Rise of the Golden Idol has been on my must play list since it was announced last December. Its direct predecessor, 2022's The Case of the Golden Idol, is one of my favorite puzzle games of all time, which is high praise considering I've played a lot of them.
More puzzles, more problems
Like its predecessors, Rise of the Golden Idol relies on clue-gathering and fill-in-the-blanks puzzle mechanics to reveal the mystery. It offers chapters with three or four events, each of which is a set of events or sequels, and you often have to search different places to collect all the clues.
An early puzzle presents you with a press conference, but lets you see a morgue and an office building in the background. Another is an art auction, and not only can you see what's going on in the auction room, but you can also scroll day and night to see what's going on in the areas. two during the day.
Points of interest are indicated by exclamation marks, and clicking on them will zoom in and drop more words into the 'your words' bucket. Many of these will be red herrings, so it may help to sort out the most important ones as you travel to and from these points of interest.
Once you've collected all the clues, you'll have to solve mini-puzzles (putting names to names, names to fingerprints, and explaining the sequence of events) in each case to progress and confirm that you know what to do. continues.
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Conspiracy investigations are better than ever
The rise of the Golden Idol, like Case, revolves around the mysterious Golden Idol artifact. Although you don't need to have played the first game to play Rise, the new game takes place in the 70s, around 200 years after Case, and explores how culture and money-hungry corporations have drawn on Idol to to continue his schedule. .
Where Rise excels over its predecessor is in the chapter puzzles. It was easy to treat Case as a series of disparate puzzles and not really involve a narrative that ties all the cases together – while they all told a story about this art, the process of solving the puzzle may overshadow the story unfolding there. its headquarters. You don't need to combine the threads to enjoy the game as it is.
But Rise uses chapter puzzles to encourage players to think deeply about what the game is trying to convey to them. After finishing each chapter, in order to move on to the next, you have to figure out how each case relates to the other, what they have in common, and why they did what they did.
Forcing the player to explain so much of the narrative may be annoying to some, but it's also an easy way to present more difficult puzzles to solve and ensure that confusing and strange stories are never known or misunderstood. At its core, Golden Idol is a conspiracy series, and if we're not actively unraveling the conspiracies while solving the puzzles, we'll never really understand the game.
I've completed a few chapters, and so far, the chapter puzzles are frustrating, but it's very satisfying to put the jigsaw pieces together and slowly start to see the big picture. Although the Case felt complicated and difficult, the puzzles in the Rise chapter make it clear why you should care about these cases, and it's very valuable.
The idol rises… 300 years later
Three centuries after the unspeakable end of the Cloudsleys, the legend of the Golden Idol has all but disappeared. Now it's only a whisper, it's called an obscene myth.
Some are determined to change that.
Welcome to the 70's – Blood and Disco
The Rise of the Golden Idol follows a zealous cult hunter in pursuit of a powerful artifact that – if the legend is true – could change the world.
As an investigator, you must investigate 20 strange cases of crime, death and corruption. As before with The Case of the Golden Idol, you can investigate whatever you want and build your own theory.
You must understand a great mystery that is unraveling during the age of hallucinogens, fax machines, parapsychology and TV guides.
Enlightenment seekers, convicts, chat show hosts and corporate executives will all play a part in the larger mysteries. As always, many of these topics will have their own motivations. Some will take more than the schedule.
