TOHU reviews

Tohu is a 2021 point-and-click adventure game, clearly inspired by the Amanita school of adventure games (Samorost, Botanicula, Machinarium) – there is even an achievement for “clicking on amanitas two times”. If you do not know what that means: Tohu has little written text and only a few voice overs, great art, overwhelmingly cute characters with vibrant animations and sound, and puzzles which work your brain a little, but are not too hard. It is also a somewhat short game – it took me a little under 5 hours to finish it, no guides nor hints. The protagonist (The Girl) is incredibly cute, in huge part due to the sound design. She is not voiced at all, but she “oooohs” and “aaaaahs”, she giggles happily when she accomplished something, and shakes her head “Hn-hn” when you are using the wrong item in the wrong place. Same goes for her alter-ego Cubus, with a slightly metallic voice, but still a lot cuter than, say, Bender. Graphically, Tohu is gorgeous. Most screens are packed with lively details, and the animations are all delightful. The Girl leaps around with joy, and I love the way Cubus the robot joins his legs in a loop to roll down a set of stairs (!). There are whimsical creatures moving around (some of them are collectibles, if you care about such things), but a few clicks and you can tell what is usable and what is just decoration, no pixel hunting required. The puzzles aren’t all standard. You don’t just reason the solutions as soon as you see the environment – much of the game is exploratory, that is, you must first click random items to see what they might do (usually rewarded with cute animations). There was this one puzzle which required correct character positioning on the screen, but nothing that would make you scream at angry goats. You are usually limited to 2 or 3 screens of content anyway, and 2 or 3 items in your inventory, so a little curiosity will get you to the solution even when it’s not obvious at first. That said, a few of the later puzzles were trite (I played many hidden object games, I know trite when I see it). And there was one sort-of-whack-a-mole puzzle that required timing in your clicks… I imagine some classic adventure players might hate this, but I myself thought it was a nice change of pace, and not too hard at all. Last but not least, the music in Tohu is very very good. It is done by Cristopher Larkin, and, though it is not as memorable as what he has done in Hollow Knight, you can definitely hear his fingerprints. But Tohu is a lot lighter of course, so the soundtrack fits this mood. Score: 79/100.