I think we all need a holiday these days. I was supposed to go on a short sunny trip this week but just like many others, COVID-19 thought differently, and gone was my sunny holiday. Needless to say, I was disappointed with the cancelation of my sunny holiday but found renewed energy thanks to the launch of the Xbox Series X. I once again had something to look forward to and when I noticed an optimized version of The Touryst launched on Game Pass I instantly wanted to play it. Time for my virtual holiday to start!
The Touryst?
As you might already know, The Touryst isn’t a new game, it released on various platforms back in November 2019 and is developed by Shin’en Multimedia, the team that brought us the fast-paced FAST RMX before. At its core, this optimized Series S/X upgrade offers the same core gameplay as the original release, let me briefly explain its premise. It won’t come as a surprise that you take control of a tourist who’s on a holiday on a sunny group of islands. He’s that typical tourist that wants to relax but doesn’t shy away from making contact with the local residents from time to time. To make things a bit more mysterious, the islands are covered with ancient ruins, housing a plethora of secrets for you to unravel. Solving those riddles and puzzles pushes the story forward but it’s never mandatory to go from one quest directly to the other. Like a true tourist, you’ll easily get distracted from your task and before you know it, you’re controlling a drone, taking a relaxing dive in the ocean, or playing one of the 16-bit games in the local arcade. It’s really up to you what you would like to do during your holiday and it’s great to see that this game offers tons of options to make your time on the islands as good as possible.
Of course, taking your time and enjoying the activities on the islands is fun, but you’ll need to push the story forward in order to truly advance. Like many other action-adventure games that came before, you’ll unlock new skills the more you advance. You’ll learn how to jump further or move faster, for example, unlocking new paths on the islands, previously unreachable. It’s this fine balance between the story and time to relax that really turns this game into a rather original and fun experience. It’s really fun to explore the islands on your own while it’s also rewarding to solve all puzzles and mysteries, it’s in all honesty, the perfect holiday. There are a lot of platforms where you can currently enjoy this charming game, but as it stands now, the Xbox Series X version is by far the best possible version on the market.
The Xbox Series X version
Like some other games, The Touryst is part of the optimized games that released for Xbox Series S/X on day one. To make things even better, it’s available on Game Pass right now and although not everyone will download this as their first game to play, it should certainly be on your radar. After installing and booting this up for the first time on my shiny new Xbox Series X, I was immediately impressed. The colors just burst from my television screen and everything is extremely sharp and detailed. It’s almost scary to witness such a breathtaking game running on Microsoft’s new system and it really elevates the feeling of going on a virtual holiday. According to Shin’en Multimedia, this version renders at a whopping 4K at 120fps or 6K at 60fps, depending on the television you’re using to play this. It doesn’t really matter that much as the result will be breathtaking either way. It’s in my opinion one of the better games that’s part of the initial Series S/X launch line-up and made my jaw drop multiple times.
The game runs freakishly smooth and although it’s not the biggest or most demanding game on the market, it’s definitely still impressive. The adorable Voxel style really shines bright here and showcases how pretty that style can actually be. Even more impressive are the improvements in the loading times. In the original game, the loading times could take you out of the moment but these are drastically decreased while I played on my Series X. Thanks to this, I could enjoy my sunny holiday without ever being interrupted for too long. It’s a huge leap compared to the original game and it really made me fall in love with its premise over and over again.
Conclusion:
The Touryst isn’t the game you would expect as part of the Series S/X optimized launch line-up and yet it’s one you should definitely try for yourself. It’s a mesmerizing game that clearly benefits a lot from the extra power of the Xbox Series X. The best part about it? It’s part of the Game Pass program so if you have a subscription, you can test it out right now! Time to head back to my sunny island and enjoy those beautiful sceneries some more.
