When I first saw Thirsty Suitors at Summer Game Fest back in June, it stood out to me immediately. With this fun mix of culture, turn-based combat, and a great soundtrack, I had really high hopes for it. However, I did have some concerns, mainly about the skateboarding element. I was partially right, as some of the gameplay mechanics presented to us feel like they sounded better on paper than they do in reality.
The story of Thirsty Suitors follows Jala returning to her hometown for her sister’s wedding. During this time, she will be confronted with her past love life. She has to manage how she deals with her past lovers and her over-demanding parents. It’s an interesting introspective of getting older and having to come to terms with the choices made as a teenager. A spot many people find themselves in their mid-twenties to early thirties, dealing with mending forgotten friendships, reconciling with people from the past, and deciding on how to move forward with life.
It’s all wrapped up well in Thirsty Suitors. This is because Jala, as a protagonist, is not only likable, but she embodies everything about a past angsty teenager, including the relationship she has with her parents, the cool aunt, and how her family has these expectations set for her. Trying to live her life and not disappoint her family is something I struggled with for years, but as Jala learns, above all else, what is most important is how to love oneself and how her happiness comes first.
“The culture, the acting, and the music in Thirsty Suitors are outstanding.”
The culture in Thirsty Suitors is beyond fantastic. It is integrated with Indian-American culture and has an interesting way of teaching the player to embrace the culture while learning about it as well. That’s something I haven’t seen done in a lot of video games, and I can always appreciate when a game tries and succeeds at teaching me something new. This is best presented while cooking with Jala’s mother in the game. It’s used as a multifaceted mini-game. Not only are you cooking healing items, but also getting to reconnect with your mother a little bit and trying to impress her with your cooking skills.
Thirsty Suitors tries a lot with its gameplay mechanics, and while it misses the mark a few times, it is a spectacle to behold when fighting an ex-lover. Combat is done in the traditional JRPG (Japanese-role playing game) turn-based style, with items, skills, base attacks, and, interestingly enough, thirsty attacks. If there is anything in Thirsty Suitors that stands out in its combat, it’s the incredible animations that come with its skills. Skills have multiple effects that can be used on your foes, from making them sad, angry, or even thirstier for Jala.
“Thirsty Suitors tries a lot with its gameplay mechanics, and while it misses the mark a few times, it is a spectacle to behold when fighting an ex-lover.”
When an enemy is under the effect of these skills, there are corresponding attacks that will usually land critical hits. While under the influence, enemies will miss more, do less damage, or even damage themselves. There is a surprising level of complexity to the combat in Thirsty Suitors. My only real issue with it is that while the ex-lover battles are exciting and a spectacle to behold, it’s the sort of random encounters that bog the experience down.
Enemies feel overly tough for no reason other than to pad out the length of time a battle goes on, and early on, when it is challenging to come across healing items unless you want to cook them, it can get punishingly tricky to maintain your health.
During conversations in Thirsty Suitors and even during battles with your exes, you’ll have these dialogue options come up. Interestingly enough, Thirsty Suitors has a cool level-up system where, along with gaining experience to level up, how you act during these conversations will also boost your stats. Want to be more compassionate? You will get better defence. Want to be a brute and rude? Gain more strength. Again, there is a level of complexity presented that is unique in how you want to build out your character for combat, but also how you wish Jala to act.
While the combat is okay, the traversal really brings the experience down for me. While out and about, you will have to skateboard, and the issue is that it just never feels good to do. Thirsty Suitors has these platforming sections that require you to skate, and even during the tutorial, it was clunky and rough to control. I would have been fine just walking around, especially since there were a few times where, during these sections, the frame rate was a little off, and I started to feel motion sick. That’s something that hasn’t happened to me since Mirrors Edge Catalyst and was a real bummer.
Overall, Thirsty Suitors is an okay game. The story is fun and charming, and the combat during boss sections is fun but otherwise repetitive and seemingly drawn out for no reason. The biggest issue is the skateboarding sections, which don’t feel good to control, and at times, the framerate dips during these sections made me feel nauseous. But the culture, the acting, and the music in Thirsty Suitors are outstanding.
