Thirsty Suitors Review (Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch & PC)

For the record, I can’t say I’m all that familiar with South Asian culture, let alone the concept of exchanging secret handshakes with a dog. Truth be told, I can’t really say I’m all that fond of banana milkshakes, nor bowl cut-sporting contortionists who bend over backwards in an attempt to “woo” me every waking hour, either. But hey, these are just a few of the many, many things that make Outerloop Games’ Thirsty Suitors the oddball game that it is — and I can’t for the life of me figure out whether I’m in love with it, or if I’m merely fueling the fire for my sleep paralysis demons.

Outerloop Games’ Thirsty Suitors has been on my radar for quite some time, so I’d be lying if I said I didn’t throw myself into it the first moment I caught wind of its arrival. But that was several days ago, so to say I’m no longer the bearer of broken hearts would only be an understatement. Having tied up just about every loose end and popped more than enough ravenous dreams with the trucks of my skateboard, I can just about bring myself to part ways with the unruly number. Am I sad to see it go? In ways, yes. Would I recommend the journey to someone else? Therein idles a question that we’ll have to unpack piece by piece, if only to reach the definitive answer that slots it all into perspective. Ready to become one with the thirst? Then let’s go ahead and fill up the cup.

Homecoming

Thirsty Suitors follows the story of Jala—a skateboarding-obsessed hipster who returns to her hometown after several years to reconcile with her parents, sibling, and most of all, an army of ex-partners who’ve gathered to try and either win her hand in marriage, or avenge their former heartaches born from past relationships. As Jala, you are mostly free to roam a semi-open world environment, as well as engage in tidbit discussions with citizens, collect coins for new cosmetics, and engage in traditional turn-based combat with the titular Thirsty Suitors. That’s quite the selection of ingredients — enough to craft a gut-busting liquid cure, even. But how does it all merge into one singular experience?

As far as combat goes, the ultimate goal isn’t to beat your opponent to a pulp, but deflate their hearts and essentially crush their hopes of ever getting to wed you. To do this, you can use a variety of attacks and Taunts—QTE-based events that allow you to flatter your opponent, enrage them, or cause their thirst level to soar through the roof. Depending on their thirst level—a feature that has the power to make basic attacks hit even harder—you must study your suitor and decide which action is more likely to inflict higher damage. And if that all goes downhill, then you can just call your mom, who’ll magically appear from the heavens above and waggle a few fingers to deflate their ego.

From what I experienced during my time in Thirsty Suitors, combat was never all that difficult. If anything, it was all rather predictable; you’d send out a taunt, and follow it up with the corresponding special skill to inflict damage. Add a few banana milkshakes and mango bars into the mix, and you’ve got yourself a relatively straightforward turn-based formula.

A Handful of Genres

I’ll be brutally honest for a moment and say that, in spite of the concept being evidently quirky right from the get-go, I wasn’t entirely won over in the first few minutes of playing. Due to the fact that it quite literally hurls you into a dream-like prologue in which you must execute poorly animated skate tricks while simultaneously receiving a run-down of your past mistakes, at no point did it ever quite gel with me. Rather disappointingly, I wasn’t able to gloss over the jagged transitions between skating and free running, which in turn spoiled the immersion just a smidgen. Sure, the dialogue was constructive and happened to progress smoothly, but the gameplay just didn’t flow, which led me to grasp relativity low expectations before the first chorus even started.

In response to the game’s fairly shoddy skateboarding mechanics, Thirsty Suitors does actually have its admirable share of great moments. Having played it through to the final climax, though, I can safely say that the most memorable aspects were the back-and-forth insults and quick-fire responses between Jala and the suitors themselves. And while I occasionally found myself actually hating some of the dialogue choices I was making, I always felt that Jala was, in the weirdest of ways, a fantastic protagonist with plenty to write home about.

Skateboarding and combat set aside, Thirsty Suitors also rolls out the rose petal-covered carpet for another mixture of features, including cooking, dancing, and exploring. That said, the bulk of these added features often meant having to fire off some QTEs, and little else. Not exactly challenging, per se, but the sheer volume of activities and encounters that it presented definitely made it less of a predictable slog, and more of a whimsical journey through infinite waves of humorous shenanigans and joyful banter.

The Queen of Hearts

To make a dent in the game’s storyline, you must add levels to one of three personality trees, with each branch being made up of the dialogue choices you make throughout each encounter. For example, if you decide to insult your fledgling spouse to the point of breaking their heart, then you’ll go on to receive a point in the corresponding branch. However, as the ultimate goal behind the game is to mend broken bridges, and not set them ablaze, I found that, for the most part, I only needed to play the mutual card and either flirt with the person, or keep it civil and go with a flat one-liner to progress.

As far as characters go, Thirsty Suitors definitely has a diverse roster — and that’s putting it lightly. From the weightlifting auntie to the skateboarding dog — each and every suitor and NPC that flesh out the game has a little something-something to call their own. And for what it’s worth, I found that ninety percent of the conversations I had were entertaining enough to keep me trucking toward the next story beat.

Broken Heart, Broken World

In spite of the interior designs being visually sound and somewhat indestructible, Thirsty Suitors does have one major issue that lets it down: the actual hub world. It isn’t all that big, but it does come with its share of coins to collect, gifts to unpack, and flirty combat encounters to sign up for. If anything, it’s as if Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater dropped the VHS tapes and S-K-A-T-E letters in exchange for a banquet of retro-inspired cliche collectibles. Sounds relatively harmless on paper, for sure, but due to the NPCs who inhabit such a world being about as emotional and as directionless as a microfiber teacloth, it does make an otherwise vibrant world look a little, shall we say, half-baked?

Don’t get me wrong, I love skateboarding as much as the next 900-loving Bird Man, but Thirsty Suitors’ attempt to replicate the pandemonium of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland does fall surprisingly short, mainly due to its limited range of tricks, combos, and incorrect naming of moves; an Ollie is a “Jump” — because why the heck not? It doesn’t work, is what I’m saying, and it’s quite clearly a feature that the devs chalked up at the last minute to win over the target demographic. Apart from that, though, I thoroughly enjoyed scooting around town and getting into trouble with former ex-partners. But that skateboarding experience — ouch.

I’ll give credit where it’s due. In this instance, Thirsty Suitors set out to infuse South Asian culture into a turn-based action-adventure skateboarding/cooking simulation game — and that’s exactly what it went on to create. Perhaps the devs bit off far more than they could chew, but for what it’s worth, I will say this: applying such an enormous amount of nodes to the framework was a brave choice. But did it pay off?

Verdict

Thirsty Suitors is definitely going down as one of the weirdest games I’ve ever played, and I’m not even mad about that. Even now, in the aftermath of the story’s conclusion, I’m not entirely sure what it was that made it the oddity that it was, but it was clearly a joint effort fueled by numerous factors. And it’s because of this that, when I come to look back at all the games I slugged through in 2023, Thirsty Suitors will be the one I actually remember the most. Go figure.

If you happen to be on the lookout for a love letter to skateboarding, then I’d suggest you steer well clear of Thirsty Suitors, as it basically sits on par with the likes of SkateBird and The Simpsons’ Skateboarding. If, however, you’re on the market for something that’ll keep you second guessing and in fits of laughter for several hours on end, then boy, you could certainly do a lot worse than Thirsty Suitors. Will it quench your thirst? Not quite, though it’ll certainly leave you feeling slightly less parched than when you first picked up the cup.