IT’S A POINT AND CLICK ADVENTURE ALRIGHT!
By that subtitle alone most people will know exactly what they are getting into. Environmental puzzles that require clicking on items in a certain order to proceed. There’s a character switching mechanic with each character having their own skills, but because you can swap on the fly there’s no reason other than story to have two characters. It’s by no means a bad point and click adventure, but it isn’t the greatest either, and I think that’s because the developers focused on style first and foremost.
The stand out part of TOHU is it’s art direction. TOHU animates extremely well, looking like a cartoon that would show on Cartoon Network with its odd critters and unique characters. The worlds of TOHU are on the backs of large floating fish, which is the sort of bizarre left field idea I would expect to see in a game from Amanita Design, and a lot of this game kept reminding me a lot of Amanita’s work, and not necessarily in the best ways.
PLATFORMS: XB1, PS4, SWITCH, PC, IOS, ANDROID
MSRP: $14.99
PRICE I’D PAY: $9.99
Amanita Design generally works with no dialog; all story elements are told with pantomime and pictograms. TOHU decides to both have written text that is not actually read aloud by the characters and narration done by an unseen narrator, whose voice was recorded in such a way that he completely cut the dynamics out of his voice over (similar to when someone is too close when they speak into a microphone). The story wasn’t complex enough in TOHU to require as much written story as they had and I think they could have saved a lot of time/money by simply focusing on telling the story pictorially, especially when TOHU is as appealing to look at as it is. I think Fireart Games really found a great balance between the bizarre and cute without getting into the uncomfortably strange like Amanita Design does, and that is what separates them from what I think is their closest competitor. I just wish they focused on it more.
What doesn’t help with the appeal is the fact that I am playing a point and click game with an Xbox controller. Clearly that is not how this game is meant to be played. It works okay but a couple times I had to check the hints to make sure I had the right idea, which I did, and then would have to pixel hunt for the right spot. I am not surprised, as I am sure this game was made with phones, PC, and the Switch in mind (The Girl even pulls out a Switch-like device if the game idles).
I’m glad there is a built in hint system for those that need it, but I sort of hated having to use it for stuff like this. There are however two times I had to legitimately use the hint system, and to be honest I would have never put the first puzzle together on my own, and that was in the second area. The other time required me to act during a specific moment of an NPC’s animation cycle, which isn’t well communicated, but with that one I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt that I’m just dumb and I didn’t put it together.
All in all TOHU is an okay point and click adventure. I think there are far better ones out on the market but I don’t know if there are many prettier than TOHU.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
