Unbeatable is an impressive game at times, but the demo fails to showcase the game properly. But when the game shines, you can feel the soul coming from the screen. I wish the demo were persistent in showcasing these moments. Here are early impressions for Unbeatable, an impressive game with a bad demo.
Pictorial Town with a Pacifying Vibe
The absolute highlight of the Unbeatable demo is music and its visual aesthetic. Both blend so well together, creating a vibe that lingers in the air and in your head long after I stopped playing it. Even in the pause menu, the music still carries its tune, and the feeling of solace can be felt in every scenario. The team absolutely nailed the visual. The anime aesthetic makes the town, shops, NPCs, and even something as common as a bench on the side of the fence interesting.
The most memorable spot in the entire game was the Train Station during the afternoon; the wheat field with the orange hue from the sun made the entire spot a memory rather than just a place. The same goes for all the locations; it was a string of perfectly captured photos hung on the wall. The fixed camera helped create a unique identity for all the locations of Unbeatable.
Less Gameplay All Around
Since Unbeatable carries the tagline of Rhythm game, I was expecting to be engaged in the music mini-game. The second I entered the Story mode in Unbeatable, after a few seconds, I had to play a rhythm mini-game about pressing the right button at the right time to hit a chord, like it was in Guitar Hero. The gameplay here was fun, engaging, and felt good to play for a long time. After the rhythm mini game, the game turned into a semi-open-world game about talking to characters.
And this went on for more than 30 minutes before a second brief encounter with the rhythm mini game. It didn’t last long; after a few minutes, the game again switched to the open-world talking game. It felt as if Unbeatable was trying to showcase all the characters without engaging in the rhythm aspect of the game. Every time the game showcased a new character or antagonist, I was expecting a rhythm game battle, but that didn’t happen. Instead, they left the scene to let me do all the talking.
One of the major problems is that the game leaned more on the side of the NPC interaction and story than on what the game is about, music.
Lack of Proper Guidance
Unbeatable demo had its To Do (Objective List) locked, and the game has no map for guidance. One of the only quests I encountered was to put up posters of the band at three different locations. While it feels easy, without any objective marker, or objective details, or a map, or any NPC giving out a clue on where to put the posters, it ended up becoming the frustrating part of the game.
I had to figure out everything, and it did take a long time to do so. Which means I had to run around aimlessly looking for a poster wall, and the last wall to hang the poster was hidden in an alleyway. The fixed camera angle had the wall appear as a single vertical line to the right. But all this time, I had this thought running in my head, since I’m putting up the poster, hopefully it will lead to performing in a concert to showcase the rhythm mini-game.
After putting out all the posters in the town, I finally arrived at the venue to start the concert. When I interacted with the door, the game played an Unbeatable trailer and ended the demo. All the tasks felt like a big nothing burger at the end. While the trailer looked amazing, I was hoping some of the interesting bits were in the game instead of all talking.
The characters are well fleshed out, and the emotional tone of the story is present. At the end, you will feel for the characters on the screen, but when it comes to balancing the game with gameplay and story, the Unbeatable demo fails to showcase the gameplay portion. While you do a lot of running around and talking to know more about the world, the same can’t be said about the rhythm mini-game. If I recall the time I spent on Unbeatable, I played the mini-game 2 to 3 times in my 45 minutes of the game. For a rhythm game, the music mini-game should take the center stage. But the game was focused on other things rather than letting me play the mini-game.
While the full release may land better on account of being able to tell the full story, the demo could have done with more action and less talking. While the game has done well on visual aesthetics and strong audio cues to back it up, the lack of enough opportunities to indulge in the rhythm mini-game left me less than impressed with the demo.
