Who has not dreamed of becoming a rock star? Titans of music like Mick jagger, Freddie Mercury either Steve Tyler they are legends that we have sometimes dreamed of emulating. Confess it, we have all grabbed a broom in our house as a guitar or we have sung in the shower as if we were on stage.
This is the idea that he pursues and tries to take further LOUD, the title of Hyperstrange in which our fingers are going to have a great time. And it is that the musical challenge to which we are going to be subjected is a pleasure trip for the most virtuous hands, at the same time that we know the story of its protagonist.
start from the bottom
Defined as a mix between GuitarHero and Life is Strange by its authors, the plot puts us in the shoes of Astrid. This young teenager has a very clear dream and that is to turn her passion for playing the guitar in your way of life. But like so many people before her, she must come high up in her room practicing chords.
If you’re used to rhythm and musical titles, there’s no surprise that you’ll be caught off guard in LOUD. Six guitar necks appear on the screen to indicate where the notes are coming from, which we must press properly as soon as they fit into a frame that is at the end. Obviously, the more precise we are, the better score we will receive.
Keeping the rhythm without failing, we will increase the combo multiplier so that each note increases the number it gives us. In addition, to add a little spice to the song, some notes will appear sporadically that will have to be sustained as a riff, while others will have to mercilessly crush the button correspondent.
In turn, without warning, a combo area will arrive so that your few notes are an even greater source of score. However, by accumulating a few failures throughout the theme, we will go straight to the booth without remedy. And to the formula we must add the fact that we can choose difficulty, which adds several laps to the game.
There really is a rush to try to get it right, let alone to get the fantasy that not a single note escapes in the song. From the medium difficulty you can get into that moment of trance so typical of EVO Moment #37, in which you don’t know how, but your fingers are hitting the mark with every chord.
Linking notes as if there were no tomorrow is an art and therefore launching into the highest category of difficulty is reserved for a select few -among whom I am not-. It is really there when the influence of GuitarHerowith notes mercilessly bombarding the screen, making it seem like you’re in the middle of a musical skirmish.
A meteoric rise
Another title that sought to combine two aspects such as narrative with pure sound mechanics was The Artful Escape. The title that came under the wing of Annapurna Interactive knew how to perfectly interpret its role and that is that it did not bother to complicate the songs by reducing everything to a Simon Says. The sirloin was in a bizarre story while we simply enjoyed improvised cosmic hits.
Here we have chosen to put all the meat on the grill towards what score we achieve and the note we receive in each of the 14 levels, leaving the plot in a separate paragraph. Understand well, yes, we are seeing how Astrid goes from being a little girl in her room who receives her first guitar from her father to how her youth gives her one made of lime and another of sand.
Nevertheless, we do not have any kind of transcendence in the plot. There are no decisions, there is no influence of any kind regarding how well we play the songs, nothing in this sense. Everything is limited to static images, on backgrounds without any kind of animation for a handful of scenes that end in the simplest way possible.
The influence of Life is Strange yes, it can be noticed by a visual section full of color, with colored touches, designs that seem to be taken from the notebook of a young woman who is distracted in class and in the search of trying to be who you really want to be. However, the contribution of the plot to the general context of LOUD feels very little. It should be said that the entire game is in English, although there is not much text to read or it is complex, in case it is an obstacle for any player.
There are rewards that tell us that we have left a stage behind and started a new path. Different outfits for Astrid along with even cooler guitars can be combined on the menu before the music blasts through the speakers. On the other hand, a bonus song appears as a final prize for all the effort after shelving the story. Despite this, yes some other game mode is missing It doesn’t just increase the difficulty of the story songs.
VidaExtra’s opinion
It depends on what kind of challenge you want to impose on yourself. LOUD, but between 2 and 6 hours it can take you to complete everything that its argument offers. By weighing the specific weight of each section, all the riffs, chords and notes that pass in front of us take the gold medal.
Hyperstrange’s work is really challenging and will be a toothache even for the most seasoned in the genre. It is most natural that we are restarting a song at the first chance of change and that is that the bite is constant to get the best shot possible.
However, the history of LOUD it has a relative presence and little importance. Astrid’s story does not have any major script twist and it is very clear what the paths that will be followed are going to be, leaving surprises or our influence on it completely parked.
LOUD
platforms | PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PC and Nintendo Switch (version reviewed) |
---|---|
multiplayer | Nope |
developer | hyperstrange |
Company | hyperstrange |
Launch | July 15, 2022 |
The best
- The constant bite against the songs
- Quite a challenge even for the most seasoned
Worst
- The little weight and influence in history
- Lack of more game modes