Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

If you like games like "The wolf among us" - you will also probably like this one. It's like reading a comic and listening to an audiobook simultaneously. Characters are "alive" and have their own personality. The gameplay is relaxing and the story is decent.

As a 30-year old man I don't feel like the intended audience. The writing feels to me like that of a young adult woman collecing all of her fanfics and giving them an original IP coat of paint. There is a lot of style there and some of it is pretty cool. But it is style over substance. The author thought "it would be so cool if..." and then tried to add in some story. I'd go as far as to compare it to Mortal Kombat, only there's singing here instead of fighting. I did enjoy the singing, though, mostly thanks to the voice actors responsible... the songs at least didn't make me laugh like pretty much 2/3 of the writing. The characters struggle really heavily to character. I don't think there was a single line, that felt like an interaction between two people. Everything screams modern writing. Not much depth, everything just trying to be cool or funny or (to me) inappropriately emotional. Bad stuff is happening but there's no time to let it breathe for a bit. I felt a sort of naivite and inexperience with life's hardships - not saying anything about the authors of course, that's just how the writing felt to me as far as I got. And well, there's not much else to appreciate than writing in this kind of game. I do give it one bonus star for the artstyle and voice acting - both pretty well done. The design of the characters though wasn't really my cup of tea - once again, the intended audience seem to be ladies 15-25 years of age (sexy dudes, fashionable girls), but I can appreciate it for what it is and it wouldn't really detract me from the game itself, I don't mind leaving my comfort zone... So all in all, I didn't like it, but no hard feelings. I think the authors have potential to hone their craft into something I might like, but this came off to me like an unintentional comedy... and quite overpriced for what it was to me. I had to ask for a refund.

I enjoyed the story, but as much as being a musical is central to the game, I was really disappointed by the songs. I don't have the technical knowledge to say if it was bad singing, or bad direction, or bad writing or what, but most of the songs just fell flat for me. I compare the songs to things I've heard in actual stage musicals like Wicked, Hamilton, Rent, Heathers, etc, and nothing in this compared at all. Musical taste is subjective though, so maybe others will appreciate it more than me. But for being such a big part of the game, I was let down.

This review is short but full of spoiler about a huge gap in the story! The game explicitly emphasize that Idols has to die to surrender their eidolon. Even there is a special episode about an Idol who wants to die to hand over her eidolon. However, at some point there is choice you can freely hand over your eidolon without dying and there is no a clear explanation how this could happen. This is a huge conflict between how the story starts and how to story ends. If a game won't respect its story and lore I won't respect it either. That's it. A story based game has to consistent for the story, hasn't it? 1/10

I've finished one playthrough and it was so fun, my favorite part had to be making decisions within songs and seeing how the musicality would actually change. All the characters were interesting in their own right and seeing how things unfolded when they meshed together was a delight. The voice acting and singing was on point. Everyone felt like themselves and it sounded like the actors had fun with it all. Plus the singing had real emotion in the lines with amazing vocals and tracks. The art was beautiful along with the character designs, plus the lighting and angles in scenes were good. I'd say it's worth a playthrough and seeing how your story unfolds, cause it feels like character stories can go a few ways.