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0 You may be reading the title and wondering just what this is. A Musical RPG, I hear you ask. Why yes, that is indeed the title, Game Over A Musical RPG??. Releasing on 11 April on Steam the game is developed and published by solo dev Jake Houston. This might just become your new favourite rhythm game. That’s right, RPG now stands for Rhythm Playing Game!
The Rhythm Might Just Get You
I considered myself quite a musical person. However, once playing through this, I knew that I might have bitten off more than I could chew. I pressed on and managed to get somewhere. Let’s go and check out more of the game.
Gameplay
Having been developed over a 8 year period, Game Over A Musical RPG?? has a lot of gameplay to it. The first thing that I found incredibly impressive was the use of sound. I know what you’re thinking, it says it’s a musical game in the title. But bear with me and I’ll explain.
First you get to meet your character, which for all intents and purposes is you. You get to name them, and through a few little acts of either generosity or selfishness, you get an extended name. I ended up being Bio The Bland and Indecisive. Honestly, it hurt at first. However, this was then related to other actions I carried out throughout my adventure. At one point, I gave a poor reed some of my life. They showed surprise at how quickly I decided, commenting on my indecisive moniker.
So back to the task at hand. There is something wrong with the world that you are in. Glitches, both graphical and audio, are running through your village of Stringfield. This sends you on a mission to find out what’s happening and to put a stop to it. Journeying through the game you come across many enemies, including musical strings. As well as the aforementioned reeds. These then challenge you to a duet, which is the game’s version of a battle. That’s when the fun turns up to 11!
Duet Time
This is a rhythm game after all. So, as you enter a duet, you are greeted with a nice familiar layout. A vertical track where coloured blobs move from top to bottom. Interacting with these is either done via the keyboard or your controller. Personally I would use the keyboard, mainly because the controller buttons confused me. You might be fine.
Hit these notes in time, and the music plays out, and eventually you defeat your enemy. Dropping a section of a coin in the process. These go towards your health bar. For four of these coins, you get one whole extra health.
Failure is an option, and throughout your time playing Game Over A Musical RPG?? You will fail. It isn’t the end of the world, though, because if you are really struggling, you can enable Nigel Mode. This mode effectively makes the musical duets play out without you needing to press any buttons. The mode is named after developer Jake Houston‘s Dad, as apparently he didn’t like losing at video games. So neither will you have to lose! You still need to play through certain mini games though, and solve the puzzles. Oh my goodness, the puzzles!
Puzzles
The puzzles are an interesting factor. They require you to have both good rhythm and also be good at listening to specific notes. One puzzle sees you near a reed that plays a specific tune. Then, nearby you will have a series of stones, each needs to be pressed in the correct order, and timing to unlock. Another puzzle saw me trying to match up two notes by stretching a string between two rocks. I am not ashamed to say that I solved these ones by luck rather than judgment.
It would have been nice to have had an option to skip the puzzles in some situations. Just to allow you to carry on your progress through the game. After all, you don’t want to get stuck if you are entirely tone deaf.
Graphics & Audio
You can tell straight away that this was a solo project. The graphics are akin to something I’d expect on a Mega Drive. That doesn’t mean they are bad, I actually quite liked the graphics. The colours were vibrant and the environments you travel through are varied enough. Being of the 8/16-bit style, it meant that the graphical glitches that were taking over your world were even more apparent. Especially when the whole screen glitched. It was immersive enough to keep me interested in the storyline.
From the audio point of view, it was on point. Everything made sounds through your journey, and each sound was individual. It must have taken the developer hours and hours of gathering musical tracks to get the complete listing. Add to that each battle played out with a different tune all depending on the situation at hand. Saying it was impressive just doesn’t feel enough.
Longevity
I’ll be honest, I’ve not completed the storyline yet, but I will definitely be going back to finish it. I’ve experienced a good chunk of the story, and Bio the Bland and Indecisive is becoming a bit of a legend! There’s definitely a lot more to this game the further you dive in, which is only a good thing!
Final Thoughts
Game Over A Musical RPG?? Is an awesome game to play. If you like rhythm games and adventure RPGs, then this might just be for you. With a rich storyline to unravel, as well as enjoyable musical interludes. The game oozes appeal across multiple genres. The only caveat is that you must at least have a slight sense of rhythm to play.
All in all such an enjoyable experience it excites me to see what more the developer is going to do.
Game Over A Musical RPG?? gets the Thumb Culture Gold Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
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