The gameplay is atrocious.

[Lookstothemoon]

Let me first begin by saying I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LOVE Annapurna Int. games, but this one is not even close to the potential that it has. The music becomes relentless in it's stagnant, stale, boring, unchanging fervor. Anyone who plays guitar at all or likes anything but the same kind of guitar soloing over and over and over should hate this game for ruining a potential masterpiece. For a title that is about 'artfully escaping' from people expect you to be as a musician, it doesn't at all let YOU have ANY creative freedom on the music in this game. It doesn't allow YOU to do what the player is desperately trying to do which is the change the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ music in any way shape or form. It's ironic in such a bad way. There was a lot of anticipation surrounding this game but it disappoints. The gameplay consists of holding left, as you always ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do in 2d games (only Night In The Woods goes from right to left in a very subtle way that shows that the main character is going back in time, back from University, dropping out because of mental health issues and wanting to go back to their childhood) and holding X/Square. In a game that is all about escaping into different dimensions and flying through countless gorgeous worlds while putting on an incredible performance with your guitar while doing so, you have NO creative freedom whatsoever over what the music does, what YOU do, or the choices that it makes you choose which don't amount to anything different, all choices result in the same guitar playing that gets mind-numbing way faster than you'd initially think. You just hold right and hold another button, the whole game... save a few times where you can go around and talk to people. And only after 2 hours of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "gameplay" I dreaded holding down that button to hear the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guitar soloing the same exact way over and over and over. But you have to in order to make the incredible visuals interact with your music and do all manner of extraordinary breathtaking beautiful things. The numb boring gameplay is only broken up by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SIMON SAYS moments... It's literally Simon Says, it's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy. And in a game about music, you'd expect the rythym of the Simon Says moments to be important... whelp, it's not. They even tell you "USE YOUR OWN RYTHYM." In other words, it doesn't matter how much you suck, which makes every Simon Says part suck. Not even a challenge for a toddler... great ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gameplay... This is not a "Rythym" game at all like you'd expect. This game is a spectacle. There is really no reason at all to buy this game because you can just watch someone else "play" it on youtube or Twitch. The gameplay is so weak that it's downright stupid to buy this game when you can see the gorgeous spectacles and hear monotonous "shredding" of the main character. The music is all gorgeous at first but once you get into the main "gameplay" loop... it becomes immensely stale, stagnant and boring.

Questions:
This was such a huge missed opportunity. Why can't you change how the music in any way? That alone would have made up for so much of the boring stale "shredding" that you HAVE to do. Why can't you change the key of music your playing in? Why can't you at least change the chords that you are soloing in? Why can't you change the tempo? WHY IS THERE NO RHYTHM COMPONENT!? Why is there no challenging gameplay whatsoever? Why couldn't you have at least controlled the rate at which you were "shredding" from really slow to really high? Why the ♥♥♥♥ didn't they do ANYTHING interesting or creative at all with the Simon Says parts?? WHY COULD YOU NOT CONTROL EFFECTS LIKE REVERB, ECHO, WAH, WHAMMY PEDAL AND/OR BAR, CHORUS, TREMOLO, ETC... If they at least had that, it would have brought an entire new level of interactivity to the game even if the entire game still had the same horribly lacking level of interactivity and challenge in many other ways. Even Ocarina of Time included vibrato AND bending of the pitch up or down when you were playing the Ocarina... How did The Artful Escape not take any note of any of the interesting elements of music in games prior to it? Who the hell was in charge of the decision to make this the most boring music game of all time? Why don't you at least have to press those Simon Says buttons at certain points during each running/sliding stage? Why can't you do back-flips, front-flips and other tricks when you are in the air? Why can't you change the tone and volume of your guitar? This is in outer space and other dimensions so why can't we do cool things like teleport, fire lasers out the guitar corresponding to what notes we're playing, etc.? Why are there only 5 Simon Says buttons? There's a lot more than 5 buttons on a controller, and especially a keyboard. Why isn't there a key-tar? Why can't you mess around with one of those? Why isn't there a drumset you can attach to yourself, or a harmonica, why don't you ever sing??? Why can't you change your instruments at will with a button or whatever? Even Majora's Mask had different instruments you could play. This is a different dimension/s, why isn't electricity shooting out and shocking and grabbing everything near you and explodes outward as you make a full chord. Why don't you have Portuguese Man O' Wars as shoes zapping things and snatching fish while you get to walk on water and your music causes waves to emanate from you? Why don't you get to walk along the rings of Saturn and discover than certain notes resonate to the rings and moves them? And why isn't that a puzzle that you need to solve? WHY ISN'T ANYTHING A PUZZLE YOU NEED TO SOLVE!? I could go on for a long time about what this game could have been, but I think you get the picture. There is just nothing here.

