Dystopian trends are in right now, and while most are depressing and purposefully ugly (in a pretty neon way), Sunday Gold bucks that trend with a grimy art style that is enchanting. Set in the year 2070, probably 40 years after Charles has set fire to the place, London is at the height of economic disparity and a technological boom. Not drenched in neon but certainly soaked in the blood and the general violence of a crime caper full of cybernetic dogs, hired guns, and heist motifs. If you can’t tell by now, I quite like the style and setting of this stylized party-focused turn-based tactics, puzzle, point-and-click, RPG out of the gate.

Sunday Gold set itself apart from everything else I get emails about by being stylized and cast in a place we haven’t regularly seen in many games until recently. Instantly the comparisons to 2019 smash-hit Disco Elysium presumably comes to mind, and I could see that, though I believe many will be quick to say it is a derivative. With the cast of three leads: Frank, Sally, and Gavin, you’re launched into a short series of missions to either get back at or to naturally attack the demagogue of London’s crime syndicate, Kenny Hogan, as he’s propped up on above ground cyber-dog fighting.

One thing that stands out, aside from the art style, is that each character does feel fully formed from the outset. It is a trait Russell T Davies has too, but as soon as someone walks into the room, you know who they are and what their goals are. From the word go, Frank, Sally, and Gavin are pitch-perfect in how each of them play and come across. Particularly selling this is the composure effect, an in-world way of debuffing each character and showcasing how they will personally react to situations. For example, Gavin is extremely freaked out by dead bodies, and given there is a morgue scene, I think you can see where that goes.

Not that I’m going to continually shower Sunday Gold in praise or pints of bitter, as I have a rather significant problem with those characters. I’ll be the first to praise any RPG-style game that features voice acting and other more dyslexic-friendly options. Nonetheless, some of those heavily put-on accents matched with the writing that is best described as a tribute to cockney than actually being as such makes quite a few moments unbearable to listen to. The original West-End cast of Les Misérables is more authentically French than some of these accents.

I wish that was the last thing I had to say about the voice acting, but it is not. In fact, it is only adjacent to the voice acting as the overall sound mixing is best described as terribly quiet. Playing with really good noise-canceling headphones and at the game’s full volume at my regular system-wide volume meant I had to strain to hear anything properly. I regularly hear detailed conversations in the distance without difficulty. To play Sunday Gold comfortably I’d had to more than double my regular volume, and even then, the quality of the recording took over being the issue.

I didn’t think much of puzzles either if I’m honest. Some felt downright illogical or directionless, typical of an adventure game, while others felt more natural and melded well with the gameplay. One set of puzzles that I could not wrap my head around was Gavin’s hacking mini-game. Akin to Fallout 4‘s terminal hacking, you punch in some numbers and you get a likeness to the actual code. The problem I have is that this is indicated by three states shown in the UI, either the right number in the correct place, right number and wrong place, or completely wrong, but for love nor money I cannot tell which numbers are supposed to be correct according to this layout.

Typically I’m not one for turn-based combat either, and in fact, I’d say I’ve railed against it in the past. While Sunday Gold doesn’t correct all my points regarding the form of combat, I’d say a large portion of it is stylized enough to make each action impactful but doesn’t take too long in getting to the point. Standard fights hardly last more than a few moments, and I appreciate that. Boss fights, however, are tedious and flavorless. Something only made worse by cartoonish characters and the aforementioned voice-acting repeating lines in an act I’m sure is more torturous than having a cheese grater scraped up a chalkboard.

So after all of that, why do I enjoy Sunday Gold so much? Though I do disagree with the character voice of the cockney attempted here and some of the overall writing, I actually found myself invested in the story. The world, the art, and our three leads pop into life with this simple stylization choice that makes Sunday Gold look and feel so distinctive. Though it is not anywhere close to Disco Elysium, the blood-soaked heists that go wrong and throw Gavin into having regular panic attacks bring so much vibrancy to what would otherwise be a paint-by-numbers turn-based narrative.

More could have been done in terms of either plain accessibility or improvements to the UX (User eXperience). For the mini-games like lock picking (not the Skyrim-style) you can lower the dexterity requirement, allowing a better experience for those that might find it difficult to get keep rotating a mouse. Though that should be applauded, it might be worth noting that this is the only accessibility option outside of volume sliders. Meanwhile, the pause menu may have a save option, but to load a save you need to head back to the main menu. It might not be the biggest trouble in the world right now, but it is nonetheless tiring to have such a simple feature out of easy reach.

Ultimately, Sunday Gold isn’t going to replace the game that it is most probably inspired by, but it certainly does a lot of good while being flawed. Certainly not as deep as the novel disguised as a game, but the style and overall gameplay make Sunday Gold something of its own while showcasing that influence. A disgustingly blood-soaked dystopia and yet beautiful at the same time, Sunday Gold is an enjoyable turn-based/point-and-click highlight of this year that may sadly get lost in the noise of so many releases.

A PC review copy of Sunday Gold was provided by Team17 for this review.

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Sunday Gold

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• I am in love with this art direction.
• Simple yet effective gameplay
• Gameplay and character coming together.

Cons

• Questionable voice acting performance.
• Boss battles are far too long.
• Some almost aimless puzzles.