If someone pitched you a game that combined Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Cooking Mama, a dating simulator, and turn-based RPGs, you’d laugh them out of the building. Thirsty Suitors doesn’t just fulfill this ridiculous description–it runs with it, slam dunks it, and seals its status as one of the most delightful releases in 2023, even in the face of an utterly stacked field.
Thirsty Suitors is one of the most unique experiences of the last five years–and easily one of the best indies of the year. Developer Outerloop Games’ relentless passion to throw as much weirdness at your face never undermines a fantastical and frankly ridiculous core narrative of heartbreak, selfishness, horniness, friendship, drama, family, and human fallibility. If anything, it enhances it.
You assume the role of Jala Jayaratne: a bisexual, unlucky-in-love, 21-year-old second-generation immigrant who returns to her Pacific Northwest family home after another disastrous break-up. But uh-oh, she’s coming back to a tire fire bigger than the one she’s escaping–Jala has no direction, lacks self-care, her relationship with her parents is at an all-time low, her soon-to-be-married sister hates her, and half a dozen exes are grinding their axes in anticipation of her comeback.
Oh, and there’s also some bloke in a bear costume who’s running a teen-heavy cult from the ruins of an incomplete theme park–completely normal stuff.
Things kick off in a truly weird way, as a traveling Jala completes a “Thirstsona” dating quiz to understand her romantic personality. Is she a Heartbreaker, The Star, or a Bohemian? These motifs underpin her character throughout this eight-to-ten-hour journey, one that’s also consistently scored by a banging soundtrack–it might be the best indie music collection since fellow Annapurna classic The Artful Escape, 2021’s indie GOTY.
You navigate this Thirstsona quiz through the game’s skateboarding mechanic–a fun but janky mode that serves as your primary means of exploration through Thirsty Suitors’ chapters. It’s all a bit Saved by the Bell as you grind rails past the disapproving thoughts of your monstrously sized father, mother, and sister, before eventually freefalling past your five exes. You’re also introduced to your inner monologue–a Narrator with your sister Aruni’s face, helping you process your emotions through conversations that range between pep talks and gaslighting.
Jala’s past loves are a ragtag, radical, diverse LGBTQIA+ bunch who aren’t reduced to one-dimensional tropes based on their gender or sexuality–their personalities shine through, complemented by genuinely believable voice acting that has you regularly comparing their characters to people you know in real life. All the while, your powerlifting, lesbian Auntie Chandra guides you on your seemingly insurmountable journey with a firm but fair hand; she’s had her own fair share of battles with your family, which you learn as you fight, cook, skate, and explore.
Weirdly, Thirsty Suitors’ strength lies in the fact it tries to do everything without ever individually excelling at a single activity. Each facet slightly sucks: movement between scenes is a bit broken, the skateboarding is hit and miss, the quick-time inputs can be unfair or occasionally unresponsive, and fights are so straightforward that you’ll struggle to lose a battle–until there comes a point where losing is, well, the point.
These turn-based “psychodrama” brawls hinge on taunting people–Thirsty Suitors encourages you to anger, shock, impress, flirt with, and break the hearts of your “enemies” to expose their weaknesses with special moves, all set to quick-time events for maximum damage. You level up and unlock new abilities. But they soon become dull affairs–you find a weakness, exploit it until you run out of willpower (Thirsty Suitors’ take on MP), recharge your willpower with attacks, occasionally heal with items, rinse, repeat, and move on.
Yet this occasionally tiring melee function is there to develop its story–Thirsty Suitors serves to tell narratives while keeping you busy and engaged through other means. Battles are just a gamification of difficult conversations; you uncover emotional storylines by “attacking” your adversaries.
Cooking is much the same, albeit being a way to “fight” with your family, as you try to match the exacting standards of your domineering Indian mother, or bond with your doting Sri Lankan father. Quick-time events see you create dishes as if you’re in Cirque du Soleil, extravagantly pirouetting while stirring a saucepan, catching knives in mid-air, and even making a dance out of salt shaking. Thirsty Suitors overdoes style and panache to such a stupidly funny degree that you’re almost disappointed when it wastes the tiniest opportunity to show off.
Speaking of your dad Arvind, he’s possibly the most adorable game character in 2023. His role, caught between undying love for both his bickering daughters and his overbearing wife, is written with such heart and depth and matched to perfection with excellent voice acting from Kamal Khan. Arvind is emblematic of the game’s emotional heft, and there’s every reason Khan deserves a nomination or two for best supporting actor.
To give any more away about Thirsty Suitors would do it a disservice–it’s a stunning indie tale with excellent writing, fully-formed characters, heaps of stupidity, and almost too much relatability. There’s nothing like it, and although there’s seemingly no scope for a sequel–even if it ends all too abruptly–there are few games you’ll come away from with such a feeling of fulfillment.
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