Game #1114: Road 96

  A bumpy ride.

 Road 96 is not exactly what I expected, but it was still an enjoyable ride. This is a somewhat procedurally generated walking simulator in which you take the role of various kids and teens trying to cross the border of the fictional town of Petria.

 There's an ongoing argument about politics in videogames and what not, but Road 96 is unapologetically political, bringing parallels to the past US selection between Trump and Clinton in the form of Tyrak and Flores. It also deals with border control and the infamous Trump Wall. In this game, election day is a few weeks away, and as previously mentioned, you take the role of a nameless kid that is trying to cross the border. What may take you by surprise is that you are not the hero of the story, but rather, there are 8 main characters: Zoe, Alex, Fanny, John, Sonya, Mitch and his brother and, lastly,  Jarrod, and you, as a nameless kid, are just somebody they meet. Every character has about 8 or 9 events that you may randomly trigger as you play the game. Which events you get and when is completely random, that's the procedurally generated part of the game, some events don't even contain these characters, and it's entirely possible you may not see every possible event in a single playthrough.

 The game has seven chapters, and in each chapter you play as a different kid. The game doesn't shy away from murdering children, so it's possible that you'll die on your way to the border. What's more, if your character dies the game will give you another kid for that chapter, so the easiest way to watch every scenario is to have at least one kid die on every chapter. Amusing. Certain events will reward you with perks, and perks are kept between kids, allowing you more dialogue choices and even options on every scenario, such as a lock pick to open doors.

 Scenarios in the game are super simple, most of the time they are just about picking different answers, although sometimes they spice things up by having you shoot at stuff or other various, simple activities. Some answers matter, some do not, some will get you killed, others will let you survive. There are a couple different major endings depending on which choices you make. I think the game did a decent job at portraying gray moralities. While Tyrak is obviously the bad guy, none of your answers are every pro-Tyrak, but in a way, it makes sense, every kid you play as is trying to cross the border, so it wouldn't make sense for them to support Tyrak. Plus, some of the main characters are pro-Tyrak and they are given depth, plus, even the activists have their own bad apples, so the game is not grandstanding on its own morality.

 The game has a fantastic soundtrack, the main theme song being particularly catchy, even though the game loves to play that tune at every chance it gets.

 On the other hand, the performance on Switch is laughable. The game is very rudimentary in the graphics department, character animations can be excessively wonky, there's a scenario in which Sony Sanchez falls out of a car and I can't stop laughing at that scene every time I watch it. Still, a humble presentation is something I can play ball with, the problem is the performance. The game fails to even reach 30fps on the Switch, and that's just inexcusable considering how lackluster the visual presentation is. I've watched some footage of the PC version and it's infinitely better.

 One last thing I'd like to mention, is that the game tries being cute with dialogue choices, for you see, when characters are moving, the dialogue options move next to them. It's a neat visual effect, it is, but it also means that you might pick the wrong dialogue choice by mistake because the option moved just when you were pressing A on top of it!

 Road 96 is an interesting take on the walking simulator formula, and I found the plot very engaging. The more events you trigger the more you information you get to slowly piece together the past of Petria, as well as how some characters are connected with each other. Taking control of various secondary characters was a fairly original way to present the story too. That said, as much praise as I've got for the game, the performance on Switch shouldn't be this poor, and it did take me out of the game multiple times just how stuttery the framerate was.

 6.0