No Straight Roads is a Jolt of Goofy Rock Energy with Surprising Heart – REVIEW (PS4)

As prone to flirt with other genres of music as I am, strip me to my core and you’ll find rock and roll in my DNA; Pearl Jam, Garbage, Green Day and Tool coursing through the blood I’ve happily shed in deference to the pit and the stage. So you’ll have to trust me when I emphatically proclaim that NO STRAIGHT ROADS, developer Metronomik’s epic rock versus electronic dance music megamix throwdown, is worthy of a couple pints of the old life juice. In short, it rocks. 

Part rhythm game, part classic arcade beat ‘em up, NO STRAIGHT ROADS offers players the chance to help take the fledgling rock duo, Bunk Bed Junction, from stardom chasing zeroes living in a sewer lair, to chart topping heroes… um, also living in a sewer lair. 

Hey, it’s their vibe. 

Players take control of both Mayday, the spunky, bubble headed, literally starry-eyed lead guitarist and front woman whose sick licks punctuate dumb declarations of rock’s superiority and Zuke, the zucchini-colored drummer dude and chill yang to her bombastic yin guiding them in musical melee combat against shadowy record label, NSR, lead by the icy Tatiana. Bunk Bed Junction are determined to bring rock back to Vinyl City and restore power to the people whose vending machines and light posts have scarcely enough juice to stay on, fueled as they are by the comparatively wimpy power output of NSR’s roster of colorful and eccentric EDM artists. 

Their cockamamie plan is to infiltrate concert halls and bash their way through security robots and cameras with instrument based melee and special attacks, like riffs that recover health, or a long distance rocket. These can be switched up at the band’s lair to accommodate a player’s preferred style and maximize effectiveness. Collectible stickers can also be adhered to their instruments for stat boosts. By defeating bosses and collecting energy nodules to repower the city, the band wins over fans whose fervor can be used to unlock special abilities and add attacks to their repertoire.

While the smashing, or to use a Bunk Bed Junctionism, the bunka and junka do wear thin, the game offers enough variety with two controllable characters that can be switched between on the fly (or in one particular case are part of simultaneous mirrored gameplay) and tried and true mechanics, that it rarely detracts from the overall experience. 

This is due, in part, to how music is incorporated into the gameplay. Enemy encounters are set to a rhythm that dictates how and when they will attack, remembering the patterns and staying on the beat is the key to success. Marrying the combat to the music really becomes the best excuse to blast the killer soundtrack which features cuts in the style of classical piano, diva dance music, and a Japanese idol pop song that morphs from bright and happy into something dark and grinding like a Grimes track. Did I mention the sound mix yet? 

GOD TIER. TO DIE FOR.  

I’ve played a lot of games that claim to support 5.1 channel surround sound, but rarely has the mix been this fleet footed, this balanced, this explosive. You’ll want to crank up the volume to take in the full brunt of Bunk Bed Junction’s legendary sound odyssey. Even the non music parts stick out, with the affably goofy dialogue and sound effects getting a crisp royal treatment.

But that’s not even the best part of No Straight Roads. That belongs to the colorful, inventive boss battles, each one a unique set piece. There’s no dearth of imagination in the seven madcap multistage brawls (excluding the extra challenge against a street rapper), each representing a different genre of music fed through an EDM filter. They range from a literally disposable cybernetic boy band with autotune voices and military applications to a virtual mermaid idol whose every cutesy Jpop mannerism and fab outfit change are owed to the efforts of a talented, but beleaguered development team of artists and choreographers (as well as a slavishly devoted crowd of glow stick waving fans) the player must thwart via hacking.

There’s even an ice pop loving DJ with a globe for a head who spins the solar system to disco electronica while spitting out Carl Saganisms. You can’t make that up! Discovering who these label heavyweights are, their insecurities, their quirks, is by far the most enjoyable part of the game and reminded me of a similar fantasy music combat game, Brütal Legend.  

Sure, the hub world was a bit too repetitive and backtrack heavy for my tastes and maybe I found the challenge on the default setting (hard mode unlocks after you defeat each boss) a little too easy and yes, I admit that I wish rock music was more heavily featured. But none of that detracts from No Straight Roads‘ relentlessly upbeat tone – its boundless creativity and unexpected heart.

There’s this beautiful scene of a monstrous overbearing stage mother taking a seat next to her defeated child prodigy to accompany her on a piano torn in two. It’s intimate and delicate and perfectly scored. For all the silly punk rock, down-with-authority charm of the main game, it was scenes like that which brought it back to a love of music – that really struck a chord with me and made me feel that I was playing something truly special. 

EDM still kind of sucks (no offense) but NO STRAIGHT ROADS convinced me that it has its place even for a devil-horn-throwing rock girl like me.

Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.

No Straight Roads was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion.