Growing up, musicals were a huge part of my life, from performing Charlie & the Chocolate Factory as an elementary student to co-writing a rendition of Romeo & Juliet as a modern-style musical for the local area. As a huge musical theatre fan, the idea of a musical game in Stray Gods is an exciting idea.

Add on the fact that David Gaider, one of the lead writers for two of my favorite games in Star Wars: Knights of the Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, is working on the project as part of his co-founded rookie indie studio Summerfall Studios, and it's promising.

Stray Gods' cinematic indie visual novel-style is unique, complementing gorgeous 2D character designs with solid voice acting, and a sometimes skippable but still noteworthy soundtrack. The result is an incredibly unique adventure game where your choices matter, the storytelling clicks, and the colorful characters carry the game, even if the musical element is a letdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coQQ-K8Iwi8

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical (PC [reviewed], Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox)
Developer: Summerfall Studios
Publisher: Humble Games
Released: August 10, 2023
MSRP: $29.99

Stray Gods moves at a brisk pace during its opening moments, quickly introducing the protagonist of Grace, played brilliantly by the wonderful Laura Bailey. These opening scenes are arguably a bit too fast, introducing several characters and then showing Grace as the prime suspect in the murder of a modern-day Olympic god.

The crux of this story centers around Grace trying to solve a murder mystery, to save herself from being convicted by gods like Athena and Persephone before it’s too late.

It just so happens, though, that Grace now has the power of a muse and can basically turn any scene into a musical. And that is exactly what this story does over the course of the seven days Grace has to clear her name.

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Break a leg

To get it out of the way, while I was excited at playing my first musical video game, the songs and performances don’t offer much to write home about.

To Stray Gods’ credit, there are a lot of songs. Unfortunately, this also means there’s a lot of filler and throwaway songs, especially at the beginning. You can’t skip forward, either, unlike the dialogue, which made the awkward transitions, lack of intriguing music, and often arrhythmic lines all the more noticeable.

A huge part of this comes from the intriguing idea of letting you control the songs. Much like interacting with the characters, you can make choices during musical moments. You could opt to go for the “cool” line in a scene, or be a bit more heartfelt.

Another time, you might choose between a solo or doing a group number. This flexible nature could be the cause of some of the inconsistency in the soundtrack, as the best musical numbers came later in the story when the they were fewer and farther between.

That isn’t to say that the soundtrack is awful, as there are a couple of standout numbers. Two that come to mind are basically any time that Khary Payton’s Pan sings, and a memorable duel between Grace and Persephone that is almost the sole example of the choice-driven songs working out rather well.

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An ovation-worthy cast

But the musical elements are only a portion of the gameplay in Stray Gods. The rest of the game focuses on the core mystery and the mythical characters you meet along the way. This is where you can truly see Gaider’s work, as these are the best characters I’ve seen in a long time.

The player has the option to romance one of four people, each of which is outstanding in their own right. Freddie is the classic casual best friend who has a sweet relationship with Grace. Alternatively, you could opt for Troy Baker’s troubled and depressing Apollo.

Each of these fascinating characters grew on me over time, giving some solid romance options worthy of competing with some of Gaider’s past works. Even outside of the romance partners, the other characters you meet have terrific and detailed writing.

Everyone has their secrets you uncover slowly over time, and it is hard to know who’s telling you the truth or what their agenda is. At its core, this is a character-driven tale, and it constantly gives its cast memorable moments to work with.

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Choices that matter

This is helped by the frequent choices you get to make in the dialogue. They seem to matter just enough, such as picking who to side with in arguments or what order to investigate leads in. There are even characters who live and die in surprising ways, depending on the choices you make.

Stray Gods has enough material to garner at least one replay, to see how things could have gone differently. There are even some emotional sequences worth experiencing again, including basically everything surrounding Aphrodite’s disturbing, unforgettable storyline.

The core mystery isn’t a throwaway, either, with layers of twists and conflicting agendas. While it was a bit predictable in some areas, there was enough to keep me engaged from start to finish.

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There is nothing like Stray Gods at all. The daunting task of creating an entire interactive musical is an admirable one. Even if the songs were mostly a miss for me, I’d like to see it tried again.

After all, you’ll find some of the most engaging characters around since Gaider’s previous stint at BioWare, and a worthwhile story in this sleeper hit. I know I have my eyes on Summerfall Studios moving forward.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical appeared first on Destructoid.

The highly anticipated indie title gets an update

The indie space is full of all kinds of unique titles that are constantly reinventing what we think games can be, and from the glimpses of it that we've seen so far, Stray Gods might just be another one of those games. For those who don't recognize the name, that's not without reason — a few years ago, Summerfall Studios launched a successful Kickstarter campaign for their new musical RPG project, then titled Chorus.

According to the studio's creative director David Gaider, the pandemic had a bit impact on their production, but they got a big boost by teaming up with Humble Games. Under the new name of Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, the project is "bigger and better," thanks to the partnership, now with "full voice acting, more songs, and a longer play time."

In addition to announcing the new partnership, Summerfall Games also released the newest teaser trailer for Stray Gods, which doesn't let on too much by way of story, but definitely lays out the game's tone with sweeping landscape shots and a reverent ballad playing over top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyFbt8dffKk

The story of Stray Gods follows a young woman named Grace, who is tasked with solving the mystery of the death of the Last Muse from Greek mythology in an unfamiliar world of gods, monsters, and the tumultuous relationships they share. And, of course, the whole thing plays out as an interactive roleplaying musical, which is just about one of the coolest game ideas I can think of as a long-time musical theater fan.

Stray Gods' premise alone is intriguing enough, but its development team also features a host of insanely talented veterans of the games industry, such as the previously mentioned David Gaider, who is best known for his work on the Dragon Age series, award-winning composer Austin Wintory, who wrote the music for games like Journey, The Pathless, and Assassin's Creed Syndicate, and prominent voice talent like Laura Bailey who is best known for being in, well, everything.

The post Musical RPG Stray Gods gets a chilling new teaser trailer appeared first on Destructoid.