A review code for this game was provided by Playstack
When I played Case of the Golden Idol (the first game in this series) earlier this year, I was beyond impressed in a myriad of ways. I came into that game craving a more authentic detective experience, and it delivered that in spades. But where the game ended up really wowing me was with a story that got increasingly fascinating all the way up to an epic finale.
Thus, when I started gearing up for the sequel, Rise of the Golden Idol, my expectations suddenly shifted. Yes, I was eager for another detective experience that doesn’t have the constant handholding that most modern games provide. But now I was equally excited for what Color Gray Games would come up with for their story.
In most ways, Color Gray Games managed to live up to my expectations. There are a lot of smart tweaks to the formula that make this an even more satisfying experience to play than the first game. Unfortunately, the story here doesn’t hit quite as hard as that game, however. This leads Rise of the Golden Idol roughly back to where the first game was from a quality perspective for me. That is a fantastic thing, as that game ruled, but I admittedly was hoping for it to reach a level or two above that.
Gameplay > Graphics… But Graphics Can Enhance Gameplay #HotTakes
Rise of the Golden Idol is a point and click detective game. You start on a mostly static screen in each case, and your job is to figure out exactly what happened. After clicking through all the evidence on the screen and unlocking various words that you can use, your goal is to fill in a “mad libs” type puzzle that describes what happened in detail. You use a mix of evidence, like notes, dialogue, and visual cues, to figure everything out.
The first game took place during an alternate version of the 1700s. This game now goes all the way to an alternate version of the 1970s. With that leap forward in time, Rise of the Golden Idol also leaps forward in several important ways with its gameplay.
First off, there is a pretty substantial graphic upgrade in this game. The visuals in Rise of the Golden Idol are significantly cleaner and better-looking than Case of the Golden Idol while retaining the same distinct art style. There is a lot more detail in the characters, and while you are mostly clicking through still frames, there are occasional animations that are much better than any in the first game as well. Usually, this would be cool but not the biggest deal for me, but the upgrade actually significantly improves the gameplay, too.
The Golden Idol games have a lot of text evidence, but they also thrive off subtle visual clues. There are visual clues like a wrist that looks red or facial marks to try and identify someone in almost every case. This is all significantly easier to pick up on than the first game. The better animations are also excellent, and the game actually builds an entire case around this improvement. A few of the animations actually confused me at times in Case of the Golden Idol. This is not the case in Rise of the Golden Idol, and the game is significantly better for it.
The other biggest leap forward was the inclusion of extra puzzles at the end of each chapter. Rise of the Golden Idol is split up into five different chapters, and while all of the events are connected in some way, each chapter is its own arc of sorts. The game will hint at a big revelation during all of the cases, but these end of chapter cases are when you put it all together. A lot of the biggest “oh shit!” moments in the game come when working on them. These puzzles confirm those big revelations and push you smartly towards realizing them. I really loved these both as puzzles and as an extra storytelling device.
The UI is also a bit cleaner and has a few nice quality of life upgrades. I still think a few more small tweaks could be made there. I’d love to have a way to “pin” certain evidence so it’s easy to access whenever I want. There are a few times when I forgot exactly where an important document was, and I had to click all through the case to find it again, but these are rare situations. As is pretty inevitable, there are also a couple of situations in some of the tougher puzzles where you have a lot of words to use, and a few words are similar enough where it can be a bit annoying to figure out which word is the exact one that is needed to solve the case. Fortunately, these instances aren’t common, and I actually think it’s moderately impressive that I didn’t run into these issues more often. Luckily, in the moments where I was stumped, the game’s eerie but contemplative music is pitch perfect as I sat there thinking my very hardest. It sets the tone wonderfully.
While the improvements are great, if you played the first game, you can still mostly expect the same here. Rise of the Golden Idol has a lot of clever detective gameplay that doesn’t hold your hand but also provides just enough hints to usually get you to the finish line without too much frustration. The game tells you if you have 2 or fewer words incorrect when you fill in its puzzles, so if you get to that point, it’s usually pretty easy to do some trial and error to finish things out. Rise of the Golden Idol is one of the best games out there at making you feel smart.
It’d Be More Fun With A Bit More Death
As great as the gameplay is in the Golden Idol games, the secret sauce for them is a really interesting connected story. Each case has its own ties to the main story, even if it doesn’t always seem like it off the bat, and much like in individual cases, it’s fun to slowly piece together everything that is going on in the overall narrative.
Rise of the Golden Idol has a very strong story, but I did feel like it was a bit of a step down from the first game. I think my biggest problem with the story, and by extension, a few of the cases, is that it just isn’t as consistently intense as the first game was. In Case of the Golden Idol, every case had some sort of murder or death attached to it. This kept the stakes high throughout every moment of the story, as death and murder are kind of a big deal.
Rise of the Golden Idol takes a significantly more measured approach to its stories and cases. There are a lot more “set up” type cases, or cases that at least seem pretty low stakes upon initially playing. You will be doing things like figuring out why someone won at a talent show, why a fire accidentally got set at a laboratory, and why a bird bath got destroyed near a lab. Each of these cases do have some important main plot revelations later on, but I didn’t feel like the plot was quite as gripping all of the time, because of how often you spend in seemingly lower stakes cases.
Luckily, things still come together in some great ways. There are many surprising revelations and a story that feels like a near-modern day detective story mixed with a few intriguing sci-fi twists. As I said before, there are multiple fun “Oh shit” moments that had me fired up at both the plot revelation, and the fact that I was able to figure out that revelation like a detective rather than it being handed to me.
While the plot wraps up in a decent way, I was a little disappointed that there were a few fairly big loose ends at the end. I felt like the plot both set up a few DLCs down the line, as well as a bigger sequel later on. In some ways, that excites me, as I’ve grown to love this series, but this inevitably knocks the story down a few notches in terms of ending satisfaction.
Bring On Golden Idol 3: The Golden Idol Strikes Back
Despite my little qualms, I still had a tremendous time with Rise of the Golden Idol. Much like the first game, this delivers the best detective gameplay of anything I have played on the market. And it does all this without having you walk around in a funny hat. While I wish the stakes felt as consistently high as they did in the first game, there are still tons of tremendous gameplay and story moments strewn throughout this experience. Rise of the Golden Idol confirms that Color Gray Games is a must-play developer for anyone who has any interest in this kind of problem solving experience. I can’t wait for the next one, even if I’m still a bit sour that they pulled some moves to try and make me anticipate that next one even more.
Score: 8.5/10
Big Nerd Gaming 
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