Alright. Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical is done and dusted. This was what I'd call an Audio Visual Novel. Inasmuch as it's a VN, but with a definite focus on music and voice acting. I didn't love this game, but I did like and enjoy it quite a bit, and it made me laugh repeatedly throughout.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3273911088

Visually, this game is quite striking with very lush colors and a very modern cartoon-ey look. I thought the ability to convey emotion based on the looks on the character's faces was quite exceptional. The characters themselves all looked great. And the backdrops for each scene ranged from really nice looking to exceptional.

The voice acting was about as good as it gets. Which comes as no surprise when you look at the all-star cast featuring Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Khary Payton, Felicia Day, Ashley Johnson, and so on. There were a couple moments where the actors would skip a word in the dialogue, but that wasn't really an issue, and they all breathed real life into their characters. Every line in the game was voice acted, so this was an important element to the story telling, and the cast did an amazing job. The music was also super cool with a lot of variety but managing to stay in the moment. The singing OTOH, while all fundamentally excellent, didn't hit quite as well. Why? I think it was sort of intentional because an aspect of this game was having, under certain circumstances, conversations and normal sentences sung rather than spoken. Which was a big part of the story itself, and while it made total sense, it could be jarring or weird at times. At other times though, it was brilliant. So, a bit of a mixed bag. Albeit an often hilarious one.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3274158774

The story itself centers around a singer (Grace) who unknowingly meets one of the Three Muses (from Greek mythology) and ends up absorbing her Eidolon after a certain event, thus becoming the Muse herself. Which leads to what ends up being a murder investigation and adventure involving Grace, her best friend Freddie, and the various Greek gods, now knows as Idols, who are just trying to get by in the modern world while maintaining secrecy regarding their immortality. Which was a cool concept. I really enjoyed the story. Which makes sense since David Gaider is one of the premier writers when it comes to video games with branching paths and a morality system.

Gameplay is strictly VN style, where you make dialogue and morality decisions, examine some items, and so on. It's kind of slow paced and certain sequences, due to the focus on lengthy dialogue, can drag on a bit. And I think this, combined with some of the more awkward singing moments, keep this game from being in the absolute top tier of VNs despite having so many amazing qualities working for it. Plus, you can't really skip through dialogue even though you might not want to anyway since it is all voice acted. Just needed a bit better pacing IMO.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3270671014

It only took about seven hours to complete one of the story arcs and you could probably speed things up in future playthroughs if you would like to see all the branching path impacted by your decisions within the game. I am confident I got what would be considered the "good" ending since everything worked out alright in the end. This game is featured in the current Humble Choice (as of the time of this writing), so a lot of people probably now own the game. I'd suggest firing it up and seeing if it's for you or not. As far as it's actual pricing goes, the $29.99 price tag makes sense given the cast and quality of the game, but I think I'd feel more comfortable with it being about half that at this point. Anyway, I enjoyed my time with it, and I do intend to play the Orpheus DLC here in the near future.

Alright. [i]Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical[/i] is done and dusted. This was what I'd call an Audio Visual Novel. Inasmuch as it's a VN, but with a definite focus on music and voice acting. I didn't love this game, but I did like and enjoy it quite a bit, and it made me laugh repeatedly throughout. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3273911088 Visually, this game is quite striking with very lush colors and a very modern cartoon-ey look. I thought the ability to convey emotion based on the looks on the character's faces was quite exceptional. The characters themselves all looked great. And the backdrops for each scene ranged from really nice looking to exceptional. The voice acting was about as good as it gets. Which comes as no surprise when you look at the all-star cast featuring Laura Bailey, Troy Baker, Khary Payton, Felicia Day, Ashley Johnson, and so on. There were a couple moments where the actors would skip a word in the dialogue, but that wasn't really an issue, and they all breathed real life into their characters. Every line in the game was voice acted, so this was an important element to the story telling, and the cast did an amazing job. The music was also super cool with a lot of variety but managing to stay in the moment. The singing OTOH, while all fundamentally excellent, didn't hit quite as well. Why? I think it was sort of intentional because an aspect of this game was having, under certain circumstances, conversations and normal sentences sung rather than spoken. Which was a big part of the story itself, and while it made total sense, it could be jarring or weird at times. At other times though, it was brilliant. So, a bit of a mixed bag. Albeit an often hilarious one. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3274158774 The story itself centers around a singer (Grace) who unknowingly meets one of the Three Muses (from Greek mythology) and ends up absorbing her Eidolon after a certain event, thus becoming the Muse herself. Which leads to what ends up being a murder investigation and adventure involving Grace, her best friend Freddie, and the various Greek gods, now knows as Idols, who are just trying to get by in the modern world while maintaining secrecy regarding their immortality. Which was a cool concept. I really enjoyed the story. Which makes sense since David Gaider is one of the premier writers when it comes to video games with branching paths and a morality system. Gameplay is strictly VN style, where you make dialogue and morality decisions, examine some items, and so on. It's kind of slow paced and certain sequences, due to the focus on lengthy dialogue, can drag on a bit. And I think this, combined with some of the more awkward singing moments, keep this game from being in the absolute top tier of VNs despite having so many amazing qualities working for it. Plus, you can't really skip through dialogue even though you might not want to anyway since it is all voice acted. Just needed a bit better pacing IMO. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3270671014 It only took about seven hours to complete one of the story arcs and you could probably speed things up in future playthroughs if you would like to see all the branching path impacted by your decisions within the game. I am confident I got what would be considered the "good" ending since everything worked out alright in the end. This game is featured in the current Humble Choice (as of the time of this writing), so a lot of people probably now own the game. I'd suggest firing it up and seeing if it's for you or not. As far as it's actual pricing goes, the $29.99 price tag makes sense given the cast and quality of the game, but I think I'd feel more comfortable with it being about half that at this point. Anyway, I enjoyed my time with it, and I do intend to play the Orpheus DLC here in the near future. [code]If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32549618/]Robilar's Reviews[/url], it would be appreciated. Cheers.[/code] [code]Also follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]IndieGems[/url] for more reviews like this one.[/code]