The truly correct reviews of No Straight Roads you'll see are the ones that tell you it's kind of underbaked and mediocre as an action game with everything else carrying the stable, and I'm here to affirm that it's basically all true. In general, this is a very modest recommendation if not a 5/10 type review because while I love this developer and so much about this game, I don't doubt that a lot of people will walk away from it *very* irritated at the overall experience.
I will defend it somewhat. Encore Edition made a lot of very useful visual clarity updates and fixed the fourth and sixth boss having some very bizarre but incredibly important gimmicks almost impossible to understand, though they're still a bit weird.
NSR's biggest weakness to me is that there just isn't enough game for the mechanics and scale it sets up for itself. A lot of these very theatric boss rush-style action games often benefit from being short experiences: No More Heroes, Furi - all of these games don't waste your time. The key is that they also have enough bosses and variance between them to feel like they've properly explored all the mechanics and ideas present in the game. NSR features an upgrade system with switchable special moves, an explorable and fairly charming hub world, but all of these things feel frankly wasted in a game that's already 1/6 over by the time you've completed the tutorial. The bosses, due to this restriction, usually feel too cute for their own good. The only outright non-gimmicky one on one brawl is the [b]final boss of the game[/b]. That's not to say that every other boss fight is bad or wrong for their unique qualities, but generally a more even distribution of fights that primarily focus on shooting versus melee versus psuedo-platforming really would have helped tie it all together.
The entire length of the game is thus predicated on chores inbetween the bosses, some optional "boss fights" with a more rhythm game style of play versus a side character, and replaying old boss fights on harder difficulties, where the game's mechanics are just as often taken advantage of interesting ways as they are frustrating, obtuse messes like the harder version of 1010's fight. The rhythm aspect of this game is also probably the most frustrating and harsh part of it. A funny quote I like was a friend who said "Hi-Fi Rush was a great rhythm game with mediocre music and NSR was a great album with a mediocre game attached" and that feels like an apt way of putting it. Plenty of games have incorporated rhythm into the physical action of the game itself in incredible ways, but in NSR it's either tenuous if not outright misleading and broken. I can remember multiple times where the rhythm-based attack patterns just outright broke and got desync'd.
Okay, so now that I've been a bit mean and honest, allow me to talk about what I love: basically everything else. Vinyl City is a lovingly realized place, basically every piece of music in the game kicks ass and radiates love of the artform, and the character designs and aesthetic of the world is beautiful. Each boss theme, alone, feels like they'd be the highlight of another game - all 5 of the main ones are genuinely amazing, and the sixth is quite good as well, but definitely more of a "boss theme" than generally great music like the others are.
While I've seen people drag this game over the coals for being "underwritten" in the same way it feels like it's lacking content, I couldn't disagree more. The wonderfully done cutscenes that introduce, separate the phases of, and conclude each boss fight do a great job of endearing you to the rogue's gallery you're up against in the short timespan you get to meet them, including some outright kind of beautiful storytelling with a few bosses whose overworld collectibles enlighten you on a lot of details you could slightly pick up on during the fight itself. Really, I just can't stress enough that despite the fact it feels like each boss is a walking stereotype of a specific genre and the types of artists who make them, they're all surprisingly sympathetic and charming characters any of whom I could imagine are someone's favorite.
My favorites, however, will always be Mayday and Zuke. The pair are a hilariously quirky duo who carry the game's energy on their back while never being entirely flanderized to the "fiery passionate rocker" and "laid-back intellectual drummer" personas they present. Mayday is simultaneously ridiculous and easy to rile up yet surprisingly mature in high-stakes situations. Zuke, meanwhile, is not above either showing some outright unpleasant anger or vulnerability when the situation calls for it. The game slots all of these aspects of their characterization into both the boss fights and the hub world itself, with a radio talk show for their fans that enlightens you on what made them form their band in the first place and a lot of cute details like their matching outfits that aren't immediately obvious.
Really, you hate to hate NSR. It's got the energy of a game where everyone was firing on all cylinders, and yet as a game it is beholden to the often-questionable gameplay it has. In an ideal world, NSR2 will patch this up while not compromising any of the great aspects, and this game will just be remembered in that kind of endearingly awkward way a lot of precursors to amazing sequels are.
