INFINITE GUITARS

I'm going to lead with the positives to hopefully lessen the sting of this. The music it's got is very nice, it's well produced and represents a decent variety of genres, there's also a very appealing style on display in terms of visuals and animations. Infinite Guitars is however, a *complete* mess of a video game. To the point where it's honestly pretty hard to enumerate but I'll try! To start, it's buggy as sin, menus seem to require six times more inputs than you'd think, the actual rhythm game portion sometimes will just randomly drop notes (hold notes seem particularly buggy) or generate fake Misses out of nothing that still result in you having 100% Sync so nothing was missed. This is merely distracting but becomes actively game-breaking towards the end when you get techniques that fail you out if you accrue 3 misses, these techniques were basically completely unusable during my playthrough since 3 misses would generate for no reason. I am 100% confident this is not a skill issue, Infinite Guitars is not a very hard rhythm game, it's just broken. The plot is about...something, probably? But the dialogue is barely coherent, poorly proof-read, littered with confusing turns of phrase and poorly explained character motivations/relationships leaving me with for the most part, absolutely no idea what was going on in this story at all. The overworld action game part is also frustrating with the run decreasing your field of view, an intentional but ill-advised choice because you're never not going to be running since walking is heinously slow. Overworld obstacles aren't very threatening but evasion is annoying because you get stuck on every single errant piece of detail in the environment as you get hit by weird ill-defined attacks that are just solid coloured lines that scroll across the environment. Furthermore they tend to come as circles which presents the annoyance of dodging on the outer edge. Sometimes you get hit by these obstacles coming out of cutscenes too. Fun! And music, what's there is good, it's well-produced, high-rent stuff. But for a rhythm game it really doesn't have enough of it and it doesn't even make particularly economical use of what it does have, changing field music on like every screen transition which is jarring but making you play the same riff four times in a row every time you want to open a door, something you will have to do a lot of. This is a bizarre rhythm game where you will hear three songs for three random non-descript explorations scenes, but most of the boss fights use the same song. The finale in particular is murdered by the budget constraint of having absolutely no unique music to pair with it, just re-using battle music you've heard a ton already by that point. The individual beats are good, but none can stand out because all are stretched to breaking point. Budget constraint also plague like 50% of the game, the first 4 chapters comprise about half the game, with the remaining 8 being a hasty cobbled together collection of area revisits and boss re-fights in a pretty hilarious display of padding. At one point a mini puzzle dungeon just loops the same set of rooms three times in a row, absolutely riveting stuff. UX problems plague the game all the way through, at one point a shopkeeper portrait actively blocked me from seeing prices of items entirely. Didn't matter, the economy in this game is so borked you will never not have money for stuff. The maximum charge level will never ever display properly in the current UI, it goes off-screen. I encountered multiple softlocks relating to textboxes and getting wedged behind NPCs because Dodge/Talk are mapped to the same button and sometimes you'll dodge into an NPC instead of talk. Make use of manual saves, especially since this game defaults to New Game on boot, so if you mash through you'll instantly start a new game and instantly overwrite the single autosave provided. Someone is going to lose a playthrough to that. And so much more that I honestly can't remember right now after finishing. I respect the punk rock spirit of Infinite Guitars but the problem with spirit is that too much of it makes you throw up.

Conceptually fun gameplay with an interesting premise, however its insanely buggy. Cutscenes are broken and some sound effects are incredibly loud despite adjusting the volume settings. Just got soft-locked in combat because I couldn't select my character and use my turn. Art style and soundtrack are amazing but the game needs a bit more time in the oven.

