DigiXart created an odd bird of a game with Road 96 but at the same time an interesting experiment on choice and maybe even something that runs parallel with a former president. The game’s core runs on a branching narrative where choices either lead the player to freedom/success or get them caught and detained. While there is a tiny bit of puzzle-solving to be had in the experience, the core gameplay is branching narrative and building/breaking relationships. Again, it’s an interesting experience for a game and one that we’re going to dig into right now.
Relationships
One of the main foundations of Road 96 is the relationships you make during your journey as a runaway teen trying to escape the country of Petria. The details of the country are sparse, though it’s assumed it has been rundown and completely controlled in some 1984 manner by a president named Tyrak. He seems brutal and familiar. Anyway, the game puts you in the shoes of several teenagers who must travel over a thousand miles to the border of Petria to escape to whatever promised land lies beyond the border of the country. Along the way, you meet up with several different personalities that have been affected by Petria and a horrible event that occurred in 1986. Every character you meet along the journey has lost someone in some way. Some are tragedies, while others are simply disappearances. Regardless, you run in and out of these characters’ lives with every story you play, and they can either help or hinder your progress to the border depending on the choices you make when you’re building a relationship with them. It’s a fascinating set of stories that lead back to a game that is completely driven by choices that change the narrative dramatically depending on the route you choose to go. Reply value? Absolutely.
The main crux of each story is relationships. You build them up, you try to maintain them, and you make a relationship better or worse depending on how you respond to questions and feelings. This is the type of game that you’re listening to and reading to get to where you need to go in the most logical way. It’s also a game that makes sure that it lays it on thick with how it propels its drama and humor. If you enjoy well-constructed stories, then Road 96 will certainly have you locked in. It’s the driving reason why you play this game, and they don’t try to hide it.
I took to the story well. While there were moments of over-the-top acting (looking at you, John the truck driver), there were far more moments of endearment and special moments of self-reflection. It’s the type of story that tries to balance out keeping a smile on your face while making you reach for the tissues at the same time. I love that type of storytelling. It also made me activate the logical part of my brain a bit, where I had to think carefully through narrative choices to make sure that they resulted in the best possible result for my characters. The good folks at DigiXart make it a challenge to say the right thing to the right people. Ultimately, again, it’s replay value for me.
Gameplay Lite
While I’m a sucker for branching narrative leading the core of the gameplay, I think I would have liked just a bit more additional gameplay in the mix. You do have moments where simple puzzles crop up or moments where you must take down an oncoming police car (even throwing money at it – no, literally money), and there are a few more gameplay moments that crop up that step away from the story briefly, but the majority of what you’ll be doing in Road 96 is dialogue choices. Since the game is driven by narrative, it makes sense that it wants you to talk to people and create the narrative with your own choices, which shapes the gameplay as you go. Just go into it expecting to create more story than anything else and you won’t be disappointed with the gameplay. I was fine with it and connected with the game far better because of it.
Having said all the above, there are moments that are stealth, a gameplay theme that is over-arching throughout the entire experience. For example, there might be a moment (depending on your choices), when you must get someone out of handcuffs and help them to escape the police. You must collect certain items, create a distraction to get the police’s attention, and then steal keys and get the person unlocked. You must do it silently, go in the right direction, and do things in the right order, or this part of the story will end early. You do have little break-out moments here and there that give you a small amount of break from just having a branching narrative, but it isn’t laid on too thick.
From my experience, I enjoyed the breaks but really wanted to focus on the story. I felt like the narrative gameplay component brought a more meaningful experience, although having a few more gameplay design choices would have been nice. Just a little bit more of a break-off from the branching narrative core would have made this a perfect experience.
I do commend DigiXart for what they did with the branching narrative. It’s on the same level as a KOTOR in my opinion. It’s complicated and you want to return to play more to see how it ends up differently. Kudos to them for that structure.
You also have a health meter because you’re young and you have a huge journey filled with peril at times. When depleted, your character passes out and bad things happen (getting robbed, arrested, etc.). The more positive outcomes you accomplish, or even the more you eat, the more you can gain health. Sometimes you need a fair amount of it to complete a journey. It does play a secondary role behind the branching narrative and sticks in your mind the entire time. It works within the boundaries of the story. This is a cool component.
As for other odds and ends, Road 96’s gameplay does encourage you to collect items and see player/NPC stories. For example, you collect cassette tapes along the way. Some of them are given to you by NPC, and some are found in linear areas. You can play these tapes throughout the game in certain places. Some even can affect the story.
There are also monetary choices to be had in the game that show off the different routes you can take to complete the experience. For example, you can call taxis to pick you up (you must pay for them), you can buy items to help you along the way, or you can do something as simple as bribe cops to make situations easier. How you find or collect money comes with the choices you make. Sometimes selling your soul means you can afford different routes, but that comes at a cost of its own.
These smaller details help to complicate the experience in a good way, so they were great additions to the gameplay design, but still driven by branching narrative choices.
Substance over style
While the graphics are truly built for a last-generation set of consoles, the load times and such have been improved for the PlayStation 5. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have cleaned up some of the textures or style of the game for the current generation, as it has that Borderlands cute personality about it, minus the brutality that comes with that series. Visually, it’s just very respectfully basic. I do enjoy the cartoony feel of the world that balances with the seriousness of the potential story subjects.
This game chose to focus on the substance behind its intentions while not trying to bury it under gorgeous graphics that would probably simply take away from what DigiXart was trying to do. I’m okay with that decision completely, as I would always choose a great story over great graphics (see Undertale for details).
On that note, let’s wrap this sucker up.
Conclusion
Road 96 is a unique experience that truly makes every branching narrative choice a literal gamechanger. It brings the drama, the humor, and the heart to the gameplay table. What it lacks in gameplay variety, it makes up with a replayable story. DigiXart did a superb job with this release.
