The Rise of the Golden Idol

Playing through the first couple cases, I felt skeptical about this sequel living up to the previous entry. The modern time period was a little jarring but nothing I wasn't ready for after reading the store page blurb. As expected, they leaned on a lot of 70's technology to present mysteries (e.g. infrastructure, lights, TV) and I had no real issues with any of them, they were all fun to solve. By the end of the game I found most of my fears to be unfounded, as the game had much to offer in the way of narrative and case solving. I read the negative reviews and my initial knee jerk reaction to a lot of the comments was "skill issue", and that will probably always be in the back of my mind. But in the interest of being fair, I felt a lot of the problems the other players seem to encounter boils down to either "This does not flow the same way as it would in the Case of the Golden Idol" or "This feature does not help my case solving methodology" to which I can understand somewhat. All I can retort to this sentiment is that we don't play these detective puzzles for them to adapt to us, we play them to solve them, and the game does extremely well in helping you solve it. The comments I could never agree with is "difficult for difficulty's sake" or "trial and error cases". This game is not without fault though, and I have qualms of my own that I have not seen any other review mention in specific. Once you reach the 80-90% mark of the game, you're probably already in a place where you already understand the mystery/narrative and you understand where it is heading. Due to that feeling of accomplishment and finality, the cases at this point of the game can't help but feel like filler or relatively uninteresting puzzles. The case I want to specifically mention is the shipyard case. Interesting and lots of exposition to be had, but the case was mostly name matching. The first game does have this issue as well, not the name matching as much but the momentary dip in quality right before the few final cases, which were great. I have yet to play the DLC but I am expecting the same level of quality. TL;DR: Great sequel, just learn to be comfortable with the changes from the previous entry and the new features.

Good Sequel for everyone who played the first one. For everyone else: Go and play the first one. It's better in every in every way. The visual style is better. The puzzles are better, The interface is better. And the story is better. While that sounds negative, it's only because the first part set the bar impossibly high.

This game is so good that I sincerely wish I could induce selective amnesia to play it new again.

The first game was amazing and this outdoes it in every way. There is loads of content with amazing art style and music. Puzzles are tuned very well although a few are a little obtuse. Can’t go wrong with this one.

these puzzles are absolutely amazing. every single one of these was fun to figure out. the best thing is the variety, there are so many different things you have to think about and analyze, deciphering codes, determining who is lying, finding the names of BIRDS. what order did the auction go in and who bought what? who activated the idol and how? why is there an empty house with cryptic messages on the phone? there is mystery in each case that drives me to solve EVERYTHING. i couldn't understand much that was happening in the story (unlike golden idol 1) because there were so many moving pieces, but i don't care, the puzzles are just that GOOD.

Insanely good game. If I could forget it and replay it from scratch, I would.

This game definitely has the best and perfectly logical plot twists. This is the second game in the series and I feel it's getting too easy. The DLCs are harder and more fun to play so make sure you buy the season pass. I just played The Roottrees Are Dead (which is also a very good puzzle game), personally I think Golden Idol is more fun as you not only read text but use everything in the scene to solve your case

Absolutely in love with these puzzles! They're all incredibly varied, whimsical, and fun! I fell so in love with the first game that I happily bought this one and the season pass day one and I don't regret it a bit! The solutions are usually never too obscure and they're very good about giving you plenty of clues to lead you in the right direction. Each level takes about about 20 minutes to an hour or so to play through, so it's easy to jump in and out at your leisure. I also adore the art. Each character is drawn with a different style that reflects their personality. Seriously, big props to the artists. The soundtrack's incredible too, especially in the DLC episodes. I truly have very few negative things to say about this game. It's great fun to stream over discord with some friends so you can put your heads together and come up with a bunch of wild theories (Don't worry, devs. I got my friends to buy the game).

Some aspects of it are better than the first game and some are not. If you liked the first game you can definitely have a good time with this one as well. For me the story felt more confusing than the first one but I liked that this game tries to shake up the "name, summary, extra" formular a bit more. I really really liked the pixel look from the first one and didn't like this look at all when I saw it the first time, but it was fine. Felt a bit rough at the edges but good enough to not distract me and at the end I kinda enjoyed the look (for me the first one is still nicer) Haven't played the DLCs yet but I definitely will.

Like the first game, a great detective-puzzle game to play with a friend over shared screen. 10/10

All the fun of the first game, but with a bit more polish. Makes you feel big brained. Highly recommended.

Every time I daydream about playing a video game, it's invariably Golden Idol. I love both installments and all the DLC. The level design has remained top notch, the writing has evolved and the characters truly feel unique - the gameplay was of the same exceedingly good standard, and everything else improved. My only minor gripe is that I loved the very old-school feeling of the first game's UI, though admittedly the new one is much more flexible and user-friendly. Can't wait for the rest of the DLCs!

Still an amazing puzzle game and a worthy sequel to [i] The case of the Golden Idol [/i]. This entry continues the unique style of the original — an engaging story full of humor and surprises, characters with strong personalities, and cleverly designed puzzles. But it doesn't just repeat the formula. The puzzles in this game come in a wider variety of formats — not just gap-filling text, but also those involving images, charts, and even videos. These new elements, in my opinion, make the game more challenging, but never boring. On the contrary, they kept me fully engaged throughout. The story’s ending still carries that signature sense of absurdity — and I really like it. Highly recommend this game to fans of the series.

Such a great follow-up to the first game. If you are at all interested in the puzzle-deduction genre, this is a must buy.

I greatly recommend The Rise of the Golden Idol (and its' predecessor). Phenomenal puzzle games with an amazing story, world, and music.

