This review contains spoilers
An absolute blast. Amazing style, banger tracks, great gameplay, loveable characters and an all too familiar story about upper management hell.
I don't usually write these so I'm kinda freewheeling. Something something "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one" something.
Normally when it comes to combo based action games, where your score is directly related to your flair, I freeze up a little. My confidence in remembering and executing combos has always been very spotty, to the point there I usually go back to default moves and tried-n-true 1-2-3s. Combining this with flashbacks of me DESPERATELY trying to justify my purchase of a guitar hero guitar and failing miserably as I could barely hit a single note, I was a little hesitant whether or not I should've just watched a playthrough. I'm so glad I didn't.
Swinging that guitar felt as natural as humming a tune. One thing I didn't consider is that when you combine combos and a rhythmic guide, not only do they become way more doable, but also so satisfying when done right. Not to mention that doing it right meant more damage, additional combos and the sweet, sweet cheer of the crowds.
I was afraid that me finding the rhythm would be an issue too, but It helps a lot when, no joke, everything was in rhythm. The attacks of your enemies, the animations of the environment, the puzzles and so forth. Hell, sometimes the characters were talking along with the tracks playing. It wasn't hard to find that beat when the entire game has the beat pumping through its veins.
I found myself by the end of the game dancing with the enemies, juggling them up and slamming them down all while like it was all part of the track. By the end you not only feel as confident like Chai, you kinda get why he acts like the rockstar all the time if it's this fun.
Talking about him, I wanna talk about the colourful cast. Mentioned before, you play as Chai. A wonderful combination of confident, cocky, bit selfish and incredibly dense. A character you equally love seeing get beat up and thrown through walls as you love seeing him get up and wreck shop again. He is a loveable character that makes for a refreshingly direct (albeit a bit blunt and naive) voice in a group who has the world weighing down on them.
Your first companion, peppermint and her robot cat 808 make for a perfect counterbalance. Someone who is discrete in approach, methodical in planning and maybe a bit prickly. She has the unenviable job wrangling the undirected projectile that is Chai in the hopes that he might hit the right targets. Their strained dynamic at the start is incredibly fun in the beginning and as the characters learn more about each other, very endearing at the end.
Throughout the game you meet up with even more characters, who all help in their own ways and deal with their own struggles. Although I could write about them individually, just know that Macaron, Cinnamon and Korsica are all great additions to the team dynamic and are each, in their own way, extremely hot.
These companions are not only great narrative fun, but help out mechanically in way of opening up blocked passages and spicing up the battlefield with their own set of moves and combos.
Admittedly, this is where my one and only real complaint comes in. Not only do these companions come in and kick butt, Macaron can smash through enemies with sturdy shields, Peppermint can disable damage blocking barriers and Korsika ... can twirl her pole arm to put out fires, I guess? Usually this means that some enemies on the field can't be attacked unless you have the right companion hit them, which can be finicky in a game that throws quite a bit of enemies at you, any of which they can lock on to.
Specifically Macaron smashing shields is hard to aim as they not only need to be in range, macaron needs to hit them twice. Something that is made inconvenient with his longer cool down and short range. It makes fights drag on and don't feel extra challenging because of it, just annoying.
Korsika struggles with this too, but I feel a bit worse. Enemies that cause fire or are on fire can do, you guessed it, fire damage. When hit, Chai has to drop and roll for a bit in a stick wiggling before returning to battle. The slow fire damage would've been fine, but with the game forcing you to stop what you are doing just so Chai can put out his pants, it grinds you to a halt and makes you feel completely thrown off rhythm coming back into fights. Not to mention that Korsika can only disable this fire effect for a limited amount of time, having to re-apply her wind-gust-thing onto enemies every few seconds. Straight up, feel like fire should just not have been a thing and they should've just focused on the stunning part of her abilities.
Other than that, thankfully, having your allies help out in battle is a lot of fun. There are even moves you can buy for them so they can help you finish off combos which are always flashy and juicy.
So my thoughts are getting less coherent and this review is getting a bit long so I'm gonna wrap this up and maybe edit later. A lightning round:
- The writing got a bit on my nerves before I grew to love it. This is just purely a preference thing. The characters are great, the story was short and sweet and I was laughing myself faint at many moments.
- Platforming was a very good time and the environments were stunning and oozing with style.
- Boss fights were a bit hit or miss for me. Some felt a bit sluggish and suffered a bit from the classic "I have to wait for you to do a thing before I can do my thing so I'm just gonna stand around and do nothing until you do the thing." Nonetheless, most of them were a spectacle and had their own set of interesting challenges.
- I didn't play too much with The Secret Doors, but the ones I did were fun and tricksy. Personally, I get a little too quickly frustrated with timed challenges so I haven't had much of a drive to finish them.
- Collecting secrets in this game is a lot of fun and kept my eyes wide open for shinies. They found a perfect balance between making some pretty obvious and most a lot tougher to find. Makes coming back to stages extra fun.
The game, top to bottom, does a fantastic job to make you feel like a capital R Rockstar. An instant classic!
