Inside my Radio Review – Bringing Back The Beat

<p>My initial thought when starting Seaven Studio&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Inside my Radio<&sol;em> was that platformers can be hard enough as it is without forcing all my actions to the beat of a song&&num;8211&semi; which is just plain harsh&period; The nice thing about <em>Inside my Radio <&sol;em>is that it is very forgiving for not being able to do something to the beat&period; Rhythmic help&comma; frequent checkpoints&comma; and short sequences that involve multiple button presses are a blessing to those who can&&num;8217&semi;t get behind the game&&num;8217&semi;s rhythm-based platforming&period; What all of this help demonstrates though is just how much the game is unwilling to acknowledge its own shortcomings&&num;8211&semi; even when faced with the task of upping the game&&num;8217&semi;s difficulty to reflect the heightened action&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Drenched in so much style&comma; it is hard to dismiss <em>Inside my Radio <&sol;em>as just another indie platformer&period; It moves like a lot of other games&comma; but its art is distinct enough to separate it from the pack&period; Deriving a lot of its influence from circuitry and cyberpunk culture&comma; the environments are vibrant and evocative of the game&&num;8217&semi;s title&period; Players take control of LED sprites&comma; each responsible for bringing back different styles of music to a dying boombox lying out in an alley&period; Your journey consists of trying to bring back electro&comma; dub and disco music by inhabiting the sprites of three different LEDs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;98193" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-98193" style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-98193" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;01&sol;04084535&sol;IMR&lowbar;Screenshot&lowbar;01&lowbar;&period;png" alt&equals;"Inside my Radio" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-98193" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Inside my Radio&comma; Seaven Studios&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Told as a frame narrative&comma; <em>Inside my Radio <&sol;em>plays with plotting by having characters like Barry &lpar;the Disco-centric LED&rpar; retell their adventures that have led to the point of the story in which they run into the main character of the game&comma; Trek&period; Ultimately&comma; Trek is the only character who players will control that doesn&&num;8217&semi;t involve going back in time and retelling events of the story that precede the current ones&period; He also acts as the difficulty checkpoint as the game gets slightly more difficult with each scene he is re-introduced in&period; However&comma; as much as the game is able to demonstrate the difficulty increases&comma; it isn&&num;8217&semi;t by much at all and most people will be able to maneuver through an area without much issue as long as the rhythmic help is on&period; That option with no punishment makes any difficulty feel trivial&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Even in time trial mode&comma; though rhythmic help is available&comma; it still has some difficult moments&period; For example&comma; I found time frequently running out before I could even get a minute into the level&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s not that the platforming is difficult&comma; but the time constraints seem too tightly wound and one wrong move can be enough to topple your entire run&period; In fact&comma; the platforming is actually mundane and extremely linear&period; I found a secret area at one point&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;m still not sure what happened there&period; Despite its very linear structure&comma; <em>Inside my Radio <&sol;em>does continually add new obstacles to contend with as each level is introduced&period; These new additions are often genuinely fun&comma; and when the game re-introduces them throughout later levels they are satisfying to traverse&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;98195" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-98195" style&equals;"width&colon; 1280px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-98195" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;01&sol;04084449&sol;IMR&lowbar;Screenshot&lowbar;06&period;png" alt&equals;"Inside my Radio" width&equals;"1280" height&equals;"720" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-98195" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Inside my Radio&comma; Seaven Studios&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Adding to the variety in obstacles is an even more varied sound design&period; Every environment is centered around a specific style of music&period; There is a style button that is dedicated to activating some contextual switches and otherwise just letting you add a little more flavor to the environment&period; Regardless of the character you&&num;8217&semi;re using&comma; the types of sounds emitted from button presses&comma; including the style button&comma; depends on the environment&period; Being in a disco environment means you&&num;8217&semi;re going to make disco sounds&comma; but if its the second disco environment you&&num;8217&semi;re in then the sounds will have changed&period; Little touches like this benefit the style of <em>Inside my Radio<&sol;em>&comma; but it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t amount to much more than aural pleasure&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But <em>Inside my Radio <&sol;em>is not a game that seems to care much more about its gameplay than its style&comma; anyways&period; It is centered around bringing music back to a dying boombox and its dependency on music feels natural and sustained throughout the brief story&period; I ran through all of <em>Inside my Radio <&sol;em>in about 90 minutes&comma; and that&&num;8217&semi;s mainly because it doesn&&num;8217&semi;t have any real challenge to it&period; It doesn&&num;8217&semi;t penalize the player for using its rhythmic help system&comma; and it frequently checkpoints after any small component of an already small platforming sequence&period; The only part where the game requires some thinking is in very minute puzzles that often can be solved by simply doing the same thing on each one&period; Its an arbitrary roadblock almost all of the time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There was one puzzle that happened in a level a couple times that did end up feeling like it had some challenge to it&comma; but it was mostly memorization&period; Boss battles happen occasionally in the game as well and require a little bit of thinking&comma; but mainly just for the final boss which utilizes all three characters from the game&comma; but is hardly memorable in its execution&period; The weird thing is that I did end up enjoying my time with <em>Inside my Radio<&sol;em>&comma; I just never felt like it added much to the platforming genre&period; It is comfort food for platforming fans who have been craving more titles like Housemarque&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Outland<&sol;em>&comma; or the more apt-comparison&comma; Queasy Games&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Sound Shapes <&sol;em>&&num;8211&semi; a game that also heavily utilizes environments in its puzzles&comma; but is far more engaging and difficult than <em>Inside my Radio<&sol;em>&period; If you want something to play and beat in a single sitting without feeling bored&comma; this is a game that is constantly introducing variety to its levels&comma; even if the variety is something you&&num;8217&semi;ve seen a million times before&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>A PS4 Code for Inside my Radio was provided by Seaven Studios for the purpose of this review<br &sol;>&NewLine;<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;