There are, admittedly, some fights you'll be automatically pulled into upon entering a room, but these are all scripted moments within the larger story - usually when you're trying to escape and everything's on red alert anyway. However, whereas Invisible Inc was all about pushing through an office space tile by tile and making calculated decisions on whether to explore certain corridors and risk being discovered, Sunday Gold lets you stroll around its environs as much as you like, robbing it of any tension or time-pressure. Once those action points are exhausted, however, you'll need to end your turn to replenish them, at which point the security level of your environment steps up a notch, a la Invisible Inc, and you may get pulled into one of its turn-based battles if the supposedly patrolling security forces (which are never visible onscreen) start getting too suspicious. There's no denying Sunday Gold's good looks, and its bright, characterful art follows in the same lineage as Disco Elysium. Her minigames involve frantically clicking left and right with your mouse to guide a quivering needle to certain parts of her 'breathing arc', and while they were definitely the mini-game I liked least of the three, I never actually failed any of them outright thanks to the (probably too) generous number of attempts included in each of their respective difficulty modes. Sally's extra brawn, on the other hand, lets her shove, carry or rip objects apart once she's performed some focused breathing exercises. Frank is a dab hand at picking locks, for example, resulting in several, very easy Bethesda-style lockpick mini-games, while Gavin flexes his hacking skills by solving Wordle-style number puzzles. Many actions such as searching drawers, swiping security cards playing answering machine messages can be performed by anyone, but there are some tasks where you'll need to select specific characters. Your party of three all have their own number of action points with which to solve said puzzles, too. They do this by exploring the offices, warehouses and even Hogan's tooled up country pile in classic point and click fashion, solving puzzles and uncovering evidence to expose Hogan's various wrong-doings. Mates and fellow crims Sally, Frank and Gavin are out trying to expose the seedy corporate dealings of Barry Hogan in Sunday Gold, a self-made billionaire whose company may or may not be doing lots of secret Bad Stuff TM in highly suspect underground laboratories on the down low, and whose cybernetic death dog, the titular Sunday Gold, is also raking in mountains of cash on the side because that's what apparently passes for entertainment in 2070 Laaaandan. I think the crux of my frustration stems from Sunday Gold trying to impose its turn-based battling structure on its point and click puzzle sections. There's still much to admire in its stylish visuals and atmospheric music, but I also haven't been this cross playing a video game since Felix The Reaper, and that's saying something. BKOM Studios have tried to fuse one too many things together in Sunday Gold, and the result is a messy, somewhat artificial blend of Deathloop's style, Invisible Inc's tension and a more action-led focus on the cerebral role-playing of Disco Elysium. It's a phrase I often found myself echoing while playing Sunday Gold for review, too, both during its tedious, war of attrition-style turn-based battles, and while trying to figure out some of its more obtuse puzzles. The type who are seemingly resistant to every single weapon type in your arsenal, or who invariably have big, scripted healing sequences just when you're about to nail 'em. It's often uttered by your knuckle-dusting healer Sally, and is invariably followed up by, "You havin' a laugh, mate?" and "Facking hell!" - partly because Sally is from Laaaandan and is thus obligated to speak lik' tha', innit (because how else would you know this is a game set in Laaaandan), but also because the thugs, security guards and cybernetic dogs she's often fighting in this seedy tale of corporate dystopia are some of the most frustrating enemies known to video games. "Oh, come on!" is a phrase you hear a lot in Sunday Gold.
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