It’s not about trying to give you a compelling narrative, though. Trying to figure out what’s going on isn’t easy until you reach the incredibly structured final level. You move with the left stick and hit the button prompts solely with the A button, allowing you to not get bogged down with a menagerie of complicated button sequences and instead opting for a more relaxed experience. There’s not a lot to learn in terms of the controls. Not every piece of music stands out, but as an entire piece it compliments Sayonara Wild Hearts really well. The electronic thumping and soothing synths often play without vocals, but the songs with lyrics are some of the game’s best.

There’re songs that stand out on their own, whilst others are more of a segue into the next. When you get into the groove of the level it can be an amazing feeling, especially if the song that’s playing is particularly good. If you crash or fail to input a prompt on time, the screen will go black and you’ll have to restart from shortly before where you died, but it’s almost instant, so you don’t lose track of the rhythm and the song. Other elements of Sayonara Wild Hearts will have you firing a bow and arrow, using martial arts, shooting a gun attached to your bike at wolves and robots, and plenty more.Įach level has plenty of changes from the last, and you can never really become familiar with them as they’re always changing. You earn points by collecting gems and hearts, trying to ride through them as you move at great speed, eventually earning either a gold, silver, or bronze rank. You play as a young woman who has her heart broken, and the short but sweet journey of how she overcomes her sadness takes place over different levels which see you travel through them in a multitude of ways which include riding a motorbike, driving a Cadillac, falling through tunnels of light and colour, and flying. Developers Simogo and publishers Annapurna Interactive call it a “pop album video game,” combining illuminating visuals and a soundtrack that compliments the variety of gameplay on offer, and it’s a great example of how music and video games combine to provide unique works of art. Fundamentally, it’s a rhythm game akin to Rez or Lost in Harmony coated in bold neon pink and dark blue environments, but the story is an interpretive journey through heartbreak that lets you make up your own mind as to what it all means. It’s difficult to explain what Sayonara Wild Hearts is.

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