Adventure, puzzles, and a mystery of the ages awaits you in NAIRI: Tower of Shirin. It’s a point-and-click game with beautiful hand-drawn graphics, as well as stop-motion like cut-scenes and some fun, and at times, head-scratch inducing puzzles. But is all as it seems? Let’s discover if NAIRI: Tower of Shirin is up to snuff. . .

Story

You play as Nairi, a sassy but troubled young girl from the upper district of Shirin. She’s not a fan of her home-schooling and would much prefer to play outside like all the other kids. And her wish comes true . . . sort of. Due to a sudden incident, she ends up in the slums of a city ruled by gangs. There she meets Rex, a gangster-turned-scholar who promises to help Nairi if she helps him. Together they uncover a mystery involving the Tower of Shirin.

I find a well-written story important in a point-and-click, as it makes me care about the characters and their goals. NAIRI: Tower of Shirin delivers and sprinkles in a pinch of well-placed humor here and there. However, the ending is somewhat abrupt and open-ended. I’d have preferred some more closure, but it does leave one wondering about a possible sequel. Regardless, I believe the journey was worth it as I both enjoyed uncovering the mystery of the tower and helping the many different characters Nairi meets.

Point-and-click gameplay

As the genre point-and-click suggests, you click to traverse environments and interact with everything around you. This may sound boring but exploring the world, noticing items of interests, and using them to solve the various puzzles is fun! Some of which are easy but some left me scratching my head, as they were harder and more cryptic. In the end, I managed to solve them all. And they were satisfying solutions. Something I really appreciate because it’s not uncommon for me to realize the intended solution to a problem and not like it.

Three ways to play

I preferred to play NAIRI: Tower of Shirin in handheld. Using a control stick when playing docked feels sluggish compared to just touching whatever looks interesting when playing in handheld. Alternatively, you can use motion controls to literally point and click. But playing NAIRI: Tower of Shirin in handheld while being snugly wrapped in a blanket on the couch or in bed felt like the superior experience to me! Overall, the controls worked well. There were only a few slightly finicky puzzles. For example, in one puzzle I had to drag around stones that kept getting stuck when I tried to move them around corners. However, it wasn’t terribly frustrating because a little wiggling around solved this issue.

I did experience one bug though. At times, I opened an item in a layover view that didn’t allow you to get back to the game. Clicking the cross to close did nothing which meant I was stuck on that screen. Luckily this only concerned bonus art and hints of which you could take a screenshot and then view them in the Switch’s album. So, I was able to successfully finish the game. Moreover, I’ve been informed that this will be fixed in the soon to be implemented patch 1.02.

Audio & Visuals

I enjoyed the musical compositions and sound design in NAIRI: Tower of Shirin. They evoke the right emotions at the right time. From a happy bristling feeling when visiting the local market to a more mysterious atmosphere when wandering in the Tower of Shirin.

NAIRI: Tower of Shirin is more than just pleasing on the ears. The hand-drawn art has a charming aesthetic and I especially enjoyed the cut-scenes. They are also hand-drawn and are somewhat stop-motion like. Some of the characters and environments you will encounter along the way are brought to life in a similar way, moving on an otherwise static screen. This makes for a more vibrant experience.

Conclusion

I enjoyed NAIRI: Tower of Shirin. It’s a beautiful game offering a captivating story and interesting puzzles. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a mysterious and charming point-and-click adventure.