A Musical Story wants to be an inspired rhythm game but its vibrant soundtrack and pleasant visuals do little to distract from the sole, central mechanic that never evolves, resulting in frustration and obscuring meaningful progression.
In my time interacting with A Musical Story I constantly wished to refer to it as A Musical Journey.
A journey, while not inherently long, may take the player or reader or listener or viewer through a range of emotions and experiences. The acclaimed Journey, while brief, navigated players through a whimsical world and a silent, beautiful narrative. A story, meanwhile, may unfurl in a few moments and may only leave the smallest taste of satisfaction on the pallet.
How I wish A Musical Story had taken me on a journey.
Much of Glee-Cheese Studio’s game is a seductive yarn of visual and aural landscapes. As a sucker for a gorgeous aesthetic and a wonderful soundtrack, the pieces of this game want to fall in place for me. Yet, the more I reflect on each turn of the page on A Musical Story, the more I’m left distraught. Did I ultimately feel satisfied when I wrapped up the journey? No, not necessarily. Did I grow more apt at its mechanics? Was I privy to a surprising narrative or an evolution of ideas? Sadly, I think not.
A Musical Story is framed as the memories of a hospitalized musician named Gabriel playing out. Players hear the slow beep of an EKG machine as Gabriel lies unconscious and bandaged up. How did he get here? The next handful of hours explain the process.
While set in the backdrop of the 1970s, A Musical Story feels loosely bonded to the decade. Gabriel is parallel to Jimi Hendrix as he works a dead-end job as a canner. He and two other musicians practice and play small gigs and become confident they can hit it big at the Pinewood festival. What comes to pass is a road trip intertwining love, sex, drugs, rock, roll, conflict, triumph, and hope. Players know this is the 70s because the band hits the road in a van that looks straight out of the era. Those who have seen a movie about Woodstock or a period piece about these tumultuous times will recognize imagery, even if only vaguely.
Looking back on A Musical Story, it’s obvious what Glee-Cheese is attempting to invoke. But I never truly felt submerged in the period. Players could potentially place this game at any point in the last fifty years because much of the story unfolds on the road and in nature, places where technology seems to have no place or no importance.
While I can forgive the game for not drenching itself in the era it so obviously adores, I grew disappointed in the arc Gabriel and his band took. Knowing that I could describe A Musical Story‘s narrative from beginning to end in a couple sentences feels somewhat damning. Certainly there’s nothing wrong with A Musical Story being A Minimal Story–as many pieces of art, including music, can express volumes in their subtlety–but the rising and falling action felt so rote, so by the book. Of course the band is going to have a great time scraping by. Of course they are going to get in a fight. Of course drugs are going to harm the dynamic.
The issue is that A Musical Story doesn’t necessarily excel at the story it is trying to tell. And not just because of the handful of events occurring don’t strive to do something new. Told in a gorgeous, painterly style, A Musical Story is awash with thick, bold colors. See it as an impressionist painting turned comic book, a hazy music video that pops with the allure of hallucinogenics. It’s one of the most striking things about the game but also one that interrupted and blockaded by the gameplay, gameplay that hinders the momentum of of scenes that would otherwise be touching or dramatic.
A Musical Story is a rhythm game. It’s sole mechanic is a type of call and response gameplay loop where players hear a segment of music, attempt to recall the tempo and beat, and then press the appropriate bumper or trigger as the music plays again. While it may be somewhat more complex than that, there’s a chance that many players may not realize it at first. Each chapter of the game plays out as a song. Once that song is repeated by the player, a short cutscene plays, and it’s onto the next.
It took me a few chapters to realize that A Musical Story presents four or five instrumental sections that are a full song deconstructed. Players hear the percussion, or a guitar, vocals, or a keyboard. The screen draws out a near full circle and pops smaller colored circles on that line indicating the notes or beats a player must nail. Complete one part and a brief piece of the chapter’s cutscene plays. I think it is meant to represent Gabriel recollecting these memories, slowly piecing them together like he is learning the song, note by note.
The game is not inherently difficult but it requires some skill. Players who have no sense of rhythm or beat will likely struggle. Not only because A Musical Story‘s gameplay is like a version of Simon Says but because it requires players to pay sharp attention to a tune with little initial direction. The tune plays once, showing the notes that need to be hit. The side the circle is filled in indicates whether the player needs to hit the left or right bumper or trigger, or both at the same time.
I consider myself musically inclined and have a good sense of rhythm but A Musical Story had a tendency to frustrate me. Miss a beat, whether the first or last, and players will have to wait for the 10-15 second segment to play out and start again for a new chance. If I didn’t nail the first note on the first try, I feared that I would hit the entire remaining notes and just have to wait for a second try. Because the segments are so short, it isn’t entirely exhausting. That being said, I see a large number of players not being able to time the first note because the track continues to play. Screw up along the track and there’s a chance your timing is thrown off for the whole thing.
Yes, this is going to be common in a rhythm game of this sort but at times, the way the tempo fluctuates between songs may throw players off. During one segment, the music may play incredibly slow and it’s hard to identify when the timing is right to hit the correct button. And then the next song is faster and a mistake feels like less of a drag. Though it may sound as if A Musical Story requires absolute precision, I often found times where I had near-perfect timing and was told I messed up or hit a note too early or too late only to have it succeed. It dampened my feelings quite a bit.
To buffer the difficulty and players’ continuing mistakes, an assist can be activated that is permanent or automatically introduced the more a mistake is made. If players keep screwing up a beat, a subtle white dot will move along the circle indicating the pace at which players need to be. At first it will disappear before hitting the note, further mistakes make the timing more obvious.
On the whole, this mechanic works, despite its complexity and requirement of a good ear, it is immensely easy to learn. After a couple seconds I was nodding my head and tapping my hand to help ease into the rhythm. But there’s a problem. A Musical Story never strays from this sole mechanic except for one moment at the end of the game. Players will stare at this black screen with its circle track and see cutscenes play out and then do it all over again. At one point, when Gabriel is at his lowest, the song being repeated becomes painfully slow and the notes are more disjointed and harder to time. But other than changes in beat or speed, there’s nothing new or different. And the final change in gameplay is merely timing beats that come from the right to the left and must be hit in time at risk of losing a “hit point.” It’s the thing most like Guitar Hero and probably one of the best times I had with the game.
A shame that Glee-Cheese didn’t try and do more. Whether it be more unique patterns or the actual visuals playing along with the music, the bulk of the game feels lacking. Players may realize that the five or so minutes it takes to play through a song only result in a cutscene that plays for less than 30 seconds. The gameplay doesn’t feel entirely rewarding because the narrative doesn’t pay off in a meaningful way.
All that being said, A Musical Story‘s soundtrack is quite exceptional. Even when chopped and sliced and dissected across mere instruments, the attention to detail, dedication to multiple styles and genres… it all shines through. For days after playing the game I had a few of its more simpler beats pounding away in the back of my head. It’s hard to describe how intrinsically important and wonderful the music is for this game but I think it is worth the price of admission just to hear and see it, despite the shortfalls.
Maybe one day I will revisit A Musical Story in an attempt to perfect every song on its first try in order to unlock the “true” ending. But as it stands, the game is a fascinating experiment that does its best to play around with the rhythm genre while never aspiring to be something more. Its spin on the 70s won’t surprise anyone who has followed the music of the decade and the precise, unyielding singular gameplay mechanic may wear thin on some in the game’s final third. Still, the pool of music-based games often feels quite shallow and A Musical Story may be a sufficient enough drop in the water.
