Road 96

When I saw Road 96 pop up on GOG for the first time, I knew it would be my thing. I just didn't realize how polished and carefully crafted it would end up being. I went in with an open mind and finished off with what may be my contender for GOTY. Right away, if you're not someone who is into walking sims or narrative focused games; this will not be for you. However, if that is your thing then this has a lot to offer. The game blends elements of rouge-lites and walking sims together. Each episode (of which there are 7 at around an hour a piece), you select a new character each with different starting amounts of money, health and distance from your destination. Every episode you'll have to make narrative choices that do genuinely effect how scenes play out. You'll need to explore to find money/supplies. Traveling costs HP. Run out of HP and your journey as that character is over. The game is about being a teen on the run trying to escape a dictatorship doing terrible things to its people. On your journey to the countries border you will run into a group of characters who each have their own unique stories that at times interconnect. You'll run into truckers, a duo of misfit robbers, a snobby news reporter, a man hellbent on revenge, a cop who is torn with her career morally, a young hacker and more. Your interactions with them and in the world can help swing an upcoming election and the future of the country. It's a very gripping narrative all the way through and each character is written so well. The overall tone of the game is dark but right as it starts becoming too much the games always throw in some happiness/comic relief and it really just brings you closer to the characters within the world. I wish I could keep talking more but the review character limit is near. I'll just throw in the art direction and soundtrack to the game is phenomenal and a repeat playthrough seems to be well worth doing. Road 96 to me is the gold standard of narrative games.

On paper, this game sounded perfect to me - a traveling game inspired by films of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers, all wrapped up in the atmosphere of the 90s and melancholy. The game looks and sounds beautiful and the first moments spent in it, in which I played Bella Ciao on a trombone with a fellow traveler, were a joy. The problem is that the whole game is brought down by its atrocious writing and completely unlikeable characters. What's more, the political storyline is extremely simple and feels like a 11-year-old's take. There is no nuance, it's completely black and white. The gameplay itself is not bad, but the survival aspects of the game are very superficial and as the game is very easy, they barely play a role. The decision making in the game clearly does have some impact, but then again, it's tied back to the characters, none of which I particularly liked (and couldn't stand most of them), so it didn't do much for me. Overall, it feels like the developers tried to do a bit too much on too little space. The rouge-lite traveling game is completely overshadowed by poorly written characters and their stories and I wonder who this game was intended for. On the one hand it attempts to bring out the nostalgia for the 90s (although the overall vibe is actually that of the 80s) and talk about adult topics, on the other hand it feels like a cartoon and gameplay-wise is very simple. If you were intrigued by the description of the game and you like good writing and story-rich games, like me, do yourself a service and avoid falling into the same trap as I did.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. It is well made, the art style was nice, most characters were fun, the music was ok (a bit too kitschy at times for my taste), BUT: - Be aware that this is basically a story that runs on its own with very little interactivity. It has a few minigames and a few VERY basic puzzles and that's it. - The game looks like it could involve a lot of exploration and immersion, but it doesn't. In most scenes there's a given path and you can't leave it. At all. You can't jump over obstacles, you can't crouch under fences and you'll constantly get blocked by invisible walls that prevent you from leaving that one straight road you're supposed to travel. - I encountered a lot of "choices", where I didn't have a choice at all, where there was only a single option to choose from. In some instances, you're forced to choose between nothing but terrible choices. The game forces you to, for no apparent reason, butt into conflicts that aren't your business at all which seems like a very bad idea for a teen trying to stay under the radar of authorities. But the story will not progress, until you do exactly that. The game is a very "naive", childish and romanticized representation of living on the road, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It has it's charm and if you like laid back, relaxing games that don't really pose a challenge but offer more of an experience of watching a movie with an occasional choice in between, you might enjoy this game. You might get really disappointed, if you expected more from it, though.

Road 96 is a really good walking sim. It's a politically-charged story set in a fictional totalitarian dictatorship where various player characters are trying to escape and/or vote out and/or overthrow the president. The funny thing is... it's based on French politics of the 1980s and 1990s. So, of course, there's no shortage of people complaining about it making a mockery of USA politics in general, and Donald Trump in particular.