This second and final entry into the Golden Idol Mysteries saga consistently delighted me in all three new scenarios. Still, the bite-size experience ultimately left a bad taste in my mouth.
The newly introduced daypart mechanic is a standout of this DLC. It's a creative, compelling addition that allows the devs to wring even more intrigue out of each untimely death, with more runway pre and post-mortem to play with. The new setting is visually engaging in the signature Golden Idol art style. Its layout offers clues as to what's really going on in the narrative before you even realize what you're seeing. The new cast of characters is memorable, and each plays nicely off of the returning crew we came to know in the Spider of Lanka.
Overall, this set of mysteries felt easier to solve than the scenarios presented within the base game and Spider of Lanka. This, on its face, is fine—I have no problem with being made to feel smart. The balance of this group of puzzles is what really felt off, though, and that's where The Lemurian Vampire's issues begin.
In my experience, mystery two was significantly trickier to solve than either one or three. The steady increase in difficulty in the base game and consistent challenge of the Spider of Lanka were gone here. Granted, this is a relatively minor criticism, but it's indicative of the carelessness that soured the game in a major way for me.
The most glaring issue that took the shine off the Golden Idol apple for me is that this DLC was released while a catastrophic save function glitch still plagues the Switch version of the game. All progress is wiped whenever a player exits the game on Switch. This led to me (and a cursory Google search indicates many others) spending tedious hours re-clicking hundreds of word bank clues and filling in the puzzles we had already solved just to reclaim our lost progress. I went through this ordeal once already, up to the penultimate puzzle of the base game. Doing it for all base game puzzles plus the Spider of Lanka content would have been a non-starter. Thankfully, at the very least, Color Gray enabled a skip scenario function (activated by pressing minus and Y simultaneously) that allows players to mark mysteries done and move on to a starting spot of their choosing. But I had to dig online to find this. At this point, with two DLCs out on the platform, it's inexcusable that this bug still exists on Switch and that the solve for it isn't made known to the player in-game.
A noticeable number of typos, strange syntax choices, lines that seem unintentionally duplicated, and other textual quirks are also present in The Lemurian Vampire. While distracting, if these were the game's only demerits, I could look past them. But they're not.
I have every confidence that the lessons learned from all the Golden Idol projects so far will empower Color Gray to make The Rise of the Golden Idol a triumphant return to form. Until then, Lemurian Vampire is well worth playing. Just keep your Switch in rest mode.
The newly introduced daypart mechanic is a standout of this DLC. It's a creative, compelling addition that allows the devs to wring even more intrigue out of each untimely death, with more runway pre and post-mortem to play with. The new setting is visually engaging in the signature Golden Idol art style. Its layout offers clues as to what's really going on in the narrative before you even realize what you're seeing. The new cast of characters is memorable, and each plays nicely off of the returning crew we came to know in the Spider of Lanka.
Overall, this set of mysteries felt easier to solve than the scenarios presented within the base game and Spider of Lanka. This, on its face, is fine—I have no problem with being made to feel smart. The balance of this group of puzzles is what really felt off, though, and that's where The Lemurian Vampire's issues begin.
In my experience, mystery two was significantly trickier to solve than either one or three. The steady increase in difficulty in the base game and consistent challenge of the Spider of Lanka were gone here. Granted, this is a relatively minor criticism, but it's indicative of the carelessness that soured the game in a major way for me.
The most glaring issue that took the shine off the Golden Idol apple for me is that this DLC was released while a catastrophic save function glitch still plagues the Switch version of the game. All progress is wiped whenever a player exits the game on Switch. This led to me (and a cursory Google search indicates many others) spending tedious hours re-clicking hundreds of word bank clues and filling in the puzzles we had already solved just to reclaim our lost progress. I went through this ordeal once already, up to the penultimate puzzle of the base game. Doing it for all base game puzzles plus the Spider of Lanka content would have been a non-starter. Thankfully, at the very least, Color Gray enabled a skip scenario function (activated by pressing minus and Y simultaneously) that allows players to mark mysteries done and move on to a starting spot of their choosing. But I had to dig online to find this. At this point, with two DLCs out on the platform, it's inexcusable that this bug still exists on Switch and that the solve for it isn't made known to the player in-game.
A noticeable number of typos, strange syntax choices, lines that seem unintentionally duplicated, and other textual quirks are also present in The Lemurian Vampire. While distracting, if these were the game's only demerits, I could look past them. But they're not.
I have every confidence that the lessons learned from all the Golden Idol projects so far will empower Color Gray to make The Rise of the Golden Idol a triumphant return to form. Until then, Lemurian Vampire is well worth playing. Just keep your Switch in rest mode.