No Straight Roads E3 2019 Hands-on Preview | Rock 'n' Roll vs. EDM

I love rhythm games. The ways games can abstract the creation of music with play never ceases to delight. Whether it's the way beetle in Thumper slams the ground and grinds around corners adds to the loud, hard beats of its intense soundtrack, or Crypt of the Necrodancer and how it melds rhythm into every facet of its design, the possibilities feel endless. Basically any pitch that amounts to "rhythm meets [blank]" I'll at least give it a look.

No Straight Roads from developer Metronomik is one such game. An action game with a heavy emphasis on rhythm, No Straight Roads sees you playing as indie rock band duo Mayday and Zuke as they fight against the NSR mega corporation who has taken control of Vinyl City and only allows their brand of music (EDM) to be performed.

The demo ran me through a boss fight against a robot DJ. I got a quick tutorial first, thankfully. The main things are that you can swap between Mayday and Zuke at any time. While they both play the same, the kinds of things they can transform objects into vary. Play a bit of Mayday's guitar and you'll get a barrage of rockets to launch toward your opponent. Play Zuke's drums and you'll get a speed boost pad instead. To do either of those you first need to collect some music notes, which can be found just lying around or picked up from fallen foes.

 

No Straight Roads definitely has a stylish look to it.
 

Combat itself feels pretty simple, but I also didn't have access to much of the greater abilities. The developers say they looked to invoke games like Kingdom Hearts and Devil May Cry. Could definitely see the Kingdom Hearts comparison, as even with just the one combo I had, I felt like I had enough options on the periphery to keep things fresh (much like Kingdom Hearts). Main thing about combat is how parries are tied to the beat of the music. Time your attack right and you'll knock back whatever the enemy throws at you.

No Straight Roads was partially born out of a desire to bring more people into rhythm games, director Wan Hazmer told me. He's a huge fan of the genre, citing all manner of rhythm games as inspirations. To that end, No Straight Roads feels like it uses rhythm smartly so that you could, theoretically, play even if you don't have a good sense of rhythm given that it isn't baked into every facet of play. (At least based on what I played.)

Parries definitely came in handy against the boss, as he liked to toss orbs of energy that homed in on me. There were also some that ran a circuit around the arena. I couldn't get close to the boss, so I had to rely on attacking from afar. I did that primarily by spending music notes to fire off projectiles directly at him, as well as creating some of those rocket bundles that Mayday could make. This kept up for a few rounds until eventually the arena began to distort and collapse, at which point the DJ was being pulled into some sort of black hole. He wasn't done quite yet, however, as the orbs he kept throwing out were now being pulled in as well, threatening to push me into the black hole as well. Parrying them was the only way to stop them. After several parries, the boss was finished, and with it the demo as well.

While I didn't get a look at it due to the nature of the demo, the full game will have a large hub world to explore between levels. No Straight Roads is looking to be reasonably lengthy (estimates put it at between 10-15 hours when I asked), so there should be plenty to see and do in the game.

No Straight Roads is set for release in early 2020 for PS4 and PC.
 

Callum Rakestraw, NoobFeed