I'd describe this game as a suburban garage band given digital form - it doesn't care if it's messy, bug-ridden or riddled with writing errors, it's going to tell a damn good story with even better music. Unfortunately that resulted in numerous softlocks, design oversights and incredibly simplistic combat that is only saved by the fact that it's tied to a rhythm game with a god-tier soundtrack. I'll start with the combat - there's some legitimately interesting elements to it, but past the midgame they fall into irrelevance. The game has a fairly heavy focus on risk=reward - you can wager your HP to use special attacks and enter a rhythm minigame, and you both deal more damage and recover more of the HP you wagered the better you do at it. Eventually you unlock the ability to sacrifice even more HP to both lengthen the minigame and increase the potential damage bonus, at the cost of making that additional HP cost unable to be recovered until after the fight. This risk=reward aspect carries over to defending as well - enemies will launch multiple attacks in a sequence, and you have to dodge them either by moving out of the way or rolling through the attack, with perfect rolls rewarding you with Charge, a resource used to heal and strengthen your attacks. The catch is that every time you roll, you increase the damage you take for the rest of the attack sequence, to the point that getting hit after 5 rolls is enough to be an instant kill. It's one of the more interesting takes on tying turn-based combat to minigames. That said, this all flies out the window due to poorly-adjusted stat numbers - once I started getting access to party members the difficulty dropped significantly. We're talking ending boss fights in 3-4 moves here, and that's on hard mode! Stacking attack buffs and defense debuffs is the go-to method for killing literally everything and the game doesn't really allow for anything else - there's not a single conventional status effect in sight, not even something as basic as damage-over-time effects. I'd be fine with all this if bosses didn't take so little time that I could beat them before they even start their first set of mid-fight dialogue - just quadruple/quintuple their health and it'd be fine. Despite all of its flaws, I still had fun with the actual rhythm aspects of the combat - unlike other games where you do minigames to increase your damage output, the charts you do are constantly changing. The songs you play are based entirely on the battle music itself - simply idling in the menu will change what segment you'll need to play once you decide to attack, and to add onto that the song itself changes after you attack. The game says it's designed that way to mimic the feel of a mixtape, and by God does it work wonderfully. That said, RPGs are about more than just combat - the story is a bit of a mess, but otherwise enjoyable. The party and villains are decently-characterized, the actual overarching plot is interesting and there's a ton of effort put into establishing the history and circumstances of the game world. What absolutely sucks is that there's a ton of scenes that would be infinitely better if they just had illustrations/animations to go with them - and I don't mean that in a "damn I'm spoiled by AAA budgets and have no realistic expectations of what an indie team can do" way, I mean that in a "there are character deaths that are literally only indicated by at most three short lines of text" way. This SCREAMS budget and time constraints but I cannot stress enough how inappropriate it is for most of the potentially-impactful scenes in this game to have absolutely no ceremony to them. While it sucks knowing how much better this could've been if they just had more time, the scenes that were able to be done properly are mostly-excellent and still make for an overall good story. I just wish it wasn't as messy as it is. However, what's even messier is that the game is (currently) buggy as hell. I ran into a decent number of softlocks caused by bugs, but thankfully the dev team both addressed and fixed them within an hour of being reported. This absolutely could've used more time in the oven, but I expect the game to be comfortably playable in about a week if the devs keep pace with the bug reports. Really hope this gets a director's cut or something down the line, it deserves more.

This really, honestly breaks my heart. I was so into this game in chapter 1, and then every chapter after that it was like the life got sucked out of me. Like others have pointed out, there are bugs galore. So, so many bugs. And it's a rather simple game at the end of the day, and the lead programmer made the wonderful "One Step from Eden," so I am not sure where the ball was dropped. The gameplay is repetitive. Walk and fight, walk and fight, walk and fight. But a lot of reviews mentioned the above two issues. For me, what really grabbed me at first was the potential of the world and story. There are so many glimpses of brilliance that someone obviously came up with a really unique and interesting setting. I wanted to know so much more about how this world works, how it came to be, the powers at play, why the world is dying. But nothing is ever expounded upon, and the most worldbuilding you get is a few quips from players and enemies now and again. This world would make a brilliant Tabletop Roleplaying setting, if actually fully fleshed out. And spoilers, but the ending just... happens. Like, no explanation, it just happens. And not in an ambiguous way. Any good will I had up until that point just shattered. I don't mind vague stories you have to piece together, but there is no lore here to find. There are no theories to be crafted. It's so upsetting, it was a slap in the face after 10 hours of work. So no, I cannot currently recommend this game for any reason. And it breaks my heart.

waiting for this game for a while and definitely worth every penny!! only really just started but highly recommend!!!!

