At $10 this game is a steal. The "combat" system is a twist on the five lane Guitar Hero style chart where the notes are the bullets to be dodged. Using this basic foundation, the game explores how far one can go in turning such an, on the surface, basic system into a treat for the eyes and workout for ones hand eye coordination. With five difficulty options and two different accessibility filters there's no need to worry about the game locking those out with poor HEC skills, yet I urge everyone to try the first few hours on the default 'Hard', as it makes the victories all the sweeter. It also ties into something I'll discuss in the more story-based-half of this review. Music is also killer, with a unique theme for every fight and all of them being varied and executed exceptionally well. The overworld tracks are no slouch either, being of similar calibre in quality if not memorability. On to the story, this will contain moderate spoilers. Buy the game, go in with as little bias as possible. Alot of the good in the story comes from a lack of preperation. To start, one of the tooltips states: "It's about the journey, not the destination". And with how much intrigue the game builds around its world in the first half this worried me, as if the developers lacked confidence in ending their own game well. This worry stayed close to my thoughts as I played on, fighting excellent battles with well written if occasionally basic characters, until I found myself around 90% point. The game wound up a final curve ball, a subversion of the player vs. playable character dynamic. "You weren't who you thought you were!", etc. It falls flat. There was precious little to telegraph such a subversion, and in the end I found it only soured the ending. Which was a bombastic note chart combined with one of the best tracks. This is why I urge everyone to not blaze through the gameplay by playing a lesser difficulty. It really is about the journey, not the destination.
