No Straight Roads, by developer Metronomik and publisher Sold Out, promises to give you 2 things – good music and good characters – and it does not disappoint. You play as Mayday and Zuke, a rock duo in the fictional Vinyl City. Vinyl City has been taken over by NSR with the help of electronic music. It is up to Mayday and Zuke to start a rock revolution and give back control to the people of the city.
Mayday and Zuke want to bring rock back to Vinyl City. To this end, they try to impress NSR by performing rock music in front of them. They, however, get banished followed by a ban on rock music altogether. This sets up the rest of the game where you start a rock revolution.
You can hop back between Mayday and Zuke who each have their own unique fighting style or play the local 2-player mode. Mayday feels like a heavier unit and takes time in dealing high damage attacks. Zuke is more of a swifter unit focusing on dealing multiple attacks in a chain. When playing single player, you can switch as much as you want, and the character not being used simply runs alongside taking and dealing no damage in fights.
The world of No Straight Roads is linear but is still alive as all the civilians have a decent personality. The art style is unique and looks stunning. The game runs very smooth and never feels like it looks lacking. The character models are very colorful and look amazing. Every area looks different but still matches the artist of that area. The attention to graphical detail in this game is something one notices with time. There is also fan art included in the Encore Edition that can be picked up all over Vinyl City made by the fans of the game.
The best part about No Straight Roads by far is the sound design. Each level feels alive and is perfectly complimented by the music. All the boss levels have their own music which suits their style of play. There is nothing more to say about the soundtracks except that they are phenomenal. Along with this, the voice actors have also done an incredible job as each character feels unique and believable.
The tone of the game is mostly hopeful but can sometimes get slightly dark. The levels themselves can sometimes be very hard and not landing the perfect parry can instantly lead to a game over. This can be a little annoying but regular health pickups make sure it is only challenging and not totally impossible.
No Straight Roads: Encore Edition is a well-executed game that has challenging gameplay, excellent sound design, a unique art style and local co-op playability. It is an almost perfect package as it nails something most games with a boss-leveling system fail to do it is not repetitive. Each boss is unique and fights in their own unique style. This, with the custom-made music for each boss, really make each fight feel completely different. This, combined with the amazing world, No Straight Roads is set and makes for a great experience.
Game Score: 8.5/10
To keep up with the latest info on No Straight Roads, follow @NoStraightRoads on Twitter and purchase No Straight Roads: Encore Edition via Steam.
Steam Review
My first ever video game console was a Game Boy Advanced SP and I remember playing sidescrolling platformers for hours. I have not stopped ever since and my love for video game consoles has only grown to include a (now broken) PS2, a PSP, an Xbox 360, a Nintendo Wii, a Nintendo DS and a PS4.
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