If you’ve ever sat down and watched one of those VH1 “behind the music” documentaries but wished that all of the characters were furries, then boy, do I have a game for you. Our Rockbeasts preview aims to deep dive into the opening chapters of the upcoming, animal-focused music biopic adventure/rhythm game to see if it’s worth your time and ours.
What Is Rockbeasts?
If you’ve not already had a chance to check it out, Rockbeasts is an animated music biopic video game that combines an adventure game, visual novel, rhythm game and management sim to create a pretty unique amalgam. It’s being developed by Lichthund, the indie developers behind spear-throwing-game Lichtspeer (I’m noticing a theme), as well as the upcoming time-sink that Food Truck Empire will surely be.
The plot of Rockbeasts concerns an up-and-coming band from a small town. After a successful career as a manager for other bands, you find yourself in a tricky position, and so you take on the role of managing the band in the hopes that you can make them the “next big thing” and sort your own management career out in the process. Along the way, you’ll have to manage the band’s expectations, big personalities, and constantly on-going interpersonal problems.
Gameplay Style
Most of your time in Rockbeasts is made making decisions (go figure.) You need to choose the different activities that your band does to prepare for gigs, as well as maintaining your different resources to make sure that you can actually afford to do stuff when you need to. You have 3 basic resources, not including money: hype, health, and mood. Each of these can be built-up in different ways, but they all require you to spend time and/or money to accomplish them.
A lot of the game is trying your best to manage your time between gigs, but the visual novel segments have you also making important decisions ranging from the name of the band to the way you celebrate your first real gig. As things go on, these choices can impact the direction of the story, and they can certainly impact how your different band members interact with you and each other.
In It for the Music
When it comes to actually playing the gigs, Rockbeasts becomes a relatively simple rhythm game. You have to tap WASD and Space at the right time, with the rewarded money and XP depending on how well you did. That said, it’s not all about how well you can play rhythm games. A huge portion of the result is dictated by the different equipment you’ve picked, the song you chose, and how well you managed to prepare for the gig in the first place.
It’s a good mixture between the action-focused rhythm gameplay and the literal management simulation that you play between the gigs. Even if you feel a bit kack-handed, you can still get some decent results simply by making sure that you’ve done all you can in the run up to the gig. Though, frankly, the real draw of these segments are the songs, which are a fun listen if you’re into the wider rock genre.
All in the Story and Characters
Being honest, the real draw here are the storyline and characters. Even from the outset, you get a real sense of the different members of your band and what their individual personalities are. They’re not even all likeable (is it too late to kick Vern out of the band?), but they all feel like real characters, and you can almost see the music biopic clichés that will be playing out in a few hours’ time. Combine this with a genuine love of rock music and a bunch of great references and jokes, and you’ve got a hell of a fun time. A personal highlight is the appearance of Iggy Pup (0 points for figuring out who it’s a parody of.)
The Final Thought
So far, we’ve only really seen the opening few chapters of the game, but if the future of Rockbeasts is anything like what we’ve had so far, I can’t wait to try it out. It’s got a perfect blend of gameplay styles and has the visuals, storyline and characters to back it up. All of the rock music is just an added bonus for fans. If you’ve even got a passing interest in this thing, we highly recommend you go and wishlist it now.
