Freedom

Nothing is more important.

And from the moment you press start, Road 96 sets out its stall. 

The country you live in, Petria, is being torn apart by an upcoming election. A tyrant of a leader is forcing children into slave labour. A group of outcast “terrorists” are being blamed for a disaster. And the right-wing news media are fanning the flames for higher ratings.

It’s unfortunately a story that feels all too familiar these post-fact days.

But through the turmoil that this country is being put through, come resilient teenagers who are offered 2 choices in life.

Be sent to the dark misery of the iron pits or cross the border to a life free from the shackles of oppression.

The Road Is My Home

The journey you embark on will be full of surprises, mysteries and some moments of pure magic as you meet the eclectic cast of Road 96 and discover dark secrets hidden behind the tragic events of the 1986 Peak Collapse

Road 96 offers a reasonably simplistic gameplay loop. You find yourself in small episodic moments with one of the main narrative characters and you’ll have to perform a task, complete a small mission or perform some QTE-styled mini-games to progress.

Once these tasks or missions are accomplished, the game gives you a choice to hitch a ride, walk along the road, call a taxi or grab a bus and the mode of transport will determine how the story beats are carried out which increasingly becomes a balancing act of stamina & money.

If you walk alongside the road your journey will take longer, you will run out of energy faster but you will meet more people and have a better chance of earning money before you get to the border. If you decide to steal a car or hitchhike your journey will be much quicker and although you lose less energy ultimately you won’t have as many opportunities to influence the direction of the story.

All of this also works directly alongside the narrative of the story, as different levels can only be accessed by the mode of travel you use, so varying your play style will allow you to explore the story in the richest and most diverse way possible.

Most of your options in the game have consequences. Some are small, such as vandalizing posters to get your preferred candidate more votes and other choices you make have a much larger reach into the overall conclusion of the game that could save or cost multiple lives, including your fate.

The Spice Of Life

One thing that strikes me with this game is the variety of stories told on each journey and having played through the game 3 times, each has felt so vastly different to the other but often with the same underlying themes.

One level in particular that stuck with me involves finding clues to a relationship that fell apart during an escape attempt, that ultimately ended in a way that tells an entire life story in less than 5 minutes. It was a compelling and beautiful way of depicting a non-verbal narrative I can honestly say I haven’t experienced in a game before.

As you play through each level you start to get a feel for each character’s desires, political leanings and overall goals they want to achieve, and through a vast web of interconnected threads, these stories cross and converge in ways that lead to satisfying endings to each story.

Nothing is left on the line once the end screen plays, and all of the lives you interact with have a meaningful start, middle and endings to their journeys.

The same characters can be portrayed in varying ways depending on how their story unfolds in front of you. And a character you bonded with in your first playthrough may have secrets that change how you look back at past interactions, and ultimately change how you would proceed in future journeys.

One of the characters Sonya, who is portrayed as a cold and callous news reader who only cares about herself, has a story that in my second playthrough explored a much more fleshed out and charming story than in my first run and by the time I was on my 3rd new game, even though I had already seen everything the story had to offer, the way I approached her character arc was with much more care and compassion than I had done prior.

Looks Can Be Deceiving

Graphically, the game does look somewhat dated in terms of model clipping, pop-in, poor optimisation from Switch to Xbox and character models often moving in unnatural ways. However, in terms of the art style and visual direction, it is second to none and it perfectly mirrors the way the story is told. 

I will always take a well-defined artist vision over “graphics” so this wasn’t an issue for me.

Jarod is a character with a particularly troublesome and dark history and some of the meetings you have with him are genuinely nerve-wracking and yet juxtaposed against some of the early missions with Zoe where the entire game and world seem to be filled with colour and joy strikes a fascinating contrast.

To perfectly compliment the visuals of the game is a soundtrack that I have had on repeat for the past week. From bass thumping trance music as you weave through traffic on the back of a motorbike to the chilled-out acoustic sounds as you first glance at the secret cave that you’ve been searching for. A big part of the game is finding cassette tapes that can be played at various locations throughout the game, so having such a heavy focus on music is a great way to allow the characters in-game to have another “escape” so to speak.

Most of the characters will have a song associated with them, and as you progress through the world and you hear glimpses of the music it sets the scene for what you may expect.

Many Roads Lead To Freedom

Throughout your multiple playthroughs, there are often times where doors or conversation options will be blocked out and this is a great way to encourage multiple playthroughs on New Game + as a lot of the progression in the game comes in chapters 6 & 7 it piques the curiosity enough to see how these moments would chance by using those options

In many multiple-choice games, even when replaying I would often find myself picking the same choices each time. However, in Road 96 I found myself wanting to replay the game with the express motive of wanting to change the dynamic of the story

And with all 3 of my playthroughs, the eventual ending was different enough to me that it felt like my choices had weight behind them, but without making any apparent deviations that would feel out of place

This is a game that I am genuinely struggling to find issues with

A profoundly brilliant story, with a colourful cast of characters, stunning art direction, a masterpiece of a soundtrack and a satisfying gameplay loop.

Road 96 and the highways and byways of Petria are a treasure that you all should explore.

Just make sure you bring your walkman with you.