A charming and imaginative turn-based RPG, that has surprising depth in it's deck building and rhythm based combat. Excellent soundtrack and boss fights that felt challenging and rewarding. I would have enjoyed more content and challenge at the end-game, but I'm very glad that Fretless didn't overstay its welcome and left me wanting more!

I mean... it's awesome!?!?!??! I literally didn't expect THAT much until unlocking up the 8tring dude. This DJENT machine SUMMONS THALL?? gameplay is super fun, QTE sometimes bugs out but that's fine, but playing a solo is quite repetitive. Game kind of motivates you to try all of the instruments but I really never equipped synth because I'm a bassist and uhh when I was like, okay let's try this on now game gave me DJENTMACHINE so yeah. 10/10 lmao

The game is a charming little turn-based RPG that leans heavily into rock culture. Rock imagery and stage pieces adorn the environment (similar to Brutal Legend) and the ever-told tale of the musician vs the evil corporation is prevalent constantly (maybe a little too much). And the different customization options for how your musical instrument-based combat functions are reasonably diverse and well-integrated into gameplay. If this sounds like a good time, you would probably enjoy the game somewhat.

But it teeters right on the edge of recommendable due to several unpatched glitches that might crop up during a playthrough. The game freezing during combat only happened once for me, so it's not that big a deal. But a key item necessary for one of the game's achievements despawning and becoming uncollectable was incredibly frustrating. The game has been out for almost a year, and I found bug reports addressing this dating back months. It shouldn't take much effort to write a fix that checks whether you collected an item and respawns it if necessary.

The game is fun, and though the story lacks originality, it's over-the-top style can keep you entertained. If it gets a patch fixing some of its issues, it'll be worth the 10-12 hours to do a playthrough.