No Straight Roads Review

While rhythm is an undoubtedly popular genre, it remains surprising how few iterations there are in the rhythm-action subgenre, especially given the overwhelming success of giants like Hi-Fi Rush and Crypt of the Necrodancer. That is not to say there haven’t been attempts to dig into this pie, though most fail to reach a wider audience for one reason or another, including rhythm-inspired action game No Straight Roads. Released in August 2020 and developed by Malaysian game studio Metronomik, the game was ultimately panned by critics for its bugs and some of their design decisions surrounding the game’s progression.

As a celebration of the game’s 1st anniversary, they would release a major update for the game, titled the “Encore Edition,” adding not only new content, but additionally a slew of fixes for some of the more glaring issues the game faced at launch. This update was released in October 2021 as a Steam exclusive but would eventually make its way to Playstation in May 2022. While the game is still no stranger to some issues in its current iteration, No Straight Roads is undoubtedly a hard-fought labor of love that does more than enough right to deserve your attention.

Presentation

No Straight Roads takes place in Vinyl City, a popular destination regarded as the “music capital of the world.” This metropolis utilizes a device called a Qwasa to convert music into power that is then distributed across the city. Under the governance of NSR, the most (and only) popular record label in the city, providing power is primarily delegated to five separate artists, each of which being provided their own districts to perform and control their establishments. Additionally, they open up opportunities for any up-and-coming artists to try their hand at contributing in a process known as the “Lights-Up” Audition. However, this comes with one simple twist: NSR is only accepting of EDM and enforces this preference with an iron fist.

Enter Bunk Bed Junction, an indie rock duo consisting of Mayday, a flamboyant guitarist who often does things before thinking about their consequences, and Zuke, a measured drummer who probably has elevator music going on in his head when he’s not assaulting a drum set. They come to discover that NSR has promptly banned rock music following their less-than-successful audition. Coupled with the city’s tendency to have blackouts and generate emergency power exclusively towards establishments sponsored by NSR, they conclude that they need to spark change in the system, starting a rock revolution by hijacking the concerts of NSR’s biggest artists in a series of musical boss battles.

It is a ridiculously fun concept that is solidified by the sheer believability of Vinyl City as you walk through its districts. The metropolis is vibrant and full of life, with each district occupying a satirical take of the music/art industry to some capacity, from the gawking fandom of suspiciously handsome boy bands to the symbolic and borderline pretentiously vague artistic statements made physical, and everything in between. It’s not all completely for style either, as there is a surprising amount of lore to find throughout the city in the form of collectibles and observable objects. The latter involves simply pressing a button to see the character’s thoughts on the object in question, which vary depending on whether you are playing as Mayday or Zuke when interacting with it. The collectibles you earn can be picked up in the city and by defeating the bosses, offering a bit of a view as to how NSR’s top artists came to be. While it is not extremely in-depth, it provides enough substance to make them wholly believable. When combined with loads of fan art scattered throughout the city and light sprinkles of Malaysian culture (including dosages of dialogue in bahasa melayu), Vinyl City is an absorbing destination to spend time admiring.

The plot itself, while predictable, remains a fun ride thanks to its charm and witty dialogue. The voice actors did a wonderful job bringing the characters to life, and there were many moments throughout the story that irresistibly put a smile on my face whilst watching them. Furthermore, there were also surprising emotional moments (that I won’t spoil), catching me off-guard when I first played through the game. While it is lighthearted in its tone, NSR isn’t afraid to use these characters to create relatable interpersonal conflicts and ultimately build to deliver a wholesome message by the end of it. While its narrative certainly isn’t the focus, it fits perfectly within the general atmosphere of the game.

Special mention should be given to the soundtrack. While there is a prevailing genre to this OST, it is impressive how much variety is crammed in without deviating from the overall feel of the game. They’ve included numerous flavors of EDM, including psydub, house music, disco, and even neoclassical. Additionally, there is also a generous assortment of rock within the OST as well, further fitting the clash of genres that the game is centered around.

While the selection is incredible on its own merits, what transcends the OST from great to phenomenal is how they cross-pollinate with each other as you play through the game. For starters, each boss track has a few remixed versions that you can play on a repeat playthrough of a boss, featuring various artists such as Tokyo Machine, James Landino, Funk Fiction, and a few others. Additionally, there is a mechanic whereby by holding Triangle will have your character start playing their instrument, transforming anything within their radius. What you see is rather simple, but what isn’t simple is what you hear. Instead of having your character playing a sample track to get the point across, they actually start playing along with the music, regardless of when you hold down the button. Best of all, BOTH Mayday and Zuke have their own solo that can last for the entirety of almost EVERY track in the OST. It is an aural pleasure to simply stand there and hold down the transform button, watching one of the two musicians continuously assaulting their instruments with coherent musical ideas in accordance with the song.

Perhaps this is my bias speaking, given that I am a musician, but it is undeniable that the amount of effort that has gone into the musical department cannot be understated. If this kind of music clicks with you, then chances are high that you will have this playing on repeat for weeks, even after you finish it.

Gameplay

The point of most contention amongst NSR players is how the game plays, and while there is a lot to unpack here (both good and bad), the game is ultimately still quite enjoyable to play, even if it hits some technical snags along the way. The setup is relatively simple, consisting of a basic attack, a jump, a shoot attack, and the ability to transform certain objects around you. Some enemy attacks drop ammo that can be picked up and shot back at them, which is the primary way of damaging them unless they are in melee range. Both characters possess a range of abilities that unlock as you progress the game and you can equip two on each character. These abilities range in application from damage dealing to healing to protecting. You can promptly swap between Mayday and Zuke, with each having a differing melee style. Mayday is a heavy hitter, dealing slow but more damaging attacks, while Zuke is a fast combo builder with his abilities receiving a boost when used at a high combo.

While the game has rhythmic elements, it would be categorically untrue to classify No Straight Roads strictly as a rhythm game, although it would be easy to make that mistake when looking at a quick blurb about the game. In short, enemies are required to attack to the beat, while you are given no such restrictions. However, you are highly encouraged to listen closely to the music to know when an enemy is going to strike. Not only does it make it natural to know when you need to dodge, but it also lets you know if and when to parry an attack. Throughout the game, enemies will launch an attack that is coated in bright purple, and if you press the attack button right as it hits, your character will instead parry the attack and deal damage to the enemy. The timing is fairly tight, but it (almost) always lands on the beat of the song that is playing, so you are able to parry the attack if you pay attention to the music and hit the button right as it hits the downbeat.

When these elements work in tandem with the action gameplay, it is all too easy to get engrossed, simultaneously vibing to the music while also disrupting concerts and causing a general ruckus yourself. However, a lot of the bugs are where No Straight Roads blunders the most and may turn people off the most, although the infamous bug that softlocks difficulty progression appears to have been patched for good. The most egregious issue is that not all enemy attacks are necessarily on the beat, including attacks that can be parried. While most enemies do a good job of rhythmically telegraphing their attacks, whether they be on the beat or a syncopation, it makes it all the more jarring when you are suddenly faced with an attack that is completely off-beat or doesn’t come with the same weight, causing it to *feel* off-beat. It is still possible to dodge/parry these attacks, but it feels significantly harder since it goes against the music entirely, making them more frustrating to deal with than they should be. It’s the equivalent of attempting to intentionally sing a half-step under a tone or tapping a tempo slightly slower than what you are hearing: certainly possible with enough skill and attention, but much more challenging given that you are naturally inclined to bend your pitch/tempo back to what you are hearing. There are other bugs present in the game, and while they are generally more minor, it is worth mentioning regardless.

The simplicity of the gameplay was also a common point of criticism by many people, and while I do not disagree that the core foundation is simple, it is also worth mentioning that No Straight Roads also partially has its roots in the rhythm genre, a class of genre that benefits from simplicity. While it is undeniably impressive to watch people’s fingers fly across their controller/mouse/keyboard as a flurry of prompts bombard them in a rhythmic twist on bullet hell where you utilize staggering reaction speed and hand-eye coordination to stay inside the safe zone of the beat map (probably a stretch, but I digress), it isn’t particularly realistic to expect that level of finesse from every rhythm games enthusiast under the sun. Not only does it require an immense degree of practice to even reach the end of these charts, but it also keeps the player in a constant state of failure, preventing them from reaching any flow state until they master the content.

It’s reasons like this that explains the appeal of games like Rhythm Heaven, Thumper, Rhythm Doctor, Crypt of the Necrodancer, and many others, games that either provide a simple list of commands to digest or combine the rhythm element with gaming conventions that people are more familiar with, rather than something complicated or esoteric. The act of playing the game usually doesn’t take up much brain space before adding the musical elements, since adding a rhythm game on top of a complicated structure of gameplay may be overwhelming and require a level of multitasking that simply isn’t feasible or fun for most players. While there certainly is appeal for both kinds of rhythm games, NSR benefits from keeping things simple. Given that you do not need to move to the rhythm, it allows players to briefly divert their attention from the beat and assess a tricky situation before retrieving the beat again. This is a boon particularly because the game can have a lot on-screen that requires careful positioning to avoid, and forcing players to stick to the beat can make it feel overwhelming to do both at the same time.

The game adopts a steady rhythm in its primary gameplay loop: you explore the city, finding stickers that you can equip to net stat bonuses. From there, you play an “approach” level leading up to the boss before actually fighting them. After the fight has concluded, you gain fans (currency) based on how well you performed in the fight, and you can use that fan power to invest in skill trees that further enhance your abilities. While the skills themselves are mostly rudimentary, they provide solid enough reason to continue fighting, and the game has various difficulty modes for each boss to minimize the monotony of grinding for skills.

