![]() Sayonara Wild Hearts is a unique gem, both as a concept album and a video game. And I guess what I’m trying to get at with these opening statements is that if no one truly remembers any pop music concept albums, they will now. A “pop album video game,” to use the terminology offered by it. ![]() Or in the case of Sayonara Wild Hearts, craft an entire game. But a lot of pop music tends to rely on being simple and catchy in order to gain a mass amount of attention, thus it tends to rely on more visual mediums like videos to accompany the music whenever it wants to drive home any story even further. Artists such as Coheed and Cambria, Alice Cooper, and Mastodon have no problem weaving together complex tales as various rock acts. It feels like the last thing close to a pop concept album that made a notable impact was Daft Punk’s Discovery, arguably due to the Interstella 5555 animated film that went with it. And even those that do produce hit singles, such as works by Duran Duran and Halsey, don’t really feel like they’re remembered as concept albums. Rarely do we ever see concept albums for traditional pop or dance music. They’re grandiose works of music that form intriguing narratives, but they tend to be mostly associated with rock, prog, metal, etc. Simogo’s latest game, Sayonara Wild Hearts, got me thinking a bit about concept albums. This article was originally published on Doublejump. Now I’m going to go play the Album Arcade mode, which lets you play the entire game without any separation between the levels. You might not get it if you don’t love synthpop, though, but I still think you will. ![]() It’s on every modern platform now, so it’s extremely accessible. If it’s not clear by this point, I loved Sayonara Wild Hearts. I don’t think I’m allowed many expletives here, so… yeah. When I finished the level (and got a Gold rank for the first time), I felt like yelling and punching the air. Elevated heart rate, eyes popping out of my damn skull absorbed. That all might barely mean anything to you, so let me put it to you this way: in one of the last few levels in the game, I was given a bow and arrow, and time just stopped for me - I was completely, indescribably absorbed. The neon-soaked, abstract, haunting visuals overwhelm, amaze, make every little action feel important and significant, and keep the energy and verve of the music flowing. It’s the best video game soundtrack I can think of. The driving synth-pop is legitimately incredible - I don’t enjoy most soundtracks in contexts outside their original medium, but I will be putting this soundtrack in my music rotation. So much of what makes Sayonara Wild Hearts successful, though, lies in its music and visuals. A basic, underwhelming rhythm-ish game turns into an unforgettable sensory experience. Everything in Sayonara Wild Hearts evolves as you jump in different vehicles with unique handling and play styles: one moment, you’ll be drifting, then you’ve got a gun and you’re playing a shoot-’em-up, then you’re in a Undertale -esque 2D battle, then you’re playing something that resembles Rez or Osu!, or you’re doing them all at once… The changes that this game undergoes in its short runtime are nothing short of breathtaking. Now, go ahead and throw that last sentence away, because it only applies to the first handful of levels. Being a long-standing Audiosurf veteran, I’ll admit that I wasn’t particularly taken with the low-sensitivity free movement at first, but it started to make a whole lot more sense once I fixed the settings (seriously, crank the sensitivity up for your own good!).You’ll be swiping to move your character into different lanes to collect little hearts, and low sensitivity combined with the game’s floaty, dreamy kind of movement doesn’t help with that. John covered the game in the last round of his Speed Dating at the Apple Arcade series last month, calling it “a sleek fusion of the endless runner and rhythm genres – though it isn’t particularly good at either.” Kicking things off with one of those little indie games, I just finished playing Sayonara Wild Hearts, a game from last year that has been on my radar for a little while, and I was absolutely blown away. Little indie game from last year? Sure! Certified Classic Game™? Why not?! Nothing is off limits in this series, except for in-depth critique. Welcome to A Little Late, a new regular column where we have an informal discussion about something we’ve been playing or liking that… probably isn’t very timely or relevant.
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