Sunday Gold reminds me of a certain type of modern Image Comics I’d occasionally stumble into nowadays where although the concept is beaming with some creativity and it looks very nice, beneath the surface of it all is a very shallow proof of concept leaving much to be desired.
The initial appeal of the game really only stemmed from how the developers mashed together these different gameplay styles together which just don’t create a satisfying whole. The point-and-click adventure part is just ‘fine’. Some satisfying moments here and there but it’s overwhelmingly a slog with integrating AP Points for every action you can do. The mini-games are also either just too confusingly designed or just too easy to ever feel like rewarding fun. And the turn-based JRPG styled combat looks pretty cool but is presented in such a way to mask how shallow it really is. With a lack of interesting enemy variety, lackluster skill systems and progression, and grinding which isn’t made very viable because of how limited consumable items are and how battle encounters are. The boss fights are also horribly unbalanced with the devs thinking that to make them feel more of a big deal compared to regular enemy encounters are just giving them 4x more health and 3-6 times to attack before it's even your turn to attack. The worst part being how the battle system is very superficial in its depth and effectiveness to make this not even a little easier to slog through. I couldn’t even finish the game because the final boss had two phases which the second phase repackages two of the most annoying bosses with one of them having x8 the health as you struggle to even dwindle his health down bit by bit before you just get completely fucked over by a barrage of status effects and time limits. Apparently this isn’t an impossible feat to overcome since people somehow beat the game despite this but I have to think they got super lucky.
I didn’t even enjoy the story too much to help pick up the rest of the pace here. It’s the whole “we gotta band together to take down the big evil corporation” story but done in the most straightforwardly boring way possible. The characters were too annoying or flat to have any memorable presence in the game. Much like the game overall they suffer from being underwhelmingly baked to reach the potential that’s already there on paper.
Really would only recommend this if it somehow will ever get added on Xbox/PC Game Pass where it sadly feels like it belongs. It needs some serious rebalancing and patching to feel even more enjoyable to play and see where it can shine at times.
The initial appeal of the game really only stemmed from how the developers mashed together these different gameplay styles together which just don’t create a satisfying whole. The point-and-click adventure part is just ‘fine’. Some satisfying moments here and there but it’s overwhelmingly a slog with integrating AP Points for every action you can do. The mini-games are also either just too confusingly designed or just too easy to ever feel like rewarding fun. And the turn-based JRPG styled combat looks pretty cool but is presented in such a way to mask how shallow it really is. With a lack of interesting enemy variety, lackluster skill systems and progression, and grinding which isn’t made very viable because of how limited consumable items are and how battle encounters are. The boss fights are also horribly unbalanced with the devs thinking that to make them feel more of a big deal compared to regular enemy encounters are just giving them 4x more health and 3-6 times to attack before it's even your turn to attack. The worst part being how the battle system is very superficial in its depth and effectiveness to make this not even a little easier to slog through. I couldn’t even finish the game because the final boss had two phases which the second phase repackages two of the most annoying bosses with one of them having x8 the health as you struggle to even dwindle his health down bit by bit before you just get completely fucked over by a barrage of status effects and time limits. Apparently this isn’t an impossible feat to overcome since people somehow beat the game despite this but I have to think they got super lucky.
I didn’t even enjoy the story too much to help pick up the rest of the pace here. It’s the whole “we gotta band together to take down the big evil corporation” story but done in the most straightforwardly boring way possible. The characters were too annoying or flat to have any memorable presence in the game. Much like the game overall they suffer from being underwhelmingly baked to reach the potential that’s already there on paper.
Really would only recommend this if it somehow will ever get added on Xbox/PC Game Pass where it sadly feels like it belongs. It needs some serious rebalancing and patching to feel even more enjoyable to play and see where it can shine at times.