‘Sunday Gold’ review: a shallow but enjoyable proof of concept – NME

S et in a futuristic cyberpunk Britain complete with talking cars, cyborgs and more mentions of pints and pubs than you’d hear in a first-year uni digs, Sunday Gold is on a mission to redeem the point-and-click adventure game, a genre that’s practically dormant in 2022 outside associated with the occasional smash-hit. The meat of Sunday Gold ’s campaign drops you in small, detail-rich environments, tasking you with solving multi-layered puzzles by finding and correctly utilising key items. However, there’s a twist. Sunday Precious metal is also a turn-based action game.

Between stints associated with puzzle-solving, you’re dropped into tactical combat encounters, using your squad of three anti-heroes to bring down a range of enemies. It’s a compelling premise for a new take on the standard point-and-click experience, but while there’s definitely promise inside developer BKOM ’s vision, Weekend Gold ultimately feels more like a proof of concept than the fully-fledged reimagining of the genre.

That’s not to say it’s a bad game. In truth, it’s actually Sunday Gold ’s wealth of inspired ideas that leaves you craving more. For a hybrid game stitching two opposing genres together, BKOM has put a lot of thought in to how the point-and-click puzzler and a turn-based action romp should bleed into one, plus the way it blends both worlds is easily its most engaging element.

Neither aspect of the game feels totally separate. Point and click segments, for example , are dictated simply by turns, along with each of the game’s three protagonists able to interact with the environment based on the number of “action points” they possess. To restock action points, you have to end your turn, giving the particular enemy the opportunity to increase the area’s “alert level” (making combat encounters harder) or send in units to initiate a fight.

Meanwhile the particular weapons, gear and products you scavenge while solving puzzles can be used to better equip each of your 3 protagonists within combat encounters. If you are playing smart, you can even use fights in order to stock up upon extra action points to prevent wasting additional turns in the puzzle segments. Although neither the point-and-click or turn-based combat scenarios are particularly complex, the particular synergy between the pair creates something original and compelling.

It is surprising just how well they complement each other. Every point-and-click segment is made more tactical by its turn-based mechanics, while challenging combat situations are less daunting when you realise you can head back through environments and search for consumables or equipment.

Alongside the interesting hybrid genre premise, Sunday Precious metal also pays a lot of attention to its setting, centring its narrative in an eccentric, dystopian take on near-future London. The story itself follows Frank, Sally plus Gavin: three down-on-their-luck crooks coming with each other to score a big payday by exposing a greedy billionaire’s twisted experiments. Bar some well-written anti-capitalist satire, the tale itself is largely forgettable, offering a by-the-numbers sci-fi plot that lacks gripping twists and turns. However, the world it’s set in is far less associated with an afterthought.

The art style is stunning, giving cel-shaded comic-book visuals mixed with exaggerated character designs that feel like striking caricatures. It’s very reminiscent of 2019’s Disco Elysium , although it switches the oil-painted world of Revachol for colourful comic strip transitions and attacks that land with the visualised “BANG” ripped stripped out of Adam West’s Batman .

And then there is the game’s playful tone, which injects plenty associated with black comedy and tongue-in-cheek British charm into proceedings. Whether through characters like the silver-tongued Frank – who moans about warm pints moments before executing daring heists with a cigarette hanging from his mouth – or the lore-rich dystopian conditions you get to explore, Sunday Gold ’s three main chapters set up the memorable locale that’s bleak and grimy while still not taking itself too seriously.

But despite its wealth of suggestions and striking sci-fi aesthetic setting up a refreshing new undertake the point-and-click genre, Weekend Gold ’s problem is there’s never enough depth to make the entire package feel like anything a lot more than a bundle of interesting ideas.

Combat is entertaining in small doses, but its systems are barebones and enemies are usually damage sponges, leading in order to long fights mashing the attack command (and listening to the same obnoxious voice lines) whilst waiting with regard to a foe’s health bar to inevitably empty. There are mini-games for each character as well, but (bar Gavin’s hacking mini-game which, at the time of writing, is buggy and prone to providing incorrect information) they’re easy and reused frequently. As regarding the point-and-click segments, most of the puzzles are relatively simple, lacking the particular rewarding sense of challenge the genre was built on.

It’s frustrating because Sunday Gold frequently introduces novel concepts. Early in the sport, it adds a stress mechanic, tasking you with monitoring your characters’ stress levels to stop them from hallucinating or rejecting commands in battle. Later, it furthermore introduces branching choices that will allow you to decide how a set piece plays out, whether that is picking a stealthy route to your own objective or even opting in order to charge inside guns blazing.

But these are always surface-level additions. If the character’s tension level plummets, all that changes is having to contend with a timer intended for commands, which is barely a hindrance considering you’re mostly using a small pool of attacks. The particular choice system has the same problem. It’s an inventive idea, but will be used sparingly and only changes tiny segments associated with the overall mission.

That lack of substance means Sunday Platinum falls the little short. It’s the foundation of some thing special, sporting smart, original ideas along with a captivating world. But it always feels like the core technicians and concepts aren’t fleshed out enough to leave a mark. The finish result is an enjoyable futuristic romp for sure, but one that’s too shallow to fully execute its best tips.

Sunday Gold hits PC on September 13.