The Rise of the Golden Idol Review (PS5) – The Holy Grail?

The Rise of the Golden Idol is the follow-up to 2022’s The Case of the Golden Idol. Since the first game’s release, the point-and-click detective adventure has been creeping onto new platforms like a striped shirt-wearing, duffle bag-holding thief in the night. And like a thief, Golden Idol has stolen many players’ hearts with its hilarious and quirky worldbuilding and red-string corkboard conspiracies across most platforms now.

I’ve wasted no time in previous puzzle game reviews mentioning that I’m not very good at them, and The Rise of the Golden Idol looked just as intimidating as its predecessor. However, everyone loves a tryer and try and (mildly) succeed I did in solving the 20 cases that the game presents to you. As someone who’s jumped right into the sequel without playing the original, you can do the same.

It may even be a better starting point as the allure of what the Golden Idol was and how it presents itself here empowers the mystery of both games. So if you’ve ever fancied yourself the detective type and you want a low-stakes crack at some odd and sometimes baffling cases, then avert your magnifying glass here as I tell you all about The Rise of the Golden Idol.

We’re Going To Need More Red String

The game takes place in the fictional Allied States of Hisperia during the ’70s, 300 years after the events of The Case of the Golden Idol. The titular idol is a myth at this point but it’s still stirring characters to try and wield control of its supposed mysterious powers. As a result of this omnipotent power, murders, heists and even treachery litter the Allied States. You play as an all-seeing anonymous detective where you’ll slowly decipher the plot through the 20 cases that the game presents to you.

Color Gray Games confidently thrusts you into this world with very little context, and as you go further you can start to draw conclusions on the wild conspiracy at hand. Your first case is a body found under a bridge; the industrialist architecture is covered in snow with white specks drifting across the screen. A woman is clutching her chest asking her (maybe) husband what they should do. You’ll have exclamation marks vibrating in front of you to signify it can be inspected as you organically submerse yourself in this painterly diorama of death and detective work.

However, the developers have ingeniously littered red herrings that not only add to the puzzle element of the game but create a bigger foundation for its worldbuilding. The information can often be superfluous in the moment of you solving the case, but halfway through the game, a nugget of info from a previous case may just zap your deducing juices to solve a brain-aching puzzle. Because you’re not given the right answer but every answer, your knowledge of this oddball, sometimes darkly comedic, becomes increasingly encyclopedic. It quickly sank its hooks into me to learn more about the creative world written.

Deduced To Zero

Every character you investigate has personality, every screen you sift through is brimming with detail and every case you come across becomes more elaborate as you get closer to the finish line. There was a plateau in terms of enjoyment I got out of The Rise of the Golden Idol’s story, which also lends itself to the simplistic function of the gameplay, but from the first case to its last there are still legs in its intrigue.

As I mentioned, you’ll click points of interest across the screen in a point-and-click fashion. Clicking on it will open up a menu that may have someone’s possessions like notes, a wallet, some keys all of which could give you a keyword. These keywords will be added to your index and by the end of it you’ll have a jumbled list of names, words and phrases that you’ll need to solve the case.

Solving the case is easier said than done as you’re presented with multiple paragraphs that’ll have words missing in the sentences. You’ll have to match the keywords you’ve found to the corresponding sentence that will summarise the events of the case you’re solving. If you’ve got more than two words in the wrong place then you’ll just know that you’re wrong, the game won’t tell you how either.

If you’ve got one or two out of place then the game will say so, outside of that you only know when you’ve succeeded when the game celebrates the case well solved with some jingles and tick marks like your homework getting an A*. Those sounds and splashes on screen were infectious to achieve alongside peeling back some of the plot.

When The Plot Thickens

To aid yourself in this process there’s also a section where you put names to faces at the crime scene. There are even some contextual puzzles that see you connecting characters to certain items, for example: one case has you solving an incident at an auction with around five or so people in need of being named. One character has a chequebook, one is an actress, another is losing everything they bid for to someone else whilst another makes mention of their home country.

The chequebook owner is easy, their name is on the book when you find it in a locker; it also shows what they’ve bought, so immediately you’ve made a connection. Finding the names and connecting them to the item they won at auction is a portion of the puzzle but requires some rigorous deducing on your part. You start to create theoretical scenarios in your head based on the knowledge you soak up but it’s not just the keywords and connections you make that’ll give you the definitive truth.

On top of that, there’s a plethora of environmental detail that you can’t click on but could give you a trinket of information that may just crack the case wide open—if you have a keen eye. It feels like deciding to read a book and flipping to any page at random, it doesn’t make a lick of sense until you’ve read it and it starts to click into sense.

It speaks to how maniacally elaborate Rise of the Golden Idol is and how deep of an understanding Color Gray Games have of their writing. Characters aren’t funny for funny’s sake, adding to the Monty Python-esque comedy the game has—but rather an extra layer of intricacy and efficiency in detail creating masterful, albeit hard, puzzles.

Just In Case

Adding to the comedy and unique sensibilities the game presents is the art direction. The previous game had a lo-fi pixel art style quality to it but here it appears to be fully hand-painted. Both games have this almost uncanny caricature, accentuating their features to look unhinged. However, Rise’s newer style has made it more colourful and the characters more expressive, making the case solving feel nuanced due to the specificity of each painting.

It does slightly falter sonically as there’s no soundtrack to enhance the atmosphere but rather a collection of ambient sounds to accompany some of the mood the visuals bring. I don’t know if this is to create fewer distractions and keep the player in the zone to think, but the silence was deafening for me. Whilst I’m on some low points some of the menu navigation can be a little finicky.

You can hold the ‘X’ button to drag and drop a word into place easily enough. You can also click a word that’ll link to whatever space is highlighted. However, neither of them work flawlessly as I’ve found my keywords not being recognised in the sentence or wouldn’t click into place at all. A simple solution is to leave the level and come back, which is a really quick fix, but it does add to the slight clunk of playing with a controller on a menu-dense point-and-click game.

Outside of the one minor issue of menu navigation, Rise of the Golden Idol plays seamlessly despite how much digging into pop-up menus and going back and forth through each of them you do. It’s overflowing with random information but the delivery is concise enough to easily match the game’s pacing.

And I Would Have Gotten Away With It All

I beat the game in around 8-10 hours, you could easily be there for longer if you want to read every single document the game can offer. Similarly, you could do this a bit quicker if you’re more in tune with your detective/deducing skills. Either way, Rise of the Golden Idol is challenging in all the right places as it provides complex narratives for you to connect together, a world that is interesting with its Europe-inspired alternate history and hideously sumptuous art style. The gameplay doesn’t necessarily evolve past a certain point which did bring some comfortability and repetitiveness but the game does overstay its welcome.

Whilst this is my first time with the weird wonder that is the Golden Idol, I’m looking forward to checking out the original. Color Gray Games are at a pinnacle when it comes to delightfully difficult detective games and with the series being on more platforms now than ever it’s definitely worth picking up. Just make sure you bring a pen and notepad because you’re going to be drawing more than just conclusions with this excellent entry.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is available now for PlayStation 5 (review platform), PS4 and PC via Steam.

Developers: Color Gray Games

Publisher: Playstack

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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