LOUD: My Road to Fame is an entry in the rhythm based genre which tells the story of a teenage girl going through a journey of self-discovery with the help and support of music. Her story will take her from the bedroom as she strums on a broom to the brightest lights and biggest stage.
LOUD: My Road to Fame requires players to press a button when it appears on screen. The mapping contains six of the Xbox controller’s buttons: up, right, down, Y, B and A with the d-pad used for the notes on the left side of the screens whereas the face buttons are the right side of the screen. When a note shows up on screen you need to press the matching button/direction.
The main goal, aside from completing the songs obviously, is to get the highest score by pulling off combos and successfully hitting notes as long as possible. The game offers three types of notes: the simple one hit, another note with appears pink where you have to hold the button down and finally, a red/orange-ish note where you have the mash the button. And as with other games in the genre, you can test your skills on different difficulty settings.
While the core aspect of rhythm based games is the soundtrack, the visual side of things look fine. They have a bit of cartoonish to it which is a fair depiction of the teenage girl’s journey. LOUD: My Road to Fame features a very colorful palette of colors which brings you through a handful of diverse backdrop. As far as the soundtrack goes, don’t expect to hear familiar tunes and bangers. The score was created by the in-house studio and it does its job well, but it’s making me crave similar game with tunes from Paramore, Foster the People; among other pop oriented acts. Feel free to judge for yourself with the LOUD: My Road to Fame soundtrack on Bandcamp.
The game is not without its faults. First, the gameplay does wear out its welcome. Every game of the rhythm genre is pretty simplistic and repetitive. While there are harder difficulties to tackle, it’s still the same mechanic and same tunes. And speaking of which; while the in-house developer tried their best to make an enticing soundtrack, it does fall flat. A lot of the songs sound oddly familiar with the same chords. But this is a double edged sword; having to pay royalties for official songs can be expensive and causing the game to be delisted at some point, but at least the soundtrack would’ve been a banger.
As a huge fan of the rhythm genre, LOUD: My Road to Fame is a fun and decent entry in the genre. The button mapping is intuitive and easy to pick up and play. But as mentioned, the soundtrack makes or breaks a game in this genre and it feels uninspired, generic and repetitive. If you love the genre, it’s a decent good time and challenge, however if you’re looking to get your fingers to move to the beat of familiar tunes, LOUD: My Road to Fame isn’t the one for you.
Overall
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70%
Summary
Pros
- Another rhythm game is a good thing
Cons
- Underwhelming soundtrack
- Throwaway story