Rainy London serves as a backdrop to a dystopian future, where a trio of highly skilled criminals makes their streets a playground to put all their evil skills into practice. This is the premise of Sunday Gold, an RPG adventure title, with many puzzles and turn-based mechanics when it comes to combat.
After an event that ended with the capture of one of the elements of the old trio, Sally and Frank, they find themselves without ideas and without money to approach the future. Here comes Gavin, the nerd on duty, with a clue that appears to be unattractive at first, but quickly proves to be quite peculiar and dangerous. Although they are a gang of thugs, the main characters have their convictions on the good side of the fence and this being a clue that promises to unravel the danger that is plaguing the city at the moment, they decide to join their forces even knowing little or nothing about this new team member. The mission will thus be to unravel the machiavellian plans of an evil megacorporation and the malevolent billionaire behind it.
The adventure involves exploration and combat against enemies in a turn-based premise. Each action is necessarily associated with the use of “Action Points” which also automatically translates to combat against enemies. Each character has X number of “Action Points” at their disposal and it is possible to manage resources by spreading the actions among the different members. Although, for certain moments it is necessary to use the “key” character to complete the puzzle.
Frank is the person responsible for opening places that are closed with a normal lock, as his finger dexterity is quite advanced and he treats each lock as if it were his friend. Sally, is living proof that muscles are not just for the eyes to see but to help in situations where strength is the real catchword. Finally, Gavin, the service mastermind who is capable of hacking everything that is electronic locks, or pc passwords. An interesting point is that each “special” action is associated with a specific minigame of the character. Get your brains ready because Frank’s mini-games aren’t sweet pears.
There are key moments where combat against enemies is unavoidable, in a Boss Fight situation, which mainly follows the purpose of the story. The other moments of combat against enemies are mainly due to the need to change turns since you can no longer perform actions because you don’t have “Action Points”. In this sense, it is possible to pay attention to the “Alert Meter” present at the top of the screen.
The confrontations themselves essentially translate into strategy mechanics where it is important to understand the different enemies that are faced. Each enemy has a weakness and an attack type it has protection against. In this sense, it is important either to change weapons that present the intended type of attack or to use the abilities related to that. While there isn’t a huge repertoire of weapons, there are small nuances when it comes to the use of various weapons. Each character can only use one firearm and one weapon of melee damage and specific to her abilities. Although not very important, Frank is the only one who, for example, can use a heavier firearm, such as a shotgun or a riffle. On the other hand, Sally is unique in that she can use her fists to deliver punches that promise to deal a lot of damage.
The RPG mechanics are translated into a skill tree, which, although not very extensive, makes it possible to define a skill plan for a better performance in your practice. As you would expect for each chapter completion, encounter against enemies or puzzle solving, a small percentage of experience is added to each character. I didn’t find any efficient way to “grind” or in other words, to get more experience, nor did I feel the need to, except in a period of combat against Bosses that can become somewhat tedious.
In a way, the combats against the enemies are the point that least interested me in the course of the action. Despite having an interesting graphic impact, I didn’t feel great depth of mechanics, often ending up using only the most useful attack skills against enemies. It should be noted that there is a bar affecting the mental form that has a direct impact during periods of combat. Each character has 3 different levels of mental composure, and for each level less, it is possible to fall into a mental state of madness that will increase as the story progresses, or when faced with an enemy attack. To heal these less positive effects, it is necessary to either use skills or even certain items that allow you to regain composure. Also at the end of the chapter, it is possible to recover all the negative states and of course, the life bar.
Sunday Gold tells a somewhat interesting story, where each character presents exquisite voice acting, and interesting puzzles, but it owes some points to a somewhat monotonous combat mechanic and an “Action Points” system that can become tedious and that essentially lead to moments of some frustration.
[This review is based on a retail build of the game for PC provided by team17]