Annapurna Interactive produces THE BEST Indie games, and they make the BEST games with music in them "Journey" and "Sayonara Wild Heart" are among the best music/video game combinations, "Gorogoa" even. But this game baffles me. I've got to say this is one of the weakest titles and certainly the most deceptive title Annapurna has ever produced. Huge disappointment. There's just nothing here beyond the incredible imagery, which clearly the developers were laser-focused on, when instead they should have been making one of the best interactive music games there is... Huge missed opportunity. It's almost like the developers had no idea what makes a video game interesting. I am returning this without a second thought and am going to watch the rest on Youtube to see if the music gets any better or if it just continues being a nongame that has a relentless assault of the same exact style of "shredding" which gets stale after 5 minutes, but I endured 2 hours of it... and a complete absence of even the SLIGHTEST challenging gameplay. If you want a game the has music at it's center and actually has gameplay and puzzles, try FRACT. Or endure this game for as long as you can, and then put the music on mute after you inevitably get sick of it and put on your own music and pretend that's what the guy is playing.

[+Tooterfish]

I would appreciate it if someone translated this to internet-lazy.

[Toni 'Bō' Jones]

Originally posted by +Tooterfish:

I would appreciate it if someone translated this to internet-lazy.

TLDR: The game is a missed opportunity, I cry in frustration.

Something like that.

[Wok]

Originally posted by +Tooterfish:

I would appreciate it if someone translated this to internet-lazy.

In the first paragraph, the reviewer mentions that they loved all of the Annapurna games but are disappointed with this one. They say that the gameplay consists of left and X/Square, the music becomes boring, the player has no creative freedom, the Simon Says are easy, and the game is not a "Rythym" game. The graphics are spectacular but the gameplay is not rewarding.

The second paragraph is a request for ideas on how to make a music game more interesting.

In the third paragraph, the commenter mentions that Annapurna Interactive produces the best games, but this game is one of the worst. It has weak gameplay and a repetitive soundtrack.

[+Tooterfish]

thank you

[[-THEMIGHTYBOOSH-]]

we are looking for the new sound!

[Gamer Mickey]

Originally posted by Big Boss Nass:

Let me first begin by saying I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ LOVE Annapurna Int. games, but this one is not even close to the potential that it has. The music becomes relentless in it's stagnant, stale, boring, unchanging fervor. Anyone who plays guitar at all or likes anything but the same kind of guitar soloing over and over and over should hate this game for ruining a potential masterpiece. For a title that is about 'artfully escaping' from people expect you to be as a musician, it doesn't at all let YOU have ANY creative freedom on the music in this game. It doesn't allow YOU to do what the player is desperately trying to do which is the change the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ music in any way shape or form. It's ironic in such a bad way. There was a lot of anticipation surrounding this game but it disappoints. The gameplay consists of holding left, as you always ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ do in 2d games (only Night In The Woods goes from right to left in a very subtle way that shows that the main character is going back in time, back from University, dropping out because of mental health issues and wanting to go back to their childhood) and holding X/Square. In a game that is all about escaping into different dimensions and flying through countless gorgeous worlds while putting on an incredible performance with your guitar while doing so, you have NO creative freedom whatsoever over what the music does, what YOU do, or the choices that it makes you choose which don't amount to anything different, all choices result in the same guitar playing that gets mind-numbing way faster than you'd initially think. You just hold right and hold another button, the whole game... save a few times where you can go around and talk to people. And only after 2 hours of this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "gameplay" I dreaded holding down that button to hear the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guitar soloing the same exact way over and over and over. But you have to in order to make the incredible visuals interact with your music and do all manner of extraordinary breathtaking beautiful things. The numb boring gameplay is only broken up by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ SIMON SAYS moments... It's literally Simon Says, it's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ stupid and too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ easy. And in a game about music, you'd expect the rythym of the Simon Says moments to be important... whelp, it's not. They even tell you "USE YOUR OWN RYTHYM." In other words, it doesn't matter how much you suck, which makes every Simon Says part suck. Not even a challenge for a toddler... great ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ gameplay... This is not a "Rythym" game at all like you'd expect. This game is a spectacle. There is really no reason at all to buy this game because you can just watch someone else "play" it on youtube or Twitch. The gameplay is so weak that it's downright stupid to buy this game when you can see the gorgeous spectacles and hear monotonous "shredding" of the main character. The music is all gorgeous at first but once you get into the main "gameplay" loop... it becomes immensely stale, stagnant and boring.

