4/5 ★ – Fernofai's review of The Case of the Golden Idol.

I played The Case of the Golden Idol after Outer Wilds and Her Story, because it is another rare game, that lets you investigate a case in a very open and self-guided way. You solve a series of cases by examining scenes frozen at the exact moment of a murder or accident. Clues come in the form of words you collect by investigating the scene and use to fill in scrolls, gradually increasing in complexity. Early cases require filling just a few blanks, but later ones demand nearly full rewrites to explain what exactly happened. My enthusiasm grew as the cases became more intricate. The more complex the cases got, the more it became mandatory to eventually understand what happened instead of just filling in the scroll, as deeper context and an overarching narrative emerge across the 12 cases. Beyond the main scrolls describing what happened, there are also optional scrolls for sorting characters' identities or deciphering symbols. These often clarified details and helped manage complexity. However, in later cases, they guided me toward key insights, which reduced the sense of investigative freedom. I tried the demo on Steam before playing the full game via Xbox Game Pass for PC. That's important to mention because the Game Pass version had a different UI, which I didn’t enjoy as much, plus no full-screen or resolution options. Thus, I would recommend getting the Steam version, even if you have Game Pass. Despite minor drawbacks, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Its art and music perfectly complement the mood, and the cases were engaging. However, the final revelation wasn’t as mind-blowing as in Outer Wilds or Her Story, and the investigation felt slightly more guided than in those titles.