A Musical Story Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of A Musical Story (Xbox One)

Wednesday, March 2, 2022.
by Peggy Doyle

When people talk about the 1970s, what comes to mind? Long hair, hippies, Woodstock, bell bottoms, pet rocks or 8-track tapes? How about the Atari 2600 gaming console? Depending on when you were born, you may not even have an answer to the question. Younger generations seem to think anyone over a certain age is a ‘boomer’, a term thrown around commonly online without most even knowing the origin or who Baby Boomers actually are.

As one of the ‘boomers’ who write for Xbox Addict, I jumped at the chance to review this Indie game, A Musical Story. I was born in the 70's, and although hadn’t even started school before the 80's came along, I grew up listening to my parents’ music of the 60's and 70's and still have a strong connection to music of that time.

A Musical Story is a rhythm game set entirely in the realm of 70's music. You explore the memories of a young man named Gabriel who, at the start of the game is in the hospital, and you are looking at his life through music and visuals alone. This is a debut game from French developer Glee-Cheese Studio. At the start of the game, you’re presented with words on the screen that say it’s recommended that you play this game with headphones. I will 100% back that up. The sound quality, focus and intensity were a different experience playing with a headset versus without one. As you start the game you heart a slight whisper... ’3...2...1’ over top of a heart rate monitor.

You can’t help but notice the similarity of Gabriel to Jimi Hendrix. Another of his bandmates resembles John Lennon. Icons of the 70's and I feel this was a way to make the story slightly familiar to you even if you’re not familiar with the decade of music. The memories take you through Gabriel practicing with his band and working a day job, to going on tour with the band in a van. The chapters are even laid out on a map like a road trip. You see a tale of friendship and love, and eventually how he ends up in the hospital. I won’t spoil any of the emotional journey you are taken on. All with very few actual words spoken in the game.

It’s a beautiful audio-visual treat for your senses, boasting a soundtrack of 26 original songs, composed and performed by Charles Bardin and Valentin Ducloux. The music is a wonderful blend of psychedelic 70's rock and lo-fi beats and I want more of it. The soundtrack, along with a painted visual novel (crafted by Alexandre Rey), combined with a unique take on a rhythm game creates something I’ve never experienced before.

When I talk about unique take on a rhythm game, I mean in the way it presents itself on the screen. Most games in this genre follow relatively straight line on the screen. Whether it is the notes from Guitar Hero or the blocks from Beat Saber, the notes move towards you. In some dance games, the directions scroll from top to bottom of the screen. In A Musical story, they are in a circle on the center your screen, I assume a reference to the vinyl records of the era. As you follow counter clockwise, you hit the buttons indicated on the screen. Complete the rotation for that instruments track and open a sliver of a memory. Complete the chapter with all instruments and open the full memory.

Each chapter had 3 to 6 instruments to complete. The biggest problem I had was that the top of the circle was missing/not shown on the screen. It only shows you one time what the strand of music is, and you have to catch it on the first beat at the top. You have no real indication of it starting and often I missed the first note, and therefore missed the perfect pass. If you could see the top of the circle, the missing beats would be a bit more obvious to count you in, and I think I would have made less mistakes. There also seemed to be a slight lag or delay between the sound and the timing to button press and at first, I thought this was my error and adjusted my timing accordingly, however, Steam is offering a substantial free demo of the game and I would I was much better with my reflexes and timing there. I may plug my controller in and see if that makes a difference.

Being a gamer of a certain age, my reflexes aren’t really as quick as the younger generation, so I assumed I wouldn’t be the best at this game, but I am fairly musically inclined and have a good sense of music and pattern so I also had a certain confidence going into it. A Musical Story starts you off slowly, only using one button, then the other, and the third time you’re using the combination of the two. On Xbox this is the 'LB' and 'RB'. You either tap or hold depending on what is required of you. Since this game is an original soundtrack, there was no real familiarity to the songs, and thus no advantage to knowing them going in. There are 24 chapters and if you complete each of the 24 perfectly, you’ll unlock a bonus 25th song/chapter. I will be honest, I didn’t unlock the bonus chapter and that was primarily by choice, I couldn’t help but allow myself to fail a few times just to listen to particular songs in the soundtrack multiple times. I only wish I got to hear the whole songs. I reached out to the developers and was told that the entire soundtrack will be available upon release with the deluxe version of the game.

Depending on how quick you catch on to the game, and how many mistakes you make, you can finish the game in about 2 hours. It's a quick jaunt, but A Musical Story was a surprise and a delight for me, a solid and confident debut game from Glee-Cheese studio and I will definitely be grabbing the soundtrack to listen to once it’s available.

Overall: 8.2 / 10
Gameplay: 7.5 / 10
Visuals: 8.0 / 10
Sound: 9.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of A Musical Story (Xbox One)

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