Game Over: A Musical RPG?? Deep Look

There are interesting ideas and some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, but they can’t smooth over the grating music and inconsistent gameplay.

Game Over: A Musical RPG??? begins en medias res, at the end of a story the player has next to no context for. The player fights a magnificent dragon named Brusko and rescues Pins, the classic damsel in distress, who was captured by Brusko. Shortly after being released, Pins gives the player a kiss. Soon after that, she remarks that this was out of character for her. Game Over’s energy is encapsulated at this moment, with abundant cheekiness and an excess of trope-subversion. Unfortunately, the core gameplay fails to match the quality of the writing. Perhaps more fatal to its success, however, is the music present in Game Over. Most of it is completely diegetic, but one’s tolerance and appreciation of it is entirely dependent on one’s acceptance of its distorted chiptune focus. Those not attunded to its quirks will find it underwhelming at best and actively grating in the worst scenarios. For a game touting itself as a “musical RPG,” its impact cannot be overlooked.

Game Over’s world takes clear inspiration from Undertale, though the twist here is a high emphasis on musicality. Several NPCs are living instruments, and all animations are synchronized to the background music. Unfortunately, any further comparisons made to Undertale work against Game Over. Character sprites are basic and expressionless, and area designs are both boring to look at and uninteresting to move around in.

When not wandering the world during the main quest, players will often come across seemingly random and meaningless events that feature a chore of some kind. Be careful though, because many of these events have a domino effect leading to different consequences, though most of these consequences are comedic in nature and do not affect gameplay. Humor is definitely Game Over’s strong suit. Many scenes nail the comedic timing and there are definite laugh-out-loud moments, with the inclusion of a certain menu option being a definite highlight.

Charts can be incredibly, almost prohibitively, complex and difficult.

Gameplay sees players encountering enemies along the main path and initiating a duet. Duets take the classic Guitar Hero formula of matching the note to the fret and adapts it to fit the player’s control method of choice. Each fret can be mapped to a specific button on the controller or key on the keyboard, meaning players have many ways to customize the layout to their liking. Instead of a score, players have a health gauge that goes down every time they miss a note. Differentiating Game Over from its inspiration are the additions made to each Duet, catered to the character and song the player is battling. One enemy enemy has a black-and-white film noir theme featuring a monologue interspersed throughout the song, while another might simply have saxophones on the sides that sync to the music. The game has some genuinely inventive and hilarious characters and does something truly unique with Guitar Hero’s tried-and-true formula.

However, while inventive, in many cases Duets overstay their welcome. Some are short and sweet, but many take over a minute to complete. Add to this the game’s penchant for complex charts that are not for the faint of heart, and often the game feels like it comes to a screeching halt if a difficult enemy is encountered. Furthermore, there are some issues of inconsistency in the Duets, a problem that makes it incredibly difficult to justify replaying the same Duets over and over again. A lack of difficulty options contributes to this problem. The only modes available are hard, less hard, and Nigel mode. Hard is the default difficulty, and the Duet charts are on par with a typical Guitar Hero chart on hard. Less hard is, as the title implies, less hard, but notably doesn’t decrease the number of frets the player needs to keep track of, unlike how Guitar Hero and Rock Band decrease the number of frets as difficulty decreases. Nigel mode, described by the game as “for those named Nigel,” takes control away from the player and automatically completes every Duet.

These two make for some very funny moments.

With only two true difficulty settings and overly complex charts, the core gameplay of Game Over: A Musical RPG?? doesn’t have enough to hold itself up on its own. Some of the tunes are a bit catchy, but the audio experience of Game Over will leave a lot to be desired for many. While the diegetic music is a nice touch conceptually, most of the actual sounds begin to grate over time, which isn’t helped by an inconsistent sound mix. While none of the songs featured in the Duets are outright bad, none of them stand out and certainly none of them justify the use of the rhythm-game formula, a formula that lives and dies on its music.

Ultimately, this all culminates in a game that is hard to recommend. There are interesting ideas and some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments, but they can’t smooth over the grating music and inconsistent gameplay of Game Over: A Musical RPG??.

Disclosure: This article is based on a copy of the game provided by the publisher.