Questions:
This was such a huge missed opportunity. Why can't you change how the music in any way? That alone would have made up for so much of the boring stale "shredding" that you HAVE to do. Why can't you change the key of music your playing in? Why can't you at least change the chords that you are soloing in? Why can't you change the tempo? WHY IS THERE NO RHYTHM COMPONENT!? Why is there no challenging gameplay whatsoever? Why couldn't you have at least controlled the rate at which you were "shredding" from really slow to really high? Why the ♥♥♥♥ didn't they do ANYTHING interesting or creative at all with the Simon Says parts?? WHY COULD YOU NOT CONTROL EFFECTS LIKE REVERB, ECHO, WAH, WHAMMY PEDAL AND/OR BAR, CHORUS, TREMOLO, ETC... If they at least had that, it would have brought an entire new level of interactivity to the game even if the entire game still had the same horribly lacking level of interactivity and challenge in many other ways. Even Ocarina of Time included vibrato AND bending of the pitch up or down when you were playing the Ocarina... How did The Artful Escape not take any note of any of the interesting elements of music in games prior to it? Who the hell was in charge of the decision to make this the most boring music game of all time? Why don't you at least have to press those Simon Says buttons at certain points during each running/sliding stage? Why can't you do back-flips, front-flips and other tricks when you are in the air? Why can't you change the tone and volume of your guitar? This is in outer space and other dimensions so why can't we do cool things like teleport, fire lasers out the guitar corresponding to what notes we're playing, etc.? Why are there only 5 Simon Says buttons? There's a lot more than 5 buttons on a controller, and especially a keyboard. Why isn't there a key-tar? Why can't you mess around with one of those? Why isn't there a drumset you can attach to yourself, or a harmonica, why don't you ever sing??? Why can't you change your instruments at will with a button or whatever? Even Majora's Mask had different instruments you could play. This is a different dimension/s, why isn't electricity shooting out and shocking and grabbing everything near you and explodes outward as you make a full chord. Why don't you have Portuguese Man O' Wars as shoes zapping things and snatching fish while you get to walk on water and your music causes waves to emanate from you? Why don't you get to walk along the rings of Saturn and discover than certain notes resonate to the rings and moves them? And why isn't that a puzzle that you need to solve? WHY ISN'T ANYTHING A PUZZLE YOU NEED TO SOLVE!? I could go on for a long time about what this game could have been, but I think you get the picture. There is just nothing here.

Annapurna Interactive produces THE BEST Indie games, and they make the BEST games with music in them "Journey" and "Sayonara Wild Heart" are among the best music/video game combinations, "Gorogoa" even. But this game baffles me. I've got to say this is one of the weakest titles and certainly the most deceptive title Annapurna has ever produced. Huge disappointment. There's just nothing here beyond the incredible imagery, which clearly the developers were laser-focused on, when instead they should have been making one of the best interactive music games there is... Huge missed opportunity. It's almost like the developers had no idea what makes a video game interesting. I am returning this without a second thought and am going to watch the rest on Youtube to see if the music gets any better or if it just continues being a nongame that has a relentless assault of the same exact style of "shredding" which gets stale after 5 minutes, but I endured 2 hours of it... and a complete absence of even the SLIGHTEST challenging gameplay. If you want a game the has music at it's center and actually has gameplay and puzzles, try FRACT. Or endure this game for as long as you can, and then put the music on mute after you inevitably get sick of it and put on your own music and pretend that's what the guy is playing.

Completely disagree, the gameplay is amazing, perhaps you have either no appreciation for music or have zero musical talent.