Unbeatable

Hyper-chaotic 1000xResist vibes with Persona's flair

Why

Why Not

Impressions

I came into Unbeatable expecting a solid rhythm game with a unique style but ended up on a non-stop chaotic journey of emotion and philosophy. From Beat waking up in a meadow to escaping from police helicopters on a scooter and well beyond, I found it nearly impossible to put the game down. I finished my ~11 hour playthrough in just two sessions, and wouldn't have minded doing it in one at all.

The pacing is so relentless that it's bewildering (occasionally to excellent comedic effect), but just hang on for the ride and you definitely won't regret it. There's a surprisingly robust story here; not necessarily the most coherent one at times but definitely emotional and compelling. In fact it's surprising how much of the game is dialogue; I did not expect multiple long conversations between characters about the meaning of art and how to cope with trauma but I'm here for it. The story bits enhance the core gameplay rather than taking away from it, by giving you a moment to breath between frantic rhythm game button mashing and providing emotional context for why the people you're punching wholly deserve it. Even having finished the game and learned a lot more than I knew to begin with I have very little idea of what happened, but I liked it.

Something else I definitely liked was the art direction; I spent a lot of the game hitting the screenshot button with the same enthusiasm that Beat hits cops. It's great in the macro sense (beautiful vistas, great framing) and the micro sense (funny/interesting signs, the way the menus look, how every minigame fits into the overall style). The visuals for actual rhythm gameplay are also excellent though I wish I wasn't always too busy frantically hitting buttons to notice the cool animations.

And all this is just for the story mode; there's a whole second game here in the arcade mode with a bunch of songs both from the game and elsewhere to struggle through with increasing difficulty and modifiers, as well as different combos of unlockable cosmetics. And they're still adding content for it months after release!

Overall this is an incredible debut effort from these devs and I can't wait to see what they come up with next. Definitely give this one a try.