Top Seven No Straight Roads Artists

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] greetings fellow music lovers the green scorpion here ready to talk about one of my favorite games of 2020 if you've been following me for the past few months you're probably aware of my love for no straight roads an action adventure rhythm game hybrid from indie developer metronomic this love is unconditional but it isn't blind to how honestly mediocre this game is let's be honest it's a buggy mess that feels borderline unfinished sometimes and the fact that i can acknowledge that and still adore this game should let you know how flipping charming it is with snappy dialogue gorgeous locales and an aesthetic so unique you'll be shocked that this wasn't made by double fine most importantly for a game centered around music every track is a bop today though i want to talk about the main appeal of this game for me the boss battles or otherwise known as the nsr artists as mehdi and zuke try to bring rock and roll back to the melodious metropolis of vinyl city they're forced to do battle with the nefarious edm empire and the corrupt corporate record label nsr represented by a legion of colorful composers that are just too cool not to talk about each boss represents a different genre of music and goes all in on that theme making not just the boss fights but the artists themselves incredibly memorable i only wish there were more of them but i guess that's the mark of a good game but before we start charting i just want to make clear that even when the boss fights themselves are less than great the work by metronomic is truly a blessing thank you for your bizarre musical genius guys and thank you even more for making the whole soundtrack available on youtube links in the description guys you gotta listen to the set list and the hits keep coming they recently updated the game to give every boss a christmas themed variation which is why this video is coming out within the holiday window and on that high note it's show time these are my top 7 no straight roads [Music] artists [Music] love [Music] so for those of you thinking i'm writing off sayu for just being to kawaii desu it's actually the opposite as a concept this is incredibly entertaining inspired by digital divas like hatsune miku sayu is a cute core mermaid hologram harnessing power from the love of a massive fanbase better still like real vocaloids it turns out saiyu is controlled by a team of nerds the digital mermaid gaining more power as her musician designer mocap artist and animator team up voltron style kind of beautiful that a quartet of kids rejected by society can create a sensation beloved by the world and yeah she's disgustingly saccharine but that should just make defeating her more satisfying right stop running away by you unfortunately the best concept in the world can't save a boss fight if it isn't fun if you can even call this fighting saiyu is a runaway boss forcing you to traverse perilous terrain and most of the time you're not even attacking her you're taking down these macro microchips that cause her to glitch out again fun and concept to see her bug out when the game itself isn't bugging out but the actual gameplay is tedious at best she'll eventually spam out these homing digi fish that can stun lock you if you don't know how to avoid them and it's hard to learn how to avoid them when you're getting stun locked you don't even get the satisfaction of hitting her until you turn her into a reverse mermaid and whoa what is this yeah my thoughts exactly the final phase can be cathartic like shooting fish in a barrel after chasing her upstream for so long but it still feels hollow after what i just had to go through to get here it's a shame everything about the presentation works here down to the clever fourth wall breaks but when the mechanics are this aggravating that admiration quickly turns into frustration seriously when my girlfriend who is obsessed with mermaids mind you still doesn't like this boss you know something went wrong i'm gonna have to throw this one back and i'll be happy if i never have to hear the word pune ever again [Music] ah fine then let's get this over with yeah okay yeah in terms of the story dk west isn't technically one of the nsr artists but he is an obstacle in mandzuk's journey and i just really want to talk about this guy alright a college dropout that made it big in vinyl city as a rap artist dk west is metronomics love letter to malaysian culture they are a malaysian game developer after all he speaks malayan cutscenes even in the english dub and his dance style clothing and even that aku looking demon he conjures all follow this theme fun fact that demon is called bulwayong kulit named after the real world style of shadow puppet theater that originated in the neighboring country of indonesia utilizing this umbral bovine and his spoken word expertise he returns to vinyl city at nsr's request to stomp out mayday and zuke's little rebellion and to add to the drama west is zuk's big brother west what are you doing here this family history becomes the crux of a rap battle where each brother lays bare all the bad blood between them dk west shows up three times throughout the game and each time we get a fuller picture of their relationship it's a surprisingly effective vehicle for character development not just for dk west and zuke but for mayday and even other antagonists like tatiana and eve good thing the writing is so good because