No Straight Roads (2020)

No Straight Roads is a game that impresses and disappoints in equal measure.

The game is a sort of beat 'em up/rhythm game hybrid that just oozes style, colour and personality. The game has an incredible soundtrack and one of the coolest looking visual styles I've seen in recent memory. Honestly, the audio design can be absolutely impeccable at times. The characters are also super well animated and most of the time the game is a joy to watch. There's some visual bugs later on in the game but for the most part, it's eye candy.

Elsewhere, though, the game flounders pretty badly.

The story of the game is a mess. You play as an indie rock duo Bunk Bed Junction that gets turned down in a talent show run by NSR, a corporation using EDM music to power up the city. The duo managed to provide an electrifying performance but the CEO of the company seems to dislike rock and decides to outright ban rock music in the city. However, NSR doesn't seem to provide enough power to the city with their EDM so blackouts happen often (well, at least once during the game). Moreover, the deplorable fascists of NSR only power up their HQ during the blackouts! Thus, Bunk Bed Junction takes on a quest to overthrow the 'tyrannical' electricity company by hijacking the concerts of the NSR's artists.

It's a pretty shaky premise in itself but the story just kinda throws shit at you and doesn't explain it further. For example, if NSR powers up the city using EDM, why on earth are you battling a concert pianist child prodigy and their protective mother? Also, the pianist kid literally does nothing wrong and you go on to smash their piano. The game doesn't even imply that the kid was made to play because of her demanding mother, which would have been some justification to get involved. There's quite a bit of loose ends and weird story threads like this in the game that just start and then are forgotten. I mean, it's a silly game so I wasn't really expecting super gripping storytelling but the game drops the ball in weird places.

The biggest flaw, though, is that the game is often not that fun to play. There's tons of promising mechanics and ideas sprinkled everywhere but the overall gameplay just doesn't gel. A big reason for this is that the fusion of rhythm-based gameplay and beat 'em action is far from flawless. It's kinda difficult to explain, but it's really hard to telegraph and react to enemy moves even though they should be in beat. Sometimes it's hard to see what is happening and sometimes it's just hard to anticipate when attacks come. In addition, there's a few annoying moves that stunlock you as well as some glitches and jankiness to throw you off. The game also has some platforming sections that also really aren't anything special.

Also, as a game about rocking out, you hear surprisingly little of rock music. The soundtrack is filled with dance music (which is absolutely killer, don't get me wrong) but you don't really see the main characters do their stuff that much. Well, other than shredding their instruments when powering up devices like turrets and whatnot during boss battles. It would have been cool if the battles against the "EDM artists" would have had more performing and less battling, I guess.

Sound acting is also a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes the voice acting is really good, sometimes the characters sound quite different than usual with some accent popping up in the line delivery. I think this is a Malaysian game so probably it's their second language accent that pushes through but in general, it still feels like not all voice lines received the same amount of attention.

Even with all of its flaws, it's kinda hard to hate No Straight Roads. There is so damn much potential here. I really hope the developers learn from this game's flaws and make another game in this style later on as they sure have talent in their team.

I love rythm games. And I love it even more when developers try to experiment with the genre. But Trip Runner 2 was one of my favorite games of the year back when I played it. Platforming melded with the beat of the music was something I didn't know I needed and was implemented in the most wonderful way.

An action game where you attack and dodge to the beat I thought, then, would certainly be a good fit. But unfortunately it wasn't. The battles were frustrating and didn't seem to work how they were supposed to. And some obtuse in game cues didn't help when trying to figure out how to beat a boss. The game is generous though with coming back after death and you don't lose progress I'd you don't want to, so that's good I guess.

I was so excited for this game and to see how the ideas were going to play out. Unfortunately it just didn't work for me. Oh! But I do have to say that the charm of the characters and the voice acting was very good. A very Pixar like humor and cadence to it that I very much enjoyed.

This is definitely an indie game. The main premise of the game is that its an action-rhythm game where enemies attack according to the beat of the music (sort of). The game is basically one huge boss rush, kind of similar to Cuphead. Run a series of combat encounters and fight the boss at the end. Simple enough.

But the janky combat and several technical issues could definitely ruin one's enjoyment. Where the game excels is definitely in the presentation. Each of the boss designs and their soundtrack is really amazing. Plus, the world and its characters are colorful and bursting with personality.

Deep down, there's definitely soul in this game and if you can overlook some of its shortcomings, there's probably something that you might find enjoyable here.