Thirsty Suitors Review
As the year turned over, I’ve slowly come to realize I find more enjoyment from games that may be considered "smaller." Games that may not have a couple thousand+ teams backed by a multibillion dollar budget. A game doesn’t need to be a 50+ hour epic that is so packed with filler content that I can’t see the end of the road. No. In fact, I think I like things to be the opposite. Games made by smaller passionate teams, games that pull from real-life experiences and situations, games that carry a unique art style that you’d hope to see in a museum one day. This is why, for my first completion and review of the new year, I jumped headfirst into the messy dating life of Thirsty Suitors.
LET THE MUSIC PLAY!!
You could say I’ve been thirsting for Thirsty Suitors since I saw its initial reveal trailer at the 2021 Game Awards, a trailer that was as silly as it was colorful and fun. Thirsty Suitors, at its core, is a turn-based RPG sprinkled on top with a bit of Jet Set Radio skating. Intertwined between these two distinctively different genres is a simple story that’s cranked to 11 with battles against physical manifestations of internal feelings and heartache.
You play as Jala, returning to your home town after your most recent messy breakup only to find your sister has disowned you and is engaged while your previous exes have formed an evil supervillain group to ruin your life. You’ll spend your roughly 8-hour experience skating around your hometown of Timber Hills, battling off suitors sent by your grandmother overseas, getting to the bottom of a bear-themed cult of children that has taken over the local skatepark, and coming to terms and making amends with the supervillain group of exes you’ve established. If that sounds like too much going on, you can spend some time at home perfecting recipes from your family’s cook book. It's a nice cool-down that gives you a deeper dive into your family’s backstory, as each cooking attempt will be watched by either of your parents criticizing your every move or sharing stories of your family's past.
LOVE IS A BATTLEFIELD
While all of these different mechanics and activities function as well as your skateboard does, at times it does feel like the team at Outerloop Games was trying to cram more than they needed to to appeal to a wider audience. Skateboarding, while fun and a quick means of traversal, gets pushed to the back burner as a mini-game challenge mode. The combat nails classical turn-based styles while introducing a unique de-buff system. Each enemy has a set number of status inflictions you can put on them to make them miss turns or do extra damage; however, figuring out what each enemy is weak to is a complete toss-up, as the enemies you battle are copy and paste characters with a different outfit on them. What works for one battle or makes sense thematically to the conversation happening may not actually be the correct answer. The idea is there but doesn’t quite stick it’s landing.
Where the combat really shines is in the boss battles against your exes. While happening out of nowhere with no real build-up to them, they take place in almost mental-like thought chambers that represent that character's thoughts, emotions, and cultural background. These battle areas are genuinely eye-catching and make the event feel larger than life fighting otherworldly creatures, and your exes outfit changes to match the overall theme. One of my favorite things about the boss battles is that they just happen out of nowhere; there’s no buildup to who these people are. You get a heads up that this is about to happen, and BAM, you’re in the thick of it. At first, this may catch you off guard, but then you realize it perfectly represents the tough conversations that come with owning up to past wrongs you may have caused. There’s no easy way to approach these situations, and you need to learn to navigate through them in real time and pick up the pieces to build a better you out of the situation, much like what happens in Thirsty Suitors. Jala comes to terms with how she affected each of her exes and learns from those mistakes instead of forming friendships or mending broken bridges at the end of each battle.
CULTURAL VIBES
While not an extensive soundtrack, the songs scattered throughout the world and activities are all certified bops. I found myself nodding along more than not while skating around Timber Hills. Battle themes are solid enough but often feel repeated as battles get drawn out due to combat dialogue or story choices mid-fight. The real showcase of Thirsty Suitors is its representation of different cultures and backgrounds. No one character is alike, even within the same family, and each is shining with a color palette you’d be hard to find in this year's AAA blockbuster. Characters like Irfan and his emotional support cat, Diya, or my personal favorite, Sergio, all exude immense character and history that connects everyone in the story in a natural way. Nothing feels forced; relationships feel like someone’s life experiences, and it’s a perfect blending of fantasy and realism. There’s also a beautifully crafted but natural underlying story between Jala and her parents. Through the cooking mini-games, you’ll experience these tough conversations unraveling between the group as Jala tries to walk the line between having her parents understand her as a person and trying to connect and mend a strained relationship between generations.
Thirsty Suitors excels at being a narrative-driven game above all else. The story and world-building come out on top of every other activity found within Timber Hills. Dialogue trees that give you optional, deeper looks into characters or events are almost at every turn. Conversations with multiple-choice responses happen mid-combat, furthering your story with whoever stands across from you, which is great for the story but drags battles out longer than they need to be. This is especially true the few times while using healing items and not damaging the enemy to its next “checkpoint” that conversations would entirely repeat having to skip through them again. Small inconveniences like this left me skipping a majority of optional battles, opting into skating challenges or cooking to get extra exp to level Jala.
At the end of the day, Thirsty Suitors is a great game that appeals to many different gamers. Maybe the skating catches your eye, or maybe you’re ready to settle down for an emotional story on the shorter side. Either way, there’s enough charm and love put into Thirsty Suitors to keep you alone. Despite all its minor nuances that stretched some aspects out further than they needed, I enjoyed every minute of my time in Timber Hills and was genuinely invested in the lives of these characters, as if this were a daily soap opera. Shout out to our boy, Machan, the coolest dog in town (if you know you know). We here at BadlandsBacklog give Thirsty Suitors our first official score, 8 out of 10. Thirsty Suitors is available on Xbox One, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch, Steam, and through Xbox Game Pass.