the fights themselves are really just a glorified mini-game a detour from the rest of the adventure not that the tracking gameplay styles are an automatic deal breaker but they get harder than i think they need it to be the third bout is downright oppressive i highly recommend getting a friend to help you co-op your way through this one still an annoying difficulty spike is preferable to the sustained slog of siu's fight plus i really admire when a game can sneak world building and characterization into gameplay like this you're not the best dk west but at least things didn't go too far south bye west that was some legit rapping skills you got there me you're welcome buddy yo when you show up we get that sexy mission done you better put on your tactical thermal goggles [Music] okay so there's a lot going on here we got a navy themed robotic boy band led by their sonar faced agent slash admiral neon j that's very high concept for what turns out to be one of the more underwhelming fights in the game i mean by nsr's outlandish standards this is downright basic when the fight starts these backstreet bots do a little dance before firing lasers at you the idea is to watch their movements identify which projectiles to dodge and which to counter and parry them back to destroy them one by one that's what the game wants you to do but you can also just rush the poor guys and beat tvs out of them as the fight continues they'll put up shields to make this harder trying to force you into the parry strategy but don't tell me what to do game i'll just wait until you take your stupid selfie and become vulnerable again every time you destroy a band member neon j will fly in on his machine to 3d print a replacement which is your chance to fire some rounds at him and once neon j sees the battles going in one direction he'll in synchronize with his flying factory mech for the final phase and while this segment is a lot less creative it's also not as painfully slow i'll take this over simon says any day avoid the pew pews and the zap zaps and he'll fall eventually sounds like i'm being pretty down on this fight but the way it satirizes the entire boy band genre i'll admit i found this one of the funniest parts of the whole game the members of 1010 have different haircuts but once you get down to it they're all carbon copies and if one of them can't perform the band manager can immediately replace them handsome stars are ultimately expendable and wow that's actually a really good dig on the pop industry despite how artificial it is people eat it up even mayday falls for it much to zook's dismay you think you can sway her heart that easily she's not going to fall for those cheap compliments you tell them eh you're just jelly that all these pretty boys are fawning over me hey did you hear what they said about my list though what have you done to our sentence they commit to this bit too mayday can still fight but she's completely infatuated throughout the entire thing we're better off chilling with these handsome robots and taking out their crib and after that we can have a jacuzzi party with them okay that flying factory has got to go so yeah pretty entertaining fight just not as big and bang as i would like [Music] forget it this is going nowhere i'm just gonna finish you off right now it's time to turn up the heat with tatiana quartz ceo of nsr and the final boss of the game oh well that's never a good sign is it the final boss only making it halfway up the ranking don't worry this isn't a jasper bad genius i actually really like tatiana as a character i wasn't sure what an antagonist for a game like this would look like but tatiana really delivers in terms of design and personality she's a breath of fresh air the intimidating nonsense ruler of vinyl city which is otherwise filled with exaggerated over-the-top personalities you would think this would make tatiana boring by comparison but she still manages to be sinisterly charming she even gets some good jokes here and there it's uh still 47 wait what oh bravo you sure showed me should i go get the champagne unlike the rest of the bosses tatiana isn't an artist she's something far more dangerous a producer commanding the city's entertainment with an iron fist and what i love so much about her is how she ties the themes of the game together i mentioned this back in my review of the game but to me no straight roads is about the relationship between artists and fans how those fans grow up to be the next artists and how dangerous it can be when this relationship breaks down tatiana is in actuality an ex-rockstar cool fyra of the fire theme banned the ghoulings but after her band had a falling out her inner magma cooled into an unfeeling stony skin she stopped listening to her fans and even herself so that she wouldn't have to hear rock ever again but she is not the only person at fault here as she's quick to point out you got fans like cliff who's willing to drop a satellite on a city all because he thinks his favorite musicians owe him something and as tatiana remarks to our heroes matey has no idea what she's going to do if her revolution succeeds she's just lashing out because people don't share her opinions on music tell me how do you intend to run the city if you win what about the hundreds of nsr employees who will be thrown out of work have you considered the inevitable insurgents from the people who still genuinely love edm can you really run the city under those circumstances yeah