reescreva este conteúdo com no minimo 1200 caracteres e formate ele para deixar bem apresentável e adicione alguns emojis para deixar mais unico o possivel At a glance, Thirsty Suitors is a game about revenge. Its story follows the recently heartbroken Jala Jayaratne, who returns to her hometown only to be relentlessly attacked by a league of evil exes. But it is also so much more than that. As the story progresses, we come to discover that none of these exes are evil per se, and Jala herself is incredibly fallible. She left scorched earth in all of her previous relationships in Timber Hills, and her only option now is to reconcile and take accountability with each of these exes. Her attempts to make good take the form of turn-based combat built upon RPG progression that has a unique flavor and is fun to engage with. There’s even a surprisingly enjoyable skateboarding mechanic. In so many ways, Thirsty Suitors is unique and creative, but when all is said and done, what makes a lasting impact is a personal, vulnerable, and culturally nuanced tale about making things right.As previously mentioned, you will be fighting each of Jala’s exes throughout the game in turn-based combat, leveling up stats, learning new skills to make fights easier, and using summons that can be unlocked through sidequests or the main story. Each fight is a conversation, a puzzle, and a battle in one where the objective is to discover the weakness of an opponent through a process of trial and error. Once you’ve identified that weakness, you can inflict status ailments or deal additional damage to chip away at their health. The RPG mechanics and the process of exploring and exploiting weakness are presented as a back-and-forth between Jala and her interlocutor where old wounds are reopened and issues are hashed out until the dynamic between them evolves or resolves. This system manages to work in the foundational element of RPGs but cleverly rethinks it to also give it narrative weight. The trial and error process is one of picking dialogue options, and these can have an impact beyond the battle too. Make the right decisions and you’ll come up with a plan that’ll pinpoint the enemies’ weaknesses through taunts, so you can easily trounce them with the use of the correct skills.Jala’s initial ambition and awareness of her wrongdoings are unique for the main character of an RPG, let alone one spearheaded by a queer South Asian woman. Jala conveys her self-awareness by internalizing that she is the one at fault in all of her previous relationships, which manifests in the game as a banter between herself and a narrator. The narrator is a voice she has conjured up that is reminiscent of her sister, Aruni, in looks, voice, and tone. This, it turns out, is also a way for Jala to grapple with her strained relationship with her sister while still having guidance internally. The dialogue between them had me laughing throughout the game’s 17-hour runtime. The snide, direct, and reassuring nature of this narrator figure allows Jala to convey her struggles effectively by presenting these challenges to another entity in a candid way. The Narrator offers the guidance she seeks throughout the game even though her actual sister avoids confronting Jala. Each of Jala’s exes also has a coping mechanism such as Irfan and what other characters call his “obsession with his cat” to the point of carrying his pet around wherever he goes.Conversations with other characters, like family members or exes, give you different dialogue choices that will determine Jala’s stats and build, and will shape how a given narrative moment plays out. The three builds, or paths, available to the player are The Heartbreaker, The Star, and The Bohemian. Each of these determines whether Jala has increased attack rank, hit points, or Will Power (the latter is expended to use Taunts or Skills in combat).Battles most commonly play out against the random suitors that Jala’s patti (grandmother) has sent to “win her love.” You can choose to start these battles as often or as little as you like by interacting with “Grift or Gift?” boxes. Grifts will be fights and gifts will earn you in-game currency without having to fight any suitors. The outcome of interacting with these “Grift or Gift?” boxes is randomized to maintain an element of surprise. It is still beneficial to have full health and/or Will Power before interacting with these boxes, however, since a battle may occur you’ll want to be prepared.Thirsty Suitor’s battle system can be daunting at first, as it delivers a lot of information about its mechanics up front and expects you to retain it after the first fight, but there is a handy “Thirstpedia” in the options menu that is a helpful guide that will break down how the main combat mechanics work and the different ways to use them to Jala’s advantage. While the mechanics do eventually click into place, getting there may require referencing this guide instead of relying solely on the game’s brief tutorial.Like many turn-based RPGs, combat is built on a system of weaknesses. In Thirsty Suitors, most weaknesses are determined by Mood, of which there are five: Thirsty, Raging, Shocking, Impressive, and Heartless. Different Taunts are used to figure out the Mood most effective to use on an enemy. If your chosen Taunt is effective on the enemy, it will inflict status effects on the opponent and earn you an extra turn that can be used to inflict Taunts on other enemies or land a powerful Skill on your now weakened target. It’s a familiar but satisfying system of establishing openings, exploiting them, and then repeating to build momentum.In your first dozen or so battles, it does feel like a trial and error process to figure out the weaknesses of enemies. In other RPGs such as Persona 3, exploiting a weakness of an enemy type allows the player to retain that information on the specific weakness. But in Thirsty Suitors, this is not preserved since weaknesses are not as consistent from battle to battle. To decipher weaknesses, the dialogue from the initial battle introductions can help. For example, an enemy might start their battle introduction by pushing Jala for marriage. This little hint can serve as a clue to zero in on using a Thirsty or a Heartless Taunt with success. Almost all of the time these hints of enemy weaknesses are present. They are subtle, but a good way to provide a little assistance, and over time it becomes much easier to interpret how the dialogue is guiding you in battle. It is satisfying each time to exploit a weakness and receive additional turns to continue taunting other enemies or unleash powerful skills. I thoroughly enjoyed that I could have that “aha!” moment and gain the upper hand or turn the tables as soon as I figured out an enemy’s weakness.When using these Taunts (or Skills), you will have to coordinate your button presses or directional inputs, inflicting the associated Mood for additional turns. In the same respect, timing button presses and directional inputs when your opponent is attacking allow you to mitigate damage from oncoming enemy attacks or Taunts. Thankfully, players can easily turn on options that automatically complete the onscreen prompts. It can get hectic when fighting enemies, so having these options readily available allows freedom to not worry about missing exact timings and helps with accessibility for those who need it. Altogether, Thirsty Suitor’s combat is very gratifying, especially when you manage to use the correct Taunt on an enemy. It feels great to properly use the game’s Mood system to your advantage and emerge victorious from a battle, especially when you manage to do it completely unscathed. Gameplay and narrative weight for dialogue choices come in the form of how much HP or WP is increased for the next bout. Certain plot points or conversations between characters can evolve and change depending on your choices as well.Battles are zany, charming, and endearing, and the different taunts and skills are a big part of that too. I couldn’t help but smile at how absurd the combat can become by playfully poking at South Asian tropes, but also subverting them using the game’s RPG mechanics. Calling your own mother as a summon in these psychological battles to deal massive damage with her slipper…
