No Straight Roads Review – no classic album, but some great tracks
If No Straight Roads were an album, it would be one of those difficult and conflicting debuts from a talented but unrefined new artist, full of promise but missing something undefinable that would really make it explode into the public consciousness. As a game, it’s colourful, zany, packed with big ideas and fun characters, and has an incredible soundtrack, but it fails to combine its major gameplay elements into a cohesive whole. The result is final product that feels more disparate mish-mash than genius mash-up.
Set in the night-time neon metropolis of Vinyl City, you control musical duo Mayday and Zuke – together, the aspiring rock band Bunk Bed Junction. Unfortunately, the city is controlled by the shadowy but all-powerful NSR corporation, which has outlawed rock in favour of EDM. Dictatorial music tastes aside, it’s also diverting essential ‘Qwasa’ power from the poorer parts of town, a slightly more pressing issue which warrants a symphonic smackdown from our heroes.
At its heart, No Straight Roads is a series of over-the-top sonic battles against an assortment of brilliantly deranged villains, each representing a different musical style. From an opening scrap against a DJ spinning weaponised planets around his decks to a Hatsune Miku-style virtual idol throwing an entire cyber-world at you, or a spoiled piano virtuoso turning a concert hall into a death trap, this is a game that excels in delivering spectacle. Combat is, broadly, fun too – Mayday wields her guitar like a literal axe, while Zuke beats out drum combos. Playing solo, you’ll be able to swap between the artists whenever you like, utilising their unique skills while the other takes a breather, or combining skills for special attacks that double as killer riffs. Local co-op is also supported, allowing both musicians to rock out together.
Between the striking boss battles, the pace slows down to allow exploration around Vinyl City. You’ll chat to residents and collect capsules of Qwasa to re-power machines and utilities, or retreat to your sewer lair to level up Mayday and Zuke’s skills, adding stickers to their instruments to modify their abilities or swapping out special powers, all before entering distinct combat areas to battle your way to the next major boss encounter. This makes the full package feel like at least three games rolled into one – part boss rush, part platformer, part rhythm action, rounded off with shades of RPG character development. However, these multiple voices never harmonise.
The most frustrating part is that while music is integral to the concept of No Straight Roads, it’s not crucial to the execution. The blurring of genres, blending combat and platforming elements into the mix, softens it as a rhythm action game, which feels like is striving to be the main focus. Anyone familiar with earlier examples of the genre such as Patapon or Elite Beat Agents – or even earlier fare such as Gitaroo Man or PaRappa the Rapper – will know the almost zen-like trances such titles can induce in the player as they match the flow and cadence of the game, but sadly there’s none of that here.
Sure, enemies move and attack in time to the music, but your own attacks don’t. It’s a small distinction, but it really breaks you out of what could be an immersive experience. The idea is instead to identify your opponents’ tempo and respond in kind, but it’s not essential. Rather than tapping out satisfying beats that interact with the rhythm of the world, you can move and attack freely, which can result in encounters descending into arhythmic button bashing, particularly in tough spots. It can also be tricky to discern the musical pattern for some enemies or their attacks against the wider cacophony, in turn making it harder than it should be to evade or counter them.
Given the boss fights are such impressive visual experiences, it’s almost disappointing they’re not more on-rails. That would potentially allow players to take in the bizarre brilliance of them while still fighting using muscle memory – closer to playing the game as you would an instrument. A “pure” rhythm action system, at least for the signature battles, might also serve the game as a whole better, giving the city exploration and boss approach sections time to breathe and allowing the tempo-matching real-time combat space to shine in the approach to boss areas.
Some better checkpointing could help too – as is, the lengthy encounters with NSR’s killer talents are broken into distinct stages, but fail any one of them and it’s right back to the beginning. Once you do manage to end their recording contract for good though, you can replay their stages with different music, effectively remixing battles for totally different experiences. It’s one of No Straight Roads‘ better ideas, and one that brilliantly celebrates the versatility of its music.
Music really is the soul of No Straight Roads, too. Every style it touches on – rock, Jpop, soul-funk, and yes, even EDM – is a fantastic example of their respective genres. The soundtrack is phenomenal, and you’ll be humming tracks hours after you stop playing. More than that, music feeds and fuels the world of Vinyl City (literally, within the narrative, but also metaphorically), which makes it somewhat disappointing that the nuts and bolts of the gameplay, the physical mechanics of how the player interacts with the world through the music, doesn’t better reflect that.
Ultimately, No Straight Roads’ biggest failing is, paradoxically, a surplus of ambition. Perhaps that’s no surprise when the founders of Malaysian development studio Metronomik have credits on the likes of Street Fighter V and Final Fantasy XV under their belts, but with so many good ideas vying for attention, nothing really gets to steal the spotlight. For a new studio’s first game, perhaps a tighter focus would have helped.
In musical terms, this isn’t quite that timeless, instant classic of a record, but there’s no denying it packs in some great tracks. Here’s hoping the team’s second album has the magic to go platinum.
The Verdict: 3.5/5
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