Mystery of Melody Memorial

I'm ugly crying at the ending. You can't do this to me!

Mystery of Melody Memorial an Action RPG with rhythm games with inspiration from Paper Mario and Parappa the Rapper. The presentation has an even older feel than either of those games. It’s like a game you’d find on a school computer in the 90s, it's somewhat oldschool stylings can be both charming but sometimes frustrating. [h1]Story[/h1] The story scenes are one this is game’s strongest point and what you’ll likely be playing for. For an RPG it’s down to earth, there’s no grand malicious force, empires or monster. The focus however, it’s more about Joseph’s adventure of discovery as he tries to unravel the mystery of a song he knows from his childhood. Homeless bear Joseph travels around meeting people and singing songs. Deuteragonist and eventual love interest Angeli, an insect of some sort performs in swamp, but after hearing of Joseph’s desire to travel to Melody Memorial joins the party to support him. It's very charming stuff and has a very sweet ending that's worth playing through for! [h1]Graphics [/h1] Melody has a unique graphical style, a pixelated design very vibrant saturated colours, that appears to be strongly inspired by presentation of early computer games like Commander Keen or King’s Quest. Though with a more cartoony presentation with characters with larger heads to make character expressions more visible. It does well and has plenty of set-pieces to immerse the player into the world. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] [h2]Action Sequences[/h2] The best of this game's gameplay would be in exhilarating action sequences. Towards the end of some the levels there's a boulder chase, an escape from the Vulture's casino on a horse-like Florock as Vultures swoop in. These highly bespoke sections are the highlight of the gameplay and a pretty fun and challenging! [h2]Overworld [/h2] Where the game drops the ball a bit is the overworld gameplay. These aren't bad, but they are flawed. Overworld gameplay is basic, you move around and solve button puzzles while evading hazards which can lower your HP. In some sections you can speak to NPCs. However, levels are very linear featuring frustrating sections that will cause quite a lot of deaths, and mechanics that feel unrewarding, design decisions that feels player-unfriendly or clunky. The Paper Mario influence comes through, in the unlocking of three field power-ups over the course of the adventure. A hat throws, Angeli carrying Joseph while flying briefly, and Spin Jumps. However, these feel quite stiff as Joseph is locked in place for the hat throw and spin jump until they are completed along with limited use-cases such as hitting distant switches or moving between high ledges, make the abilities feel like lock-and-keys than abilities that expand the gameplay possibilities much. Sections that use the abilities tend to make them feel frustrating rather than empowering. What greatly contributes to this is the lack of reward. The game does not feature any items to collect, or even a pick-up to restore your HP, which can make these parts feel unrewarding, that the only purpose of them is to solve the mandatory puzzles or avoid damage, zero risk-reward. Losing all health will game over and you can reload at the current room with full Health so it's forgiving in that regard. But it's a bit clunky, if there's no HP pickups, and reloading after game over fully restores HP in the room you died in, why not just restore the player to max HP between rooms for a smoother gameplay experience? As it feels like you die more often than you really should. Your main incentive to continue playing through these sections is the more exciting rail sequences, the story and the song sections. [h2]Rhythm Sequences[/h2] The other key gameplay is the music sections, they appear at the end of each section of the game. Are effectively the games answer to boss fights and where the Parappa influence comes through. Require the player to press a series of keys to the music. To begin with: UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT Then later songs introduce: XZWASD They start off quite easy and fun for the first three. But by level 4 these get incredibly difficult as the introduce more keys, miss even 1 note in a bar and you lose 1 HP, you have 5HP. I found by the time there were 10 different keys to press I’d often mix up X and Z and tend to struggle to alternative between S and D. Had the game had controller support these sections wouldn't be too tough. There's an option in the menu to make these sections play automatically, which I resorted to after 5 failed attempts with the level 4 song, and kept on for the last level as the story moment it was building do would fall flat had I just kept failing. [h1]Length [/h1] Fairly short game I beat it in under 3 hours, there are 5 levels. The Ruins, The Swamp, The Casino, a cave-like area with stars and the Titular Melody Memorial. [h1]Overall Thoughts[/h1] With charming presentation and nice characters Mystery of Melody Memorial is an enjoyable experience. It's story and writing are its strongest moments occur! I do recommend it! The gameplay has an interesting concept, an action RPG with puzzles that lead into a Parappa Style music game. However, execution lets it down. Linear level design, lack of pickups and progression systems, results in fairly frustrating sections. Though described as an RPG don't go in expecting any RPG mechanics beyond Joseph having Health and some sequences where you walk around and speak to NPCs as you would in an RPG. I think it's a missed opportunity that there isn't RPG-style interaction such as items or abilities to use in the Rhythm sections. Overall, I think it’s a good idea for a game, and sweet game. I think any sequel may require a big rethink about the Overworld design, progression systems and RPG mechanics to bring the overworld gameplay up to the story standard!