Given that I mentioned No Straight Roads being a boss-rush, it should come as no surprise that the “approach” levels primarily exist as buildups to the actual fight, rather than the focus. As such, while later levels do take greater liberties with their level design, they are unfortunately still the most forgettable aspect of the game. An approach level has you going through various “layers” of security measures, destroying enough robots to proceed to the next one. These segments do not offer additional difficulty modes and primarily consist of NSR security robots to deal with rather than any actual enemies. While there is some variety in the opposition that you face leading up to the boss, it doesn’t do much to distract from the fact that they simply are not memorable sections. That isn’t to say they are necessarily bad; they are serviceable sections that provide adequate pacing in hyping up the next real opponent, albeit with a slew of missed potential.

As such, the true highlight of No Straight Roads’ gameplay loop is the colorful selection of EDM megastars that you will need to take down. While the fundamentals aren’t shaken in the form of gimmicks (excluding one boss that is effectively a twin-stick rhythm bullet hell), fights are distinct and memorable, each requiring a different approach to defeating effectively. Dodging musical notes played by the child prodigy Yinu differs vastly from destroying the hilariously replaceable members of the 1010 boy band in hopes of gathering ammo to use against the flying factory producing them. Additionally, they effectively utilize the music to challenge the player’s sense of rhythm in differing ways, depending on what portion of the song they are at. When playing through for the first time, it is exciting to not know what is going to happen next, having to rely strictly on whatever sense of rhythm and musicality you must determine what’s gonna happen next. Considering that the initial difficulty of the game is fairly low and that there is an option to directly continue the fight after losing (only on Normal), there is a generous margin for error, allowing you to absorb the boss fight in its entirety, experimenting and deducting how best to avoid a boss’s attacks.

The Platinum Trophy

Earning the platinum trophy is a relatively simple affair when you boil it down. It mainly involves beating the game, unlocking and collecting everything, beating every boss on every difficulty, and completing some easy miscellaneous stuff along the way. The prospect of collectibles may seem frightening, but it is made completely digestible with a smaller world, a low collectible count, and the fact that only a fraction of said collectibles are obtained by exploring said world, leaving the rest to be earned as you progress other areas of the platinum. The same can be said for unlocking every skill in the game. While all the skills are nice to have to some capacity, they are by no means required to complete the harder content, so you are free to complete as much content as you are comfortable reaching without grinding for skills.

Most of your platinum journey will consist of defeating every boss on every difficulty mode, of which there are 5 total (including your first go at the boss for story progression). They are titled Hard, Crazy, Parry, and Perfect Parry. Hard and Crazy up the challenge in slightly differing ways, with Hard slightly altering patterns to make them more difficult to deal with and Crazy cluttering the screen with more enemies and attacks. They are unlocked in sequence as you clear the previous difficulty and only require completion to count towards the trophy. While it becomes abundantly clear that the game prefers you to have accumulated some skills and stickers before challenging these difficulty modes, it is entirely doable to complete them without them, even if your rank might suffer in the process.

The difficulty modes that stand out the most are Parry and Perfect Parry, in which bosses can only be damaged by parrying their attacks, although the most recent version of the game allows your abilities to occasionally damage them. While the Perfect Parry (PP) version of a boss is unlocked after clearing it on Parry, you can only unlock these modes after rolling the credits and reading the message afterwards telling you that they are now available (important because beating the final boss and skipping the ending sequence will not properly unlock Parry and Perfect Parry, bugging the difficulty trophies). Perfect Parry is a variant of Parry that combines the clutter of Crazy difficulty with the twist that ANY hit will kill you and send you back to the beginning of the fight. This is undeniably the most difficult part of the game, although you can bypass this step, utilizing a sticker that grants your characters invulnerability and clearing the bosses on PP from there. You will still need to get one legitimate PP clear to unlock the trophy, but the first boss is easy enough to do so, only taking around 2-3 minutes if done well.

I personally decided to do each fight on PP legitimately whilst earning an S rank as well. If you are curious as to which strategies I used to clear these fights, feel free to refer to my completion playlist below.

Conclusion

While it certainly isn’t without technical issues, No Straight Roads is a wonderful game that celebrates music and artistry in a way that isn’t often seen in other games. Its colorful city and wacky plot make the story an absolute joy to play through, and the gameplay does well to service the phenomenal soundtrack. While the platinum trophy can be challenging for those who want it, it can be almost entirely circumvented if you can not tolerate the bugs. Assuming you have tempered expectations going into the game, No Straight Roads is a fantastic experience worth playing, especially if it goes on sale.