Definitely recommend. I thought it was as good as the first game, if not a little better. I agree with some other reviews that it was slightly padded as not all of the investigating was directly relevant to the story, but I forgive this because the good mysteries were REALLY good. This is perhaps the only game I have ever played where it sometimes feels like you are really investigating a crime. The jailbreak and apartment scenarios were both fantastic for this. The ending was a little anti-climactic, but there were enough twists and turns throughout the story to make up for it.

I love this game. It has clever and interesting puzzles, and massive amounts of character.

Superbly crafted detective/mystery game, which gives just enough clues for the observant to solve its mysteries as it elicits that warm, fuzzy feeling of competence in its players. Delightfully ugly artstyle and intruiging plot

Moving from the first game immediately to this, I didn't like the interface at all at first. In fact I quitted after the first scene. However there are really limited choices with detective games for macbook users so I came back to continue and this time I couldn't stop until I finished the game (not like non-stop but still I played as frequently as possible). I think the consoles were designed like that because of the complexity of the scene and evidence this time and I totally understand why some other players think that the story-telling is not as compelling and narrative are scattered because of the scaling up. But it is non-linear and there's still depth and compelling driving force behind the characters. I would love to see a third sequel that is set in the 21st century if they plan to make a new one. Maybe it will have things to do with AI? XD

Wayyyy better than the first game and that one was a masterpiece, enjoyed every second.

Rise of the Golden Idol felt like a PG13-fied version of Case of the Golden Idol, especially in the writing to my immense disappointment. You would think setting the game far in the future would have grander delusions for a finale than just [spoiler] a bloody Superbowl ad.[/spoiler] Gone are the conspiracies, betrayals, murders and tension in the first game, replaced by "plot-moving" decisions of characters like Nathan. The puzzle varieties have increased but there were more cases that's dull, in both puzzles and narrative relevance. Especially [spoiler]the part where Tim writes about committing adultery in his damned schedule. Smart.[/spoiler] I would get it if you really like Case and are willing to get maybe 60% max of that enjoyment from this game.

Overall, pretty disappointing. I'm a big fan of the original, and so much of what works in the original is over complicated in the sequel. Not a big fan of the art style change but I would've gotten over it if the scenes/puzzles were engaging. Unfortunately it just felt like this game was padded with insignificant scenes for more play time. Twice the length of the original with half as much fun. Not totally surprised with this result given how short the dev cycle was, this thing seemed to be pushed out with much less regard for the player than the original. Sad to say but this is essentially a waste of time in the state it's in. If half of it was cut, it would at least have wasted less of my time and I would feel significantly less salty about it. There are a few good scenes with unique new ideas, so it's not a total loss, but on the whole I would not recommend it to anyone, especially fans of the original.

After falling instantly in love with the first game and DLC, I originally left a negative review for this installment. I have since changed my mind - though not without reservations. In the original Case Of The Golden Idol, you had to manually click on each word to collect it (items were sort of an exception but you were still reading the relevant word). Which meant you had invariably SEEN and READ every word added to your inventory. I felt like the detective, and the inventory of words merely reflected my thoroughness. It was a very tight, enjoyable gameplay loop. In this sequel, the system has been streamlined such that simply clicking on a character to view what they are saying and carrying can add several - even a dozen or more - words to your inventory before you have even read them. This saves some clicking and, crucially, allows for the introduction of words - some speculative - not physically present in the dialogue or clues. After playing for longer, I can understand why the developers did this. It's limiting, having to place every clue and red-herring as a physical word in the scene, and adding more words to the inventory creates more possibilities that I, the player, have to eliminate by observation and deduction. However, this does mean that you have to change the way you play if you're going to enjoy the experience. In the original, I was able to focus entirely on the scenes and clues. In the sequel, you have to consciously study the list of words generated by inspecting an item or person as well as reading the notes/speech in situ. If you don't, you'll repeatedly find a disconnect between the contents of your inventory and your understanding of events. The most annoying example of this is in the 'menu' part of the game (chapter select in the original). Here, extra items show up between chapters, but the words they generate get added to your inventory EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T LOOKED AT THEM. After struggling to enjoy chapter 1 (because I was playing it like the original), I ended up brute-forcing the solution to part of the story (assuming the words I was using were ones I must have not spotted along the way) only to discover afterwards that I had never clicked on the thing that gave me those words. Hence the original negative review. After playing much of Chapter 2, I decided that the trade-off was just about worth it. Rise of the Golden Idol doesn't have the same intuitive, immersive, super-tight, super-direct investigative loop as the original. You have to exercise discipline in monitoring the accumulation of words in your inventory rather than it being an extension of your own brain. BUT the payoff from taking that psychological step back is that the inventory and scene together offer more deductive depth. And the story is great as always. So - recommended, with the caveat that it won't be as fun as the original if you try to play it LIKE the original.

An amazing sequel. The Rise's story isn't quite as compelling as Case's story but still good and the mysteries are just as good as Case. The two DLC are both excellent and I have no doubt the other two will be just as good.

Loved the first one so much and played all the DLCs. This one doesn't really do it for me

I liked the new style the further I played. The story was solid with a payoff that I will definitely think about for a long time.

artwork and atmosphere here are superb and even better than the first one. however, personal opinion: i find this game too difficult. and it seems to be difficult just for difficults sake. the answers often times arent really realistic and really hard to just come up with (although they might be logical in the context of the evidence presented). i'd rather not play it at all than having to use guides all the time.

Sit, relax, think, dont look guide hints.

I adore this style of detective/puzzle game

A worthy successor to Case of the Golden Idol.

Satisfyingly smooth sleuthing.

My brain hurts and i love it

I love the Golden Idol!!!

An amazing detective game

Good game

Super fun!

Middling experience.

Brilliant

hmmmm

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