You don’t have to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy the unexpected masterpiece that is Tohu. It delivers a simple story with an equally simple gameplay: just point and click to solve the challenging puzzles at your own pace, while admiring the breathtaking scenery.

Despite its narrative leading to little in the way of a noteworthy tale, TOHU manages to gracefully side-step such an omission through wise understanding of its scale. Utilizing such a wild, excessive aesthetic in a way that feels earned, as opposed to unjustly forced. But in focusing specifically on the bevvy of point-and-click conundrums — as much making sure to sprinkle in more deductive puzzles along the way — TOHU isn’t just a pleasant trip through a child-like exaggeration of visuals and scenery, but crucially, does so in a way that doesn’t treat its players similarly as such young-aged audience members. Both with the way conundrums are presented, but also through its hint system that manages to give enough of an assistance, yet still trust its players to deduce the correct method forward. It may fall victim to the trappings of point-and-click’s very structure once or twice along the way, but TOHU still manages to provide a short and sweet little adventure through a surreal, at times delightful, set of circumstances.

TOHU serves up a charming little sci-fi narrative in a lovely cartoon style, but outside of one particularly egregious arcade sequence, its true strength is in its variety of interesting puzzles.

TOHU reminded me of a lot of games that I played as a child, from the point and click design to the mini-game layout, I found myself feeling a bit nostalgic. This game is quite delightful if you don’t mind going at a slower pace and you have the patience to figure out some pretty difficult puzzles. I found myself enjoying the problem-solving aspect and wanting to play more.

TOHU shines bright through its unique and charming visual design. The puzzles are creative and overall well implemented, but somewhat easy at times. Unfortunately, the story does not hold up to the games presentation and fails to evoke interest or real emotion.

Quality point-and-click puzzle adventuring among impeccable artwork.

It’s not hard to recommend TOHU — if you love busy, hand-drawn environments and puzzles that will really make you rack your brain for solutions, this is absolutely up your alley. It may have elevated my blood pressure for the few hours I spent with it, but I don’t regret the shortening of my lifespan in the slightest. If you gave this short but sweet little gem one glance and immediately thought fondly of Machinarium, I don’t have to tell you twice that TOHU was made for you. Be sure to pick it up on your puzzle platform of choice as soon as possible.

Tohu won surprisingly many awards, but in my opinion its only element that truly deserves praise are the visuals. The game looks great (the hand-drawn environments are wonderful!) but is much to infantile for my taste (especially the dialogues) and not creative enough in the puzzles department, while the awful narrator does a lot to destroy the atmosphere. [04/2021, p.59]

TOHU isn’t the best point-and-click out there. The confusing story and tedious puzzle solving leave a lot to be desired. Point-and-click adventure games of this style live in a weird place today. This one seems to take inspiration from Humongous Games’ portfolio and it is just too hard to live up to the nostalgia of playing games like Pajama Sam as a child. The art and interactions in that game are unforgettable and the story was fun and educational. TOHU starts going down this path and succeeds in some of that world building and light-hearted story telling, but it barely even scratches the surface compared to what already exists.

Tohu is bright and beautiful, but it lacks visual tools to tell its simple story, and it’s chock full of unoriginal, ages-old puzzles.