I don't usually write these so I'm kinda freewheeling. Something something "I didn't have time to write you a short letter, so I wrote you a long one" something.
Normally when it comes to combo based action games, where your score is directly related to your flair, I freeze up a little. My confidence in remembering and executing combos has always been very spotty, to the point there I usually go back to default moves and tried-n-true 1-2-3s. Combining this with flashbacks of me DESPERATELY trying to justify my purchase of a guitar hero guitar and failing miserably as I could barely hit a single note, I was a little hesitant whether or not I should've just watched a playthrough. I'm so glad I didn't.
Swinging that guitar felt as natural as humming a tune. One thing I didn't consider is that when you combine combos and a rhythmic guide, not only do they become way more doable, but also so satisfying when done right. Not to mention that doing it right meant more damage, additional combos and the sweet, sweet cheer of the crowds.
I was afraid that me finding the rhythm would be an issue too, but It helps a lot when, no joke, everything was in rhythm. The attacks of your enemies, the animations of the environment, the puzzles and so forth. Hell, sometimes the characters were talking along with the tracks playing. It wasn't hard to find that beat when the entire game has the beat pumping through its veins.
I found myself by the end of the game dancing with the enemies, juggling them up and slamming them down all while like it was all part of the track. By the end you not only feel as confident like Chai, you kinda get why he acts like the rockstar all the time if it's this fun.
Talking about him, I wanna talk about the colourful cast. Mentioned before, you play as Chai. A wonderful combination of confident, cocky, bit selfish and incredibly dense. A character you equally love seeing get beat up and thrown through walls as you love seeing him get up and wreck shop again. He is a loveable character that makes for a refreshingly direct (albeit a bit blunt and naive) voice in a group who has the world weighing down on them.
Your first companion, peppermint and her robot cat 808 make for a perfect counterbalance. Someone who is discrete in approach, methodical in planning and maybe a bit prickly. She has the unenviable job wrangling the undirected projectile that is Chai in the hopes that he might hit the right targets. Their strained dynamic at the start is incredibly fun in the beginning and as the characters learn more about each other, very endearing at the end.
Throughout the game you meet up with even more characters, who all help in their own ways and deal with their own struggles. Although I could write about them individually, just know that Macaron, Cinnamon and Korsica are all great additions to the team dynamic and are each, in their own way, extremely hot.
These companions are not only great narrative fun, but help out mechanically in way of opening up blocked passages and spicing up the battlefield with their own set of moves and combos.
Admittedly, this is where my one and only real complaint comes in. Not only do these companions come in and kick butt, Macaron can smash through enemies with sturdy shields, Peppermint can disable damage blocking barriers and Korsika ... can twirl her pole arm to put out fires, I guess? Usually this means that some enemies on the field can't be attacked unless you have the right companion hit them, which can be finicky in a game that throws quite a bit of enemies at you, any of which they can lock on to.
Specifically Macaron smashing shields is hard to aim as they not only need to be in range, macaron needs to hit them twice. Something that is made inconvenient with his longer cool down and short range. It makes fights drag on and don't feel extra challenging because of it, just annoying.
Korsika struggles with this too, but I feel a bit worse. Enemies that cause fire or are on fire can do, you guessed it, fire damage. When hit, Chai has to drop and roll for a bit in a stick wiggling before returning to battle. The slow fire damage would've been fine, but with the game forcing you to stop what you are doing just so Chai can put out his pants, it grinds you to a halt and makes you feel completely thrown off rhythm coming back into fights. Not to mention that Korsika can only disable this fire effect for a limited amount of time, having to re-apply her wind-gust-thing onto enemies every few seconds. Straight up, feel like fire should just not have been a thing and they should've just focused on the stunning part of her abilities.
Other than that, thankfully, having your allies help out in battle is a lot of fun. There are even moves you can buy for them so they can help you finish off combos which are always flashy and juicy.
So my thoughts are getting less coherent and this review is getting a bit long so I'm gonna wrap this up and maybe edit later. A lightning round:
- The writing got a bit on my nerves before I grew to love it. This is just purely a preference thing. The characters are great, the story was short and sweet and I was laughing myself faint at many moments.
- Platforming was a very good time and the environments were stunning and oozing with style.
- Boss fights were a bit hit or miss for me. Some felt a bit sluggish and suffered a bit from the classic "I have to wait for you to do a thing before I can do my thing so I'm just gonna stand around and do nothing until you do the thing." Nonetheless, most of them were a spectacle and had their own set of interesting challenges.
- I didn't play too much with The Secret Doors, but the ones I did were fun and tricksy. Personally, I get a little too quickly frustrated with timed challenges so I haven't had much of a drive to finish them.
- Collecting secrets in this game is a lot of fun and kept my eyes wide open for shinies. They found a perfect balance between making some pretty obvious and most a lot tougher to find. Makes coming back to stages extra fun.
The game, top to bottom, does a fantastic job to make you feel like a capital R Rockstar. An instant classic!