The Rise of the Golden Idol review: "Finding new ways to stretch your little gray cells"

2024-11-11

GamesRadar+ VerdictThe Rise of the Golden Idol wonderfully evolves on the original with some truly devious cases that empower you to feel like a genius as you piece everything together and read between the lines. Loads of details make this best played with a notebook to hand, each case stretching you to think in genuinely fresh directions.Pros+Evolves on the first game while feeling standalone+Gorgeous artwork that’s important to each mystery+Simply some of the best mystery solving there isCons-Margin of error can vary in later cases-Pop-up boxes can overwhelm-Solutions sometimes a bit picky

GamesRadar+ Verdict

The Rise of the Golden Idol wonderfully evolves on the original with some truly devious cases that empower you to feel like a genius as you piece everything together and read between the lines. Loads of details make this best played with a notebook to hand, each case stretching you to think in genuinely fresh directions.

Pros+Evolves on the first game while feeling standalone+Gorgeous artwork that’s important to each mystery+Simply some of the best mystery solving there is

Evolves on the first game while feeling standalone

Gorgeous artwork that’s important to each mystery

Simply some of the best mystery solving there is

Cons-Margin of error can vary in later cases-Pop-up boxes can overwhelm-Solutions sometimes a bit picky

Margin of error can vary in later cases

Pop-up boxes can overwhelm

Solutions sometimes a bit picky

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A picture can paint a thousand words, but what if you only needed a few correct ones? That’s the concept behind both the original The Case of the Golden Idol, and this new standalone sequel, The Rise of the Golden Idol. Presented with moments of disaster frozen in time, it’s up to you to deduce what’s happening, and what led to the moment in question.

Plenty of these spots will cause a pop-up box to appear for a close-up of the person or place you’re taking a look at. Any relevant keywords among them will also be highlighted. Whereas in the last game you had to manually click to collect these individually and then rearrange them at the bottom of the screen, they’re now automatically all scooped up in one big satisfying go and deposited into a discrete words folder. Likewise, they can be organized with the touch of a button. It’s a great solution that moves The Rise of the Golden Idol firmly away from being a pixel hunt, and instead allows these mysteries to be much more visual, and to focus on the good stuff: actually puzzling out what happened.

The name game

(Image credit: Color Gray Games, Playstack)

An apartment building. inThe Rise of the Golden Idol, with a cut-in showing a man in a laundry room

Fast factsRelease date:November 12, 2024Platform(s):PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, SwitchDeveloper:Color Gray GamesPublisher:Playstack

Fast facts

Release date:November 12, 2024Platform(s):PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, SwitchDeveloper:Color Gray GamesPublisher:Playstack

Once the other cards are locked in and correct, you can even drag words from those cards onto the Events one if it’s easier to see a character portrait as you plonk their names down next to the dastardly deeds you’ve deduced. These Events cards offer plenty of connecting words to prompt you to find the correct solution, but later on, there area lotof gaps to fill. Splitting Events into two solution cards can often be a blessing for keeping everything organized. Even so, it does mean that in later cases with lots going on, managing the pop-up boxes for all the solution cards can be a bit overwhelming, even with a button that can minimize them all in one go.

(Image credit: Color Gray Games, Playstack)

An Events solution card in The Rise of the Golden Idol showing a screen with words and another screen with colour-coded blanks

For all solution cards, though, there’s a saving grace should you be almost on the way to solving them: if you only have two or fewer entries wrong, it’ll let you know that’s the case. It’s a neat way to get you to rethink just enough to prompt you towards an epiphany of your own without feeling too stumped. The way having numerous solution cards essentially gives you multiple points where you can be assured of certain facts helps you keep things straight as well.

Case closed?

(Image credit: Color Gray Games, Playstack)

A talent show in The Rise of the Golden Idol, a ballerina is lunging for a man while claiming the show has been rigged

Earlier investigations

(Image credit: Color Gray Games, Playstack)

A man is on fire in The Case of the Golden Idol. Two men are chocked by this, while another seems composed.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is always finding new ways to stretch your little gray cells, making almost every case here feel more distinct than its predecessor’s, creating the wonderful sense that rather than each case getting progressively trickier (though many do), they’re instead going wider, making you think in new ways. One has you matching similar looking models based on their call sheets. Another has you matching construction workers to the cabs in their vehicles. There’s even one case that’s almost entirely focused on you watching interpretative dance and pouring over each frame of the video.

Often just as important as keywords are those little details. What objects might one person have on their person to tie them to another location? What does the choice of weapon say about a person? Just how can you figure out who interacted with a bunny most recently? There’s so much to keep track of, from dates to names to relationships, that I’d advise having a notebook to hand, and probably a camera too. Some documents can be a bit dense, or make more sense when immediately compared to another. It’s a shame The Rise of the Golden Idol itself doesn’t have a system for better keeping track of these elements, as they’re more important than ever here compared to the last game.

Still, there are plenty of threads thatdotie everything together in The Rise of the Golden Idol, and the way it approaches chapters helps cement that better here than in its predecessor. There’s a grander conspiracy at large (which may or may not tie into the titular artifact), and each chapter spans multiple cases, often three or four, that tie together to fill in the blanks of this larger scheme. Taking place over different time periods, and even figuring outwhena case occurs can be important to get right. Fans of the first game will love the way this takes and runs with the larger ideas on display there, but evolves them in fresh directions rather than feeling like a redo in a new setting.

(Image credit: Color Gray Games, Playstack)

A man is on fire in a lab in The Rise of the Golden Idol. A solution card asking the player to match names and fingerprints is displayed

“Rather than each case getting progressively trickier, they instead make you think in new ways.”

After each case has been completed, you unlock a chapter-specific piece of evidence that appears alongside the hub screen for that chapter – telephone call recordings, threatening letters, and the like. The first completed case also unveils solution cards that apply to the overall chapter. Often larger and more complicated than an individual case’s solution cards, portions of this are revealed after each case, meaning you can start to get ideas down early and clean them up as you go.

Able to navigate between prior chapters and cases at any time from the menu, the further you get the more you’ll find yourself using that as a way to double check prior information. The Rise of the Golden Idol is all about these connections, and having you lay down your own stepping stones on a path towards dreadful revelations. There’s always little details in previous cases that can help inform later ones, and a greater emphasis on collecting those together for the chapter solution cards really capitalizes on that feeling.

While you might not always crack the case on the first attempt, The Rise of the Golden Idol does a great job with empowering you to noodle around and uncover the truth a little at a time, prompting you to read between the lines. At multiple points I felt my stomach drop as I realized my far simpler initial reaction to a case was something of a red herring, and the truth was something much darker and nastier. “Oh but what if…” I’d exclaim, hesitantly dragging in the new words to the solution card. A dinging noise rings out and the card reads “Everything is correct” but all I can say is “Oh no…”, aghast at what it all means. The plot thickens.

Disclaimer

Looking for more head-scratchers? Take a look at ourbest puzzle gamesfor more. Want to collect words but shoot them at other people instead of dragging and dropping? OurGreat God Grove reviewmay be for you.

CATEGORIESPS5Nintendo SwitchPC GamingXbox Series XPlatformsPlayStationNintendoXbox

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GamesRadar+ Verdict

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Case closed?

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