TOHU

TOHU reminded me of a lot of games that I played as a child, from the point and click design to the mini-game layout, I found myself feeling a bit nostalgic. This game is quite delightful if you don’t mind going at a slower pace and you have the patience to figure out some pretty difficult puzzles. I found myself enjoying the problem-solving aspect and wanting to play more.

TOHU serves up a charming little sci-fi narrative in a lovely cartoon style, but outside of one particularly egregious arcade sequence, its true strength is in its variety of interesting puzzles.

Quality point-and-click puzzle adventuring among impeccable artwork.

It’s not hard to recommend TOHU — if you love busy, hand-drawn environments and puzzles that will really make you rack your brain for solutions, this is absolutely up your alley. It may have elevated my blood pressure for the few hours I spent with it, but I don’t regret the shortening of my lifespan in the slightest. If you gave this short but sweet little gem one glance and immediately thought fondly of Machinarium, I don’t have to tell you twice that TOHU was made for you. Be sure to pick it up on your puzzle platform of choice as soon as possible.

Tohu won surprisingly many awards, but in my opinion its only element that truly deserves praise are the visuals. The game looks great (the hand-drawn environments are wonderful!) but is much to infantile for my taste (especially the dialogues) and not creative enough in the puzzles department, while the awful narrator does a lot to destroy the atmosphere. [04/2021, p.59]