Canadian developer KO_OP has been away from Sony’s ecosystem for fairly some time. Its first recreation, GNOG, launched on PS4 again in 2017 and is a enjoyable, vibrant puzzler that works nice in PSVR. Quick ahead numerous years, they usually’ve returned to PlayStation with Goodbye Volcano Excessive, a visible novel in regards to the hardships of discovering oneself with an impending world disaster serving as a backdrop.
Goodbye Volcano Excessive is a decidedly weird however distinctive amalgamation of concepts, being equal components School of Rock, Don’t Look Up, and the Jim Henson present Dinosaurs. If such an odd mashup doesn’t hook you, then the writing most actually will. In a world the place everyone seems to be an anthropomorphised dinosaur, you play as Fang, a scholar with a goth aesthetic and a penchant for making music. The sport opens with you beginning your senior 12 months at Volcano Excessive College, attending to grips with what you’re going to do along with your future. You’ll even be attempting to win a Battle of the Bands competitors alongside bandmates Trish and Reed. Early on within the recreation, you begin noticing everybody’s cell telephones are experiencing inconsistent bouts of inexplicable electromagnetic interference. For the sake of spoilers, we gained’t say what the trigger is, however the ramifications of it should hold over the whole thing of the six hours you’ll spend with this motley crew of characters.
It’s virtually a disgrace that the title is not longer, because the character writing is the brightest spot amid a myriad of high quality components. Whereas the first narrative isn’t any slouch, the character writing is impeccable. Each single core character on this recreation is nice. Whether or not it’s Fang, her bandmates, her youthful brother, or these on the perimeter of her core pal group, everybody will get a second within the highlight. Every character has a vibrant, distinctive look and distinctive and marvellously outlined personalities that permit all of them to face aside from each other with out crowding the story. It’s uncommon {that a} recreation delivers this many memorable characters this successfully, particularly over such a brief time frame.
And that’s to say nothing of the subtlety and nuance of the minute-to-minute writing, able to deftly conveying quite a few difficult concepts and feelings with knowledgeable ranges of readability and engagement. The ultimate act of the sport specifically is jam-packed with unbelievable writing, delivering emotional wallops one after one other so shortly you’ll hardly be capable of catch your breath. The ultimate hours of the sport specifically are actually particular, deftly balancing a touching melancholy with sudden scrumptious bursts of ecstasy. As the sport is basically a visible novel, it makes some sense that the writing is executed to such a excessive stage, however even with these expectations in thoughts, we have been blown away.
Much less spectacular is the rhythm gameplay. Outdoors of dialogue decisions, the rhythm components are the one different actual gameplay you’ll run into, and it leaves a lot to be desired. The timing on them feels just a little off — although there’s a consolation setting to calm down this considerably — however extra importantly, they don’t have the clear UI you’d anticipate from a high quality rhythm title. As a substitute, it’s a must to train vigilance, as alongside a daily be aware chart that requires you to maneuver the thumbstick to the suitable spot, you have got what quantity to QTEs to cope with as properly.
The actual kicker is that they don’t occur in choose areas on the display screen, exhibiting up in what appears like utterly random spots, generally even requiring you to dart backwards and forwards throughout the display screen. It is maddening and by no means conducive to getting right into a rhythm with any of the music being performed.
Fortunately these gameplay segments aren’t tremendous frequent and don’t hinder the expertise a lot. This hiccup stings even much less when accounting for the actual fact the music is phenomenal. Whereas the common rating is nice, all the authentic music for Fang’s band, Worm Drama, is even higher, including yet one more vivid spot to such a shining expertise. The voice work is nice past the music too, with every efficiency offering its personal distinctive appeal, additional serving to the already-memorable characters stand out that a lot additional. This goes hand in hand with the really wonderful setting design, which makes nice use of color and element to enliven a recreation that may very well be flat and boring in different palms.
Past this, there’s just one different pretty essential factor to speak about, however in the event you’re studying this assessment farther out from launch, you hopefully gained’t have to fret. This recreation has the least useful Trophy listing we have ever seen. Of the 38 Trophies within the recreation — lots of them unmissable and progress-related — our full playthrough of the sport noticed us unlock one single solitary Trophy. That is one thing that ought to be a fairly simple repair in follow, however why was it in such a state to start with? One or two bugged Trophies is one factor, however your entire listing? In the event you’re a Trophy hunter, you’ll positively need to wait a bit earlier than digging into this one.
Conclusion
Goodbye Volcano Excessive is an absolute delight. Whereas the rhythm gameplay segments are a little bit of a nuisance by means of their design, the one different actual problem is the sorry state of the Trophy listing, one thing that ought to be simply remedied. In the event you can look previous these pretty minor hitches, then what you’ll expertise is an exceptionally written recreation crammed out by a forged of characters with out a lot as a weak hyperlink. Mix the extremely spectacular roster of characters with the excessive caliber of writing able to delivering an emotional gut-punch simply as simply as raucous laughter, this isn’t one value sleeping on.
