Thirsty Suitors

Outerloop recreates the messy dating world with an also messy, and sometimes brilliant, genre mash-up.

“While its creative gameplay ideas are spread thin, Thirsty Suitors offers a charmingly nuanced coming of age story about messy adults.”

A bright and breezy turn-based RPG that flounders as a skateboarding simulator, but excels at depicting the horrid awkwardness of being surrounded by disappointed family and jilted exes.

Thirsty Suitors elevates the turn-based RPG genre to the modern day with skateboarding, South Asian diversity, accessibility options, and cooking.

An RPG, a cooking game, and a skateboarding game walk into a town full of exes...

Thirsty Suitors has well-crafted RPG mechanics and satisfying combat, but its gleefully wild and colorful style and superb dialogue and characters are truly its biggest strength. It's the type of game where you find yourself tempted to try every activity possible, either to see a loving ode to South Asian cultures, a well-written character moment or both. It's an inspired bit of lunacy that still has a ton of heart at its core, creating an emotional journey in the end that still has a lot of room for more humorous bits. Jala's life may be a mess at the start of the game, but cleaning up the me...

In Thirsty Suitors, protagonist Jala has had a bad break-up and moved back to the hometown she left under the shadow of darkness, and back to the people she left high and dry. Realising her allies are few and far between, Jala sets about making amends with her family, while her previous exes show their faces to stir things up — and kick her butt.

Thirsty Suitors may seem like a bizarre, quirky, chaotic mess, but that's exactly what makes it so special. Never have I experienced a game that can so continuously catch me off-guard and make me laugh out loud with ridiculous one-liners and character interactions. The story is simple, hilarious, and easy to follow along, making it an enjoyable tale to explore. The soundtrack also creates a unique vibe, combining Hip-Hop tunes with South-Asian music influences to create some intense battle themes and catchy skateboarding tunes.

Thirsty Suitors succeeds because it delivers on story. Memorable characters, top-notch voice-over work, and stand-out dialogue all help elevate the average gameplay elements. Ultimately, Jala’s is a story that you’ll enjoy from beginning to end, even if it does involve suffering through a deluge of QTEs.

The game’s art is stylish and coherent, and the music, animation, and effects all support this. There’s plenty to do in Thirsty Suitors, as you can skate as different characters, including a cat and dog, and you can also unlock songs and outfits for Jala. The game took me 9 and a half hours, and I did barely any of the skating challenges, but completed all the side quests and cooking recipes I could find.

I feel seen by this game.

An uneven blend of turn-based RPG battles, cooking, and skateboarding elevated by its excellent narrative and memorable cast of characters.