We made it! Mystery of Melody Memorial is out! *pops champaign* I remember way back in 2016 working with Ryan on creating a little musical minigame that had Parappa the Rappa elements. That ended up becoming this game. I was still a freshmen in college when this game first started being made... and now after seven years... I'm certainly not a freshmen in college anymore. Given that this game began its development in 2017, you could really feel that Undertale inspiration, as that was during Undertale's peak popularity. Way before Friday Night Funkin'... there was Mystery of Melody Memorial. So, what are my honest thoughts now that I've completed this game? (STORY 4/5) Melody Memorial is a HUGE improvement in the storytelling department from Dynamite Alex and Missleman Origins. Each of the characters had unique personalities. The story beats flowed well into each other. Agnostic from gameplay, none of the sequences overstayed their welcome. Joesph and Angeli were an adorable couple. Nothing beyond a hug, so parents can rest easy on this one. The dialogue was great! The characters felt real. I was hoping there would be a bit of development with Angeli's father, further connecting him to the casino. There's definitely a theme regarding addiction and parental wounds I noticed. I wish that was developed further. One thing I'd like patched is that, for the dialogue, there would be a title above it that tells the player WHO is speaking. Yeah, I see mouth movements, but looking for mouth movement takes conscious effort to notice, which subtracts from the immersion. It also doesn't help that there's no voice acting or "vocal" sounds unique to each character. Definitely keep the mouth movements, just add the name titles! GRAPHICS (3.5/5) Much like the story, there's been some improvement as compared with Dynamite Alex and Missleman Origins. But... well... y'know... you're not getting Ubisoft levels of quality pixel art here. There's definitely issues with jagged edges, inconsistent resolution, and other issues with the art. However, if you take your critical glasses off for a second, the game is quite vibrant and colorful. Each character looked unique, or better yet, I could tell what each character was. One thing I really liked about the graphics is the emotive animations for reactions, movements, and emotional beats. Those little tiny details Ryan employed more than makes up for the lack of professional quality in the pixel art. What would've been really nice would be a more hand-drawn look, or a paper aesthetic, rather than pixel art. But, that can be expensive and needs a whole team. This game took seven years by mainly one person, which is admirable enough by me! GAMEPLAY (2.5/5) I really wanted to enjoy playing this as much as I enjoyed the story. I just didn't. My main issue with the gameplay is that it is INCONSISTENT. The game is advertised as a rhythm game, but its relatively rare the player gets to the "meat" of the game, which are the song battles. Melody Memorial has multiple genres clashing with each other rather than working in harmony with one another. Instead of sticking to just the rhythm genre, it's also an adventure, action, platformer, and puzzle game. There's never a moment where the overworld mechanics or minigames mix with the song battles. They could've had SO many opportunities to prepare the player for the upcoming song battles. The first song battle, with Master Fulu, was really good! The song I "made" for it actually was implemented in the spot originally intended! (More info on "MUSIC") However, the later song battles began implementing the WASD keys into the mix and it just psychologically felt awkward to play; resulting in MANY retries. What would've been really neat is if the song battles used all the other alphabetical keys on the keyboard and the game doubled as a keyboard typing tutorial. Plenty of good old 1990's keyboard games to get inspiration from! Think about it for Melody Memorial 2! But don't get me started on the Joker minigame in the casino! I'm guessing it was purposefully designed to be a pace-breaking slog as part of the experience... but there gets to be a point where it has LONG past made its point. TRIAL AND ERROR IS NOT A GAME MECHANIC. I can see this one minigame butchering many players' experiences of the game... it's THAT bad. If this was removed and replaced with a rhythm-based casino game, that would be great. MUSIC (3/5) Yeah yeah, I made the music. Why am I giving it a three instead of a gagillion out of five? There's a notable gap in quality between my earlier compositions from 2017 and the most recent one from 2023. Most of my soured opinion of my own soundtrack in this game comes from its implementation. Each song I composed was specifically made for the events, never meant to be interchangeable. At some point between composing and submitting them, the songs have been swapped around significantly. As a result, in my opinion, many of them lost their intended value. Had I known these songs would be swapped out to this degree, I would've just made an entirely different soundtrack. The theme for the ball minigame in the casino was meant for the escape sequence from the casino. The swamp theme was meant for the casino. The Mama Star song battle was meant to be the swamp theme. The "final boss" theme was meant to be the final gauntlet area before it. What would've helped is that we were to nail down the story first, me compose everything at once, then the rest of the game be built. OVERALL (3.25/5) Despite some of the issues with gameplay and soundtrack, this game has heart. There is something different I feel with this as opposed to Ryan's earlier outings. If you want to spend an hour supporting an indie developer who's poured seven long years into something, then I'd recommend it. Otherwise, wait for a price drop. Good job, Ryan! You made it through! I'm excited to see where your indie gaming career takes you next!

Got this little game straight from the dev himself; it's a super short but charming one! This is a kind of game that mixes simple platform puzzles and PaRappa style games. Sure, you probably see already that the art isn't professional, but it does excel in the story and characters, which is surprising to me. Music is pretty decent too, and it has both chiptune and MIDI styles! While the characters and level boundaries are pretty clunky occasionally, the design of the levels challenge you fairly enough to use the many moves you have. If you're looking to support a small indie, give Ryan's game a try!