Joey Magnuson

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As someone who loves these sort of story-driven games, I enjoyed myself with this one. It isn't a super long campaign - maybe 10-15 hours total - but each encounter intrigued me. The named characters, even the less pleasant ones, were endearing with their own quirks and backstories. The art direction is reminiscent of Firewatch, another game that uses simple mechanics to convey a story about life's intricacies and mysteries. The vignettes at each stop are set against a brilliant soundtrack that can be heart-pumping, intriguing, and somber in equal measures. In subsequent episodes, certain NPC's might relate a story involving one of the previous teens you've played as. This makes the game feel like the true culmination of a dozen different side stories. It really is the type of world to let yourself get lost in, cruising along an endless road while a synthwave track plays over the radio. Unfortunately, it does fall short of its own lofty ambitions. The "choice" system is very straightforward and only pushes you toward one of three primary endings, with no decisions that really shape the world around you. Your revolving selection of protagonists are faceless, nameless vehicles to cycle through, taking any real danger out of the equation. In the same vein, NPC's don't recognize you if you happen to meet them multiple times in the same playthrough - in my last run, an NPC told me a story about them and this teen at a gas station...and I was still playing as that same teen, maybe a couple days later in game time. On top of all this, I got the game digitally on Switch, and the framerate struggled to get near 30fps the whole time, sometimes leaving me feeling motion sick when coupled with fast movements and a narrow field of vision. For all the issues I faced, none of them were gamebreaking and I still finished my playthrough with a sense of satisfaction and wonder. The characters were charming, the music was spectacular, the art direction was beautiful, the gameplay was fun, and I will definitely be playing it again in the future. At $20, it's more than a fair deal and I'm sure I'll get the PC version at some point to experience that smoother framerate.