~ Review ~
Games can be a tricky medium in which to ask profound questions. Nuanced ideas are essentially difficult to capture in gameplay mechanics. When players are brought on board, their behaviour can interfere with the makers' intentions.
Thirsty Suitors retains its authorial voice throughout - all parts of the story working together to ask, "Can people really change?" - and players are along for the ride. Choices don't change the story but rather reveal different aspects of it. Although it does struggle to match this narrative depth and confidence in it's mechanics, the writing and performances are so strong that it's easy to love Thirsty Suitors.
Fiery, obstinate and remorseful protagonist Jala returns to her hometown, Timber Hills, to confront her past. Her soon-to-be-wed sister won't speak to her, her mother excels at disapproval and her grandmother has sent suitors to woo her. These family matters structure and frame Thirsty Suitors, both narratively and in the form of regular (and then freely repeatable) cooking minigames with Jala's mom or dad. Otherwise, the game follows Jala's confrontations with her ex-partners, building to a showdown with long-term, on-off partner Tyler. As another woman beset by a league of antagonistic exes, Jala is an analogue of Ramona from Scott Pilgrim vs The World, except here she fights for herself rather than playing the object role in a lovers' battle royale. And unlike Scott Pilgrim, this is a fundamentally queer story. Jala's exes straddle a wide range of gender expressions, she is guided by her lesbian aunt, and the story digs into queer acceptance within families.
The personality on show here is vibrant and exciting from the off. The effort in presentation extends well beyond the angular, colourful, comic art style to the phenomenal performances - a cast of richly textured, larger-than-life characters, all fully voiced even when making throwaway remarks mid-battle. You're probably expecting it: this is a heavily narrative-driven experience. And whilst contemporary indie games do embrace progressive themes, this is a particularly strong example. The attention paid to representing queer people and immigrant families is impressive and important, and there is no weak dig nor stereotypical construction that lets it down.
Turn-based battles with suitors and exes involve choosing between different classes of moves in accordance with enemy weakness. Every attack (aside from the basic) require QTE-style button prompts, which are neatly designed to compliment the animation but do get repetitive over time. The same button prompts are used in cooking, and it can feel disappointing that there is not somehow more variety in these interactions.
Complimenting the fighting and cooking is skating - a simple Hawk-lite pastime that provides Jala's method of traversal and for which challenges are unlocked throughout the game. The environments are full of lines to ride but the ease with which you snap to grinds and the lack of more compelling rewards dampen any desires to dive deep into this side of the game.
Ifeels churlish to complain about the shallowness of the mechanics. Everything is competently executed, nothing is broken, and Thirsty Suitors is a unique mixture of gameplay styles (inevitably falling short when compared with its inspirations). If any of it ever feels placeholder, maybe that's partly the honest truth. Outerloop have lavished their resources on a different part of Thirsty Suitors - they don't want us diving deep into mechanics as much as they want to tell their story, and for us to experience these characters and their searingly relatable struggles. Can people really change? What makes people act cruelly to others? How do we confront those we love about the ways in which they hurt us? Crucially, how can we make amends when it is us who have caused the pain?
Sometimes, the clash of functional mechanics and ambitious story beats is jarring, especially after victory in battle. Despite apparently dishing out violent attacks, fights obviously represent psycho-drama conflicts, with nonetheless aggressive back-and-forth. When Jala wins, however, it is abruptly a victory of reconciliation, a pivot which can feel unnatural and in hindsight makes the battle metaphor a little mixed.
The dissonance is largely reconcilable, when considering that characters fight with versions of themselves, with insecurities and pain that they work through to find resolution. It is, like the characters and like the game as a whole, forgivable for its imperfections - Thirsty Suitors has a huge heart and powerful stories to tell, reaching an epic and moving conclusion that does not disappoint.