Mech들과 맞서 싸우는 JJ와 친구들의 여정. INFINITE GUITARS는 Mech와의 전쟁으로 세상이 황폐해진 포스트 아포칼립스 세계에서, 아버지를 전쟁에서 잃고 까칠한 할아버지 와 함께 사는 주인공 JJ가 모종의 사건에 휘말려 친구들을 만나고 Mech들과 싸워나간다는 내용의 게임이다. 게임은 총 12장으로 이루어져있고, 생각보다 볼륨이 컷다. 사실 볼륨으로는 기대도 안했는데, 10시간을 플레이 했을 정도로 생각보다는 스토리 대사가 꽤 길었던 게임이다. 일단 록 음악이 주로 이루어지는데, 생각보다 그 사운드들이 괜찮다. 신나는 기타리프, 재즈와 같은 느낌의 곡들, 그리고 메탈음악에서 볼 수 있는 리프까지 꽤 퀄리티가 괜찮았다. 그런데 사실 사운드 정도만 괜찮았지, 여러모로 나사가 빠진 게임인건 확실하다. 우선적으로 스토리 플롯이 엉성하다. 즉 스토리를 연결하는 내용이 서사가 그렇게 깊지가 않으며, 전개도 생각보다 빠르게 지나가서 게임의 스토리에 몰두하는게 쉽지 않았다. 게임의 요소는 리듬알피지인데, 리듬게임의 요소가 그렇게 재밌지 않았다. 3버튼 리듬게임이라 그래도 꽤 직관적이긴 한데, 패턴들이 단순하고, 나왔던 것만 나오기 때문에 지루함을 느끼기 쉽다. 안그래도 플레이할 수 있는 곡 수가 적은데 패턴도 다르고 분량도 다르고 해서 이럴꺼면 리듬게임을 왜 넣었는지에 대한 의문이 들었을 정도. 아니면 그냥 리듬파트를 따로 만들어서 수록된 곡에 대해서 3버튼 리듬게임을 온전히 즐길 수 있는 하나의 플레이모드를 만들면 더 좋았을 거 같은데 그런것도 없어 스토리 내내 재미없는 리듬게임을 깨작꺠작 해야하는게 너무 지루했다. 그렇다고 rpg적인 요소를 잘 살렸다하면? 그것도 아니다. 파밍의 재미도 없고, 그냥 노가다하면서 아이템이나 모으는게 전부였기 때문. 물론 월드보스를 잡고 2회차를 진행하면 아이템을 얻을 수 있긴 하지만 그 외에는 장비 파밍이나 그런게 없기 때문에 rpg 적인 측면에서도 꽤나 아쉬웠다. 필드에서도 문제가 있는데, 조작감이 그렇게 좋지 않았다는 점. 게다가 몇몇 필드에서는 레이저나 미사일로 이동을 방해하는 요소가 나오는데, 이것을 dodge로 피할 수 있는데, 이게 타이밍이 생각보다 빡빡해서 꽤 힘들었다. 근데 그건 둘째치고 조작감이 썩 좋지가 않아서 장애물에 걸려서 못움직이다가 레이저 맞고 그러는게 조금 짜증나긴 했다. (물론 장애물에 대한 피해는 크지 않다.) 결론적으로 사운드는 나쁘지 않았지만, 전체적인 게임성이 매우 아쉬운 게임이었다. 리듬rpg게임이란 것을 나타냈으면 좀 더 리듬적인 요소를 강화하거나 리듬게임모드가 있었으면 더 좋았을 법 싶다. rpg적인 요소라도 조금 챙겨놨으면 리듬게임적인 요소가 부족하더라도 그럭저럭 이해를 하겠는데 RPG적인 요소도 부족하고 스토리도 엉성하고 리듬게임적으로도 엉성해서 그냥 개인적인 생각에는 배경음악만 남는 게임이지 않았나 싶다. 여담) 도전과제의 경우 놓칠 수 있는 도전과제는 없다. 챕터선택이 있으므로 놓치더라도 챕터를 선택해서 다시 플레이가 가능하다. 보스전에 진입하려면 기타로 보스를 몇 대 쳐야 진입이 가능한데, 이 때 보스를 때릴 시 기를 모아서 하얀 빛이 나온 걸 확인한 후 때려야한다. 한 0.5초정도 걸리는 시간인데, 이를 성공적으로 반복해야 보스를 상대했을 때 퍼펙트 기타로만 했다라는 도전과제를 달성 가능하다. 어렵지는 않은데 처음에는 이걸 알기 힘드니 만약 게임을 하려는 사람은 꼭 숙지를 하는 것을 추천한다. 본인은 그래서 게임 다 클리어하고 다시 1번째 챕터로 돌아가서 1번 보스에 대해 퍼펙트기타 도전과제를 달성했다.

[h1]The Good[/h1] -Music is great -Art is great when it wants to be -Story is engaging in the beginning and the end [h1]The Bad[/h1] -Buggy -Story/Overworld sections feels a little padded/stretched at times -Easy to get over leveled [h1]Review[/h1] All in all I recommend picking it up if you're a fan of rhythm games or turn based RPGs. The mesh of genres work really REALLY well. The combat is comprised of hitting notes on time with the ability to extend or empower it more with your allies or cores (think energy). The music varies from rock to jazz and I've been jamming to it to the point where I'm considering getting the OST. I just wish the story carried it a bit better. It starts off great then I'm fetching items to activate switches for several levels. There seems to be a deeper lore here that doesn't get explained as much as it needs to until the very last moments with the game which pulled me back in until it *ending spoiler*[spoiler]just abruptly ends. We can assume what happened but even then the build up to the end boss and the last moments lead to a VERY underwhelming ending that should've shown more about what happened to the different worlds after they got their ♥♥♥♥ together [/spoiler] Also there's several bugs that made me thankful for a generous auto-save. I've gotten stuck on the wall, dialogue triggering earlier than it needed to (due to me rolling in close proximity of two people that auto pop a dialogue option), or entire fights being nullified because the results screen didn't show. None of this stopped me from continuing on with the game on re-launch but I can't deny that those bugs are annoying as hell. All in all I give a good 7 out of 10. 8 if the bugs mentioned are sorted out. Code provided by Disobey and Play Humble Games with no compensation.

На жаль, не можу рекомендувати цю гру. Занадто репетативна, але найбільше не сподобалась карта, вірніше її відсутність і якась абсолютно неінтуітивна побудова локацій та переходів між ними. Після декількох спроб блукання довкола і намагання вийти в потрібному місці, я здалась. Я рідко кидаю ігри, навіть якщо вони не надто хороші, але тут зовсім no fun, наче роботу робиш яка не подобається і за яку мало платять ще й.

It's a pretty sweet rhythm game mixed with a jrpg. Plays out super sleek and I love the fact that the overworld rhythm games prepare you for the boss fights. Music is legit too.

A charming indie title. Not going to be for everyone, and is definitely rough around the edges but if you enjoy rhythm games you might get something out of this. Although its personality and the way it presents itself may turn some people off to it.