she's got a point may all of this is an excellent setup for the final encounter which is well it's all right i don't really have any particular praise for it just that i love all the context around it it's certainly challenging on your first go but that's mostly because she can do a gross amount of damage in a single hit like any other boss you'll eventually learn the pattern and style on her so maybe a bit disappointing for a final boss fight but it's everything i could have asked for in a main antagonist so open your mind sink into my gaze and let yourself be reborn again the tatiana fight might have fallen just short of expectations but in her defense eve is a tough act to follow everything from the arena to the music to the attack animations is just beautiful and what's more this has personal stakes to it eve is zuk's ex-girlfriend and she is not happy with him if i can take a moment to examine the aesthetic both eve and her arena take on a dichromatic motif evoking a lot of minimalist and illusionist artwork in particular eve's face looks like one of those optical tricks where a picture of one face is actually a picture of two faces you see what i mean here there are two major readings you can take from that symbolism either that every individual contains multitudes which makes sense for eve who fancies herself to be endlessly deep but this imagery is often also used in culture to represent perfect companionship one person completing the picture of another and that's an idea that eve has taken a bit too close to heart despite her monumental success as a musician eve sees the loss of zuke as her greatest failing thinking she is without purpose alone and that was a lot of pressure for zuke having to change himself to suit her image of him which is apparently why he left her so yadda yadda crazy ex-girlfriend how's the fight pretty dang good aside from being a beast for the eyes eve keeps you on your toes with changing perspectives and area control then adds another layer by separating zuke and mayday from one another forcing you to switch between them in two parallel levels i remember thinking it was a shame in the 10-10 fight that they didn't do something to hamper mei's effectiveness since you know the boy band was charming her the whole time but it looks like they saved all those gimmicks for eve the fight here gets completely dichotomized zuke's section being far more somber and cerebral but when mayday's on screen the synth pop turns angry and erratic this fight can get pretty tricky when it wants to be though i did get pretty good at the parry mechanic by this point so i didn't really have a problem wait a minute roll that back did you just switch from a 4-4 time signature to a 6-4 mid verse just to mess with my parries that's dirty i love it eve is pretentious and kind of a drama queen but as a pretentious drama queen myself i'd gotta love her [Music] [Music] don't you know who i am i am dj subatomic supernova my music will reach the furthest corners of the galaxy what have you done today simpletons let me get that name again dj subatomic supernova anyone with a name like that must think pretty highly of themselves trying to impress people with a string of big words that ultimately means nothing and that's exactly what you get a condescending astrophysicist with delusions of grandeur you also get an amazing first impression of what boss fights in this game can be like high concept and one of a kind as soon as he hits the play button dj subatomic supernova teaches you all the mechanics you'll need in a clearly conveyed manner for example most of his attack patterns involve circles which not only sets clear expectations of where the player can stand safely but also creates this amazing visual that marries the revolutions of a solar system with the rotations of a record player dj subatomic supernova is literally disjocking celestial bodies at you he is scratching on the universe and i gotta mention this his voice is like cinnamon and nutmeg for my ears fascinating hmm that is fascinating your limited aspirations your misplaced efforts you remind me of pluto once thought to be a planet of the solar system but no longer is this bout also has one of the better escalations in the game by now you'll have noticed that all the boss fights are in phases and each phase is expected to up the ante on the last one until the scenario is so ridiculous you can't remember how you got there with dj subatomic supernova we start with asteroids moving around the dance floor but then he becomes a neil degrassi titan looming out of the sun while you mine planets for the ammo you need to hurt him also now you can see that he wasn't wearing pants behind his turntable that's pretty funny finally supernova goes galactic his limbs now distorting through space as he throws projectiles at you note the clear arcs that appear beforehand color coded to let you know that some of these can be deflected back at him supernova may not be interested in teaching you peons but he runs a pretty effective class it might be kind of a bummer that the first boss you face is also one of the best like the game peaked too early but i don't see it that way if not for this hook i might not have played the rest of the game and like gravity it pulled me in and kept me there naturally it isn't the hardest boss but that just made it more fun to try for harder difficulties and chase that s rank and fortunately for this game it still hasn't pulled out its best trick [Music] in the case of eve i really enjoyed seeing no straight roads use its dialogue to explore a complex character dynamic with exposition seemingly integrated into the fight to give the battle more weight but this is a game about music and sometimes with music you don't need a lot of words to explain a story sometimes you can just let the melody speak for themselves and this is the thought that i kept coming back to when replaying the match against yenu the golden maestro you gotta be kidding me i've heard there's a crack truth be told we don't know a ton about yenu we know she's a child prodigy who plays the piano like a monster but we don't know what's up with yinu's accent we don't know why her mom is a giant amorphous beast and we only get a general idea of the two's relationship unlike the detailed history described with zuke and eve but in its vagueness there's a kind of beauty you start the fight with our heroes kinda bullying the poor kid talk big about music but the only thing you guys seem to be good for is breaking stuff what's that we're good at music stuff why thank you no then you make your way to the stage avoiding murderous music notes and when you finally get up there expecting to be rewarded with a damage drop a giant hand lifts yinu and her piano out of harm's way this is the aforementioned mother who gets increasingly angry over these two delinquents keeping her baby girl from her craft and honestly can you blame her so over time the conflict becomes more and more about fighting the mother as yinu slips into the background after some of the best dodge and shoot action in the game you finally get to finish off this crimson cronie with your patented shakalaka but no yinu's back and now she's mad i hate you all i so hate you all in a surprise final phase we return to the hallway style dodging of phase one only now through the sky and with way more projectiles and we end with the tearful destruction of yenu's piano and the somber scene of mother and daughter silently reconciling over the barely playable remains of their prized instrument there's a lot of emotion on display here and the game doesn't spell out why the events happen this way it's up to some interpretation and i think it's fair to say that yinu's feeling a little stifled by her mother too often in these artists savant situations the parents become their agents and the child loses all agency in their lives look at how the mother's hand lifts yenu away from danger to save her yes but yinu is like a puppet on strings here the mother keeps insisting yeenu continue playing screaming it at her towards the end which must make yinu wonder what is mother really protecting me or my music the recital isn't about yinu anymore it's more and more about the mother and what she wants forcing yinu to take it back by force playing music was supposed to be fun but she does come around by the end the facial expression here as the mother hears yenu still plinking away at the broken keys realizing the damage she's done i wasn't expecting this game to get so poignant there's also the whole angle of classical music i never wanted this list to be about whose battle theme was the best because all of them slap so hard and it's not like it's totally original to mix classical with rock or edm or what have you but this composition is immaculate one of my favorite tracks in the game even if you replay the fight with the pure rock version this final chase sequence is always done with piano yeenu will be heard you gotta think mayday and zuke are doing all of this to prove that rock isn't dead so they won't be forgotten but if you think about it classical already went through this same battle when ragtime and jazz and ironically rock hit the scene it was decided that there was no place for classical music in the public zeitgeist it had to retreat to its own niche radio stations so you'd think yinu and mayday would have a lot to talk about it's here where i first realized that our heroes were doing the same thing to everyone else's music that they feared would happen to theirs smashing it down because in mayday's opinion nobody likes it and as yinu points out before the fight begins all mayde and zuk seem to be good for is destroying things is that what rock and roll is supposed to be destroying every other artistic outlet so that you can have things your way and this is the idea that comes back around when fighting tatiana what are you going to do when your music revolution succeeds why is your passion more important than everyone else's i just i feel like this game is a lot smarter than it had any right to be so all in all yinu is the total package a story show not told a challenge that tests you on all the game's mechanics and a song that i can play to pump myself up in the morning all these fights last less than 12 minutes start to finish but the best ones stick with you a good while afterward yinu isn't just the best boss in this game she might just be one of my favorite boss fights to come out this year i can recommend this game for these top 3 bosses alone just shoot for the pc version it's less likely to burst into flames i'm the green scorpion wishing you all a happy holidays and a happy countdown filled new year see you next time you

Channel: The Green Scorpion

Views: 40,490

Rating: 4.9487181 out of 5

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Id: fz7PjdUwIpA

Length: 25min 21sec (1521 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 27 2020