It’s one of my favourite kinds of learning curves and without it I’m not sure I’ll return to The Artful Escape. What I love about rhythm games is finding the flow state and hearing that mastery manifest in a better sounding game. An awesome ride, but it does mean you’ve heard everything it has to offer in a couple of hours. As it is anyone can play and hear the game at its best. It does raise the question of whether there could be a version of The Artful Escape which is more of a rhythm game, and makes you work harder for that audio result. "The music is always spectacular, owing to technical wizardry that harmonises your shredding with the backing track." You’ll want to crank it up loud, too thank you to my neighbours for going on holiday during this review. The Slippery Matthew Castle really sounds lost in the euphoria of his own virtuosity it would be rude to interrupt it. To be honest, I held it pretty much the whole time the platforming’s basic enough to not require finger gymnastics and I love how your solos just run and run. The music is always spectacular, owing to technical wizardry that harmonises your shredding with the backing track so it fits every time you press the button or key (it recommends a pad). When I came back to take screenshots I saw that, individually, the pieces are rough in places, but the effect of being in the zone with it, with every piece of the universe lighting up on cue, is regularly spectacular. Visually it’s like gambolling through Roger Dean’s Yes or Asia covers, but blended with concert stagecraft that sees pyrotechnics and lightshows burst from local flora and fauna. It’s not really about the challenge - I failed maybe three jumps in the whole thing - but luxuriating in the sensory muchness of the thing. What holes there are mainly exist to let you hover over with a gravity-defying guitar lick. You run and jump through vistas torn from prog rock album covers, animating them with your music. The Artful Escape is a narrative platformer, a halfway house between Kentucky Route Zero and Limbo, although much lighter on its feet than the former, and with none of the peril of the latter. Sounds more rhythm and blues to me, but proves surprisingly apt, given how much of the game is spent sliding down ramps while wailing on a guitar. So, yes: I’m the Slippery Matthew Castle. Likewise, picking a suitable rockstar descriptor at the outset of the quest: it tickles me that voice actor, Michael Johnston, had to bellow loads of these, selling the “Hello Wembley!” energy of every last one. The game only took me two and a half hours to beat, but you could spend considerably longer perusing the costume creator that pops up halfway through. The persona that emerges through my dialogue options and sartorial choices is more of a Marty McFly: a guitar-shredding virtuoso decked in a Buddy Holly outfit. I don’t quite have the pizazz of a Bowie. Its creator, the fabulously named Johnny Galvatron, describes it as what would happen if David Bowie had gone on a literal space trip to become Ziggy Stardust, and that seems about right. Impressively, this is one of the more rote happenings in The Artful Escape, a quest that also takes in astral highways, rock-powered butterflies and - steel yourself - a passive aggressive skiffle group. Or at least they do aboard the Cosmic Lung, an intergalactic concert hall overseen by a brainstem in a cloak voiced by Jason Schwartzman. They call me the Slippery Matthew Castle. No guitar solo sounds the same, which is quite the feat in a five-hour game.One man’s musical mission is an audio visual delight, but there’s not enough room for expression or mastery. You can feel the love of music in every chord you trash. It's a heartfelt love letter to music, which isn't surprising since the game is being spearheaded by a literal rockstar, Johnny Galvatron, former head of rock group The Galvatrons. Guitar shredding against a rich orchestral soundscape is so effortless and easy, anyone could do it. Testing the player's ability to copy a pattern of flashing colours isn't really the point of The Artful Escape. It's the audiovisual feast that does all the heavy lifting. It's essentially a musical Simon Says, but one that doesn't really change over the course of the story-you'll be doing the same things in the spectacular final performance as you were during the tutorial. This is where the music-making mechanic comes into play, tasking you with mimicking button combinations in a call and response style. There are occasions where Francis has to perform on stage, either at a show or to impress an all-powerful (but musically picky) alien overlord, no biggie.
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