are not normal fights, but what the developers define as "surreal psychodramatic battles." Housed in the inner worlds of each of Jala's lovers, they represent an opportunity to confront the past (and tell it, in the meantime) and resolve differences. In short, no deaths, more a handshake or a guitar play together at the end of a cathartic clash, to say the least.
The idea is phenomenal and you can see it from the first ex-boyfriend you face during the game. Sergio He is a guy with a long mustache and a persuasive tongue, but underneath he hides a strong insecurity and, above all, a dramatic attachment to his mother and her opinions. Exploiting his ex's weaknesses is essential to achieving victory: Jala can do so through Provocations, capable of putting his opponents in a certain mood. Moods are nothing more than particular altered states, different from those we are used to seeing in the video game world: they range from crying to a situation of paralysis due to Jala's beauty, capable of electrocuting enemies with her charm.
At this point, using Skills of a type corresponding to Provocation will guarantee the protagonist the possibility of causing significant damage. Additionally, depending on the mood, you can get bonus turns, weaken your opponents' attacks, or make them miss the target entirely. To create a good alternation between offensive options, Outerloop Games made sure that basic attacks restore willpower, through which you can use taunts and skills. The choreography does the rest: Jala and her ex's movements are all exaggerated and exaggerated, and the direction does an excellent job of ensuring effective and impactful shots for the action.
Everything works very well, although it is undeniable that the battles against the exes - considered a kind of boss of the game - are infinitely more interesting than those against the basic enemies. From angry skaters to suitors sent from India by Jala's grandmother, a presence as mysterious as she is powerful and authoritative within the family, even though she is eight thousand miles from Timber Hills. And if things get bad, you can always evoke the mother to give the annoying shift manager a fatal slip, or Aunt Chandra to strengthen Jala thanks to a challenging weight lifting session.
It's a shame that conversations during battles with exes are sometimes too long and diluted. The gossip and comparisons between Jala and her suitors are hilarious, but Outerloop Games' writing gets a little lost along the way. Nothing dramatic, let's be clear, for example. the crazy choreography of the fights They manage to adequately compensate for the occasional drops in pace. Not to mention that attention always remains high, since by pressing certain keys at the right time you increase the power of attacks and defend yourself from the attacks of opponents. And remember: don't forget that to win you need to become a good cook... With mom's help!
In the kitchen with mom
Cooking wonderful dishes for your loved ones is a universal way to show care and gratitude. Part of Jala's path towards reconciliation with his loved ones will involve knives and pans, but not without first washing his hands (otherwise, who pays attention to his mother...). New recipes will be available every day, most of which will be taught to us by Rukmini, Jala's mother and expert connoisseur of Indian cuisine, already the protagonist of this year's game in the magical Venba.
In Thirsty Suitors, what we cook we can use to guarantee bonuses and healing in combat. He stages of preparing dishes They engage the player through on-screen prompts, requiring you to press certain keys or push directional sticks to achieve the best possible outcome, just like in combat. Carefully following the different phases will lead to an increase in the Hotness gauge, which can be used to perform Super Moves that drastically increase the Mother's Approval rating (or, in the case of some very tasty recipes that must be made in the utmost secrecy , from Jala's father). Higher Approval will lead to more delicious rewards for our protagonist.
Again the game becomes a vehicle for storytelling: Although most of the cooking sessions are optional, it's hard not to feel the burning desire to find out all the juiciest gossip about Jala's family (and not only) in the chatter that unfolds during the preparations. This demonstrates the centrality of writing in the work of Outerloop Games, and of the vision of cooking as a vehicle of social and family cohesion: once a dish has been completed in an excellent way, when we taste it, Jala's mother will appear in ecstasy, dressed dressed in an Indian sari and immersed in the vivid colors typical of the extraordinary artistic tradition of Southeast Asia.
We must not forget that the dialogue choices made in the cooking sessions and also in other moments of Thirsty Suitors will lead to the development of our thirsty, a play on words that is evidently inspired by the mechanics of the Persona series. Jala, in fact, will be able to develop more pronounced personality traits than others, with the consequent modification of his statistics each time he levels up and the possibility of obtaining different narrative options depending on the case.
Skater done and done
Jala grew up skating between Timber Hills and Bearfoot Park, an abandoned amusement park that has become home to a mysterious cult. For her, returning home also means recovering her favorite means of transportation: skateboards. Customizable and upgradeable in the workshop of Chandra, a queer aunt passionate about weightlifting and owner of a body shop, the skateboard is the protagonist of the Thirsty Suitors scenario exploration sessions.
Skateboard Scoring Challenges give you additional rewards: you earn points by collecting items and performing tricks on any surface within your reach. Cables, handrails, bars and light poles can accommodate the tug-of-war stunts, between turns, backflips, spinning kicks and floating spins. It's a shame that the animations and movements are not always fluid, and that the low speed chosen for movement sometimes gives a strange feeling of excessive weight to the graceful protagonist.
The whole scene!
The great protagonist of Thirsty Suitors is yours art direction, which analyzes the bright colors of Indian art, the ability to synthesize typical anime traits, and the deliberately exaggerated performances of Bollywood actors to create a mix capable of standing out decisively and theatrically. With truly wonderful touches of sweetness: every night, upon returning home, Jala does a cartwheel to sit on the couch and say goodnight to her dad. Except she quickly falls asleep and tender Arvind lifts her onto her shoulders to take her to sleep in the bedroom she had before leaving the house. <
The same goes for the music, always capable of accompanying the fighting, cooking and exploration phases while respecting the cultural context chosen by the team. Timber Hills shines with its own light also thanks to the sound sector, and not only visual, creating an artistically coherent and exemplary experience throughout the duration of Thirsty Suitors, equivalent to approximately seven hours.
They inform us that Thirsty Suitors texts and menus have been translated into Spanish, while the dubbing is in English. The translation is not always able to capture all the nuances of the original speech: if you have the possibility, we recommend using Thirsty Suitors in English. We greatly appreciate the delicate characterization given to the dubbing of each character, depending on their culture and geographical origin, without caricatured results. Finally, we appreciate how Thirsty Suitors offers a wide range of accessibility options for each segment of its game, in addition to the presence of several difficulty levels.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Xbox store Price 27.99 € Holygamerz.com 8.0 Readers (8) 6.8 your vote"A bisexual disaster. A sexy disaster. A romantic delirium in human form." This is how the developers of Thirsty Suitors describe the protagonist, a girl called to find her place in the world and write her future. But to achieve this it will be necessary to delve into the past, face it head-on and, hopefully, come out better. Jala's ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends represent precisely this: an encounter/clash with others, of course, but also with the interiority of the protagonist herself, with her desires, aspirations, mistakes and strengths. In the awareness of the importance of one's own relational network, formed not only by lovers, but also by friends and family, because no individual is an island. Thirsty Suitors tells all this and more, seasoning a powerful underlying message with the spicy spices of gossip and, in a broader sense, of storytelling, understood as a relational way of creating and developing a shared worldview with loved ones. There is no reason not to try the production of Outerloop Games, present since its launch on Xbox Games Pass. The few production defects cannot deprive it of a unique and inimitable shine, and the charm of a journey, that of Jala, which is actually that of each one of us.
PRO
- Artistic direction of absolute excellence.
- The narrative is conveyed brilliantly in every area of the game.
- Extraordinary cast made up of memorable characters.
- Really funny ex fights
AGAINST
- Combat with basic enemies is sometimes mediocre
- The exploration of skateboarding is often not very fluid.
