TOHU review: Point-and-Click excellence

Title: TOHU
Developer: Fireart Games
Publishers: The Irregular Corporation
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed on), PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X, PS5
Release Date: January 28, 2021

The last several years have seen a wealth of point-and-click games popping up. While point-and-click games give people an excellent chance to showcase their unique art styles and storytelling, it’s also very easy for these types of games to get lost in the shuffle. TOHU has managed to shine, letting you easily identify it in a crowd with its overall excellence.

TOHU doesn’t have the deepest story in the world, even when compared to titles like Sam and Max, but it does make up for it with almost Studio Ghibli-level whimsy. You play as a Little Girl. No, that’s her name. She will even refer to herself as the Little Girl. The adorable character is light and can jump up on platforms, but if something big gets in her way, clicking on her allows her to transform into her robotic companion Cubus. While Cubus is unable to jump, it can lift just about anything that needs to be moved.

Both of your skills are put to the test as an unknown little fella has teleported to your home and destroyed something called the “Sacred Engine”. From there you must make your way through the various worlds trying to find help and components to repair the machine and discover who did it.

Every world is amazing, too. The characters exist on a cluster of sea creatures floating through space. A vendor shop exists in a floating clamshell. There are planets on things like Jellyfish or large fish. It’s a clever idea that constantly surprises me.

And thank god the art is good because this game can get BUSY. For real, there will be moments where I’ll enter a new area and there will be so many bizarre components in the room I’ll get overwhelmed. I mean, look at everything going on here.

Part of the joy of TOHU, now that I’ve spent time in the world, is that everything here almost makes sense to me. The puzzles involve you making sense of the things around you and, despite not always understanding HOW something happened, you get a weird boost of confidence that it WILL work, just… not WHY.

The puzzles themselves are difficult. However, once you spend enough time examining everything, you’ll usually get some strong “eureka” moments where suddenly everything makes sense. Even things you’ll think are just cute parts of the background might be clues.

Those birds that are just chilling in the background? Surprise, they’re a code. And if you get stuck you can always get a clue. The game and story itself is told through giant speech and thought bubbles that make sure you absolutely know what you’re supposed to be doing though so never worry about getting lost.

If you’ve ever gotten into a point-and-click game at any point in your life or just like puzzle-solving, TOHU is definitely worth checking out. It’s as wonderful as it is bizarre and seeing so many unique designs and concepts are remarkably refreshing in a world dominated by things we’ve seen a million times over.

I didn’t even mention the music. The game recommends headphones and I absolutely agree because the music is composed by Christopher Larkin, the person responsible for composing the Hollow Knight soundtrack. Enough said.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.