LOUD review (Game)
Rhythm games don’t typically stand out for their stories, and that’s a fair statement. Usually you’re far too busy rocking out and hitting notes to think about a rich narrative. In my LOUD review, however, maybe that means there’s a gap in the market. The developers initially described LOUD to me as a cross between Guitar Hero and Life is Strange. So, I fully prepared myself for teenage drama and some banging tunes.
Our musical journey centers around Astrid, a teen girl who thinks growing up sucks. To try and cope with day-to-day life, Astrid tries to keep busy thinking about music. My LOUD review highlights that there’s nothing she loves more than her favorite bands. One day, after her dad catches her playing air guitar with a broom, he has a surprise for her: her very own guitar, which will take her on all sorts of adventures.
The game throws you into musical stages between these snippets of story. These see you playing along with the music by hitting notes that move along six lanes that correspond to six buttons. It works exactly the way it did in Guitar Hero (and countless other games). If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Alongside hitting normal notes, there are also notes that you need to hold the button down for. And there are notes you need to tap the button for. That’s all there is to it. Yet, that doesn’t stop LOUD from getting challenging in the later stages.
A game where you hit notes to the beat is nothing without some great music to play along to. Unfortunately, as detailed in this LOUD review, the game just doesn’t have that. The soundtrack is purely instrumental pop punk, and although it isn’t terrible it is very hard to distinguish one song from another. This detracts from the experience significantly, and it ensured I was never excited to replay a level.
The actual rhythm gameplay has some issues too. The star-shaped notes propel towards you, and their rotation makes it really hard to tell when they reach you. The notes often don’t correlate particularly well to the music either. In some stages you end up playing drum beats and guitar strums all while holding your axe. It did make me appreciate how well Guitar Hero and Rock Band did it all those years ago though.
Although it has its issues, due to its short run time, it’s hard to imagine anyone not making it to the end of LOUD. This LOUD review took me about 90 minutes to make it through the twelve songs to the end credits on regular difficulty. There isn’t really enough of a story to pad it out beyond that. If you’re really loving the gameplay, you can unlock a super hard mode of each song by getting an S rank on it. But that’s pretty much your lot.
LOUD is a perfectly acceptable rhythm game, but it doesn’t do enough to stand out in a genre full of experimentation. The idea of a teen drama narrative in a Guitar Hero clone is really interesting. However, with so little story to focus on and a forgettable soundtrack, it’s hard to recommend it based on this LOUD review.
