Sayonara Wild Hearts – 7 Years Later |

Publisher: Annapurna Interactive

Developer: Simogo

Release Date: 09/19/2019

Available On

Have you ever felt so heartbroken that you wanted to just run forever into the void and scream? That’s the entire premise of Sayonara Wild Hearts, or at least my interpretation. Like most Annapurna games, a lot of their shorter stuff requires player interpretation. You are able to inject yourself into the game and place a unique finger on the story. There isn’t much content in the game, and aside from visual or symbolic interpretation, the female lead you play as is heartbroken and trying to mend her feelings. What we get is a pulse-pounding soundtrack with a visually gorgeous action-rhythm game that I couldn’t put down.

Every level is unique and flows with extraordinary precision. You will ride a skateboard, a motorcycle, an elk, and a mech. That’s not for you to worry about, as all you need to do is move left and right and dodge obstacles and collect hearts to increase your score. This game’s main hook is a score attack system in which you can get small hearts, large heart rings, and smaller collectible discs to increase your score. As the level goes on, the length and difficulty ramp up from just straight, wavy roads and loops to dodging left and right and choosing different paths with the most hearts. You can’t die per se, but you will rewind back about 5 seconds, which is nice, and there’s no penalty to your score, but you do lose whatever you gathered during those five seconds and need to reclaim it. A lot of the levels flow differently from boss fights using QTEs to jumping around on cliffsides and flying through cities. The pace of the game is insane, and it’s always moving and changing, which is really exciting.

Towards the last fourth of the game, the gameplay changes up, and you become a Game Boy cart and get inserted into a set of VR goggles. Here the developers pay tribute to, clearly, some of their favorite games, such as Tetris (you move through Tetrominos) and Geometry Wars. You eventually get a bow and can lock on to enemies to rack up combos. There is a nice bit towards the end that is a clear nod to Panzer Dragoon. The gameplay is also synced with the music, and with a good sound system (I have a 5.1 system hooked up), you are surrounded by fantastic techno and electronic beats with some beautiful vocals (provided by Linnea Olsson) and melodies. Jonathan Eng is a fantastic musician who has a very unique sound. He provides the boss fight music, with the vocal tracks. The music evokes a mix of nostalgia, wanderlust, and ethereal alternate timelines filled with pure fantasy. Daniel Olsen provides the rest of the OST and it’s just wonderful. It has a very 80s vibe to it as well, and it just fits so well with the visuals.

There was only one level that felt nauseating to me. The level bounces and kind of skips animations, making it difficult to focus and keep track of everything, but it was thankfully short. There are “Heartbreak” interlude levels in between this set of tracks, and they are fairly short. I also found the Game Boy level, while novel, slowed things down too much and broke up the pace. The entire game up until that point is just high-octane, in-your-face, pulse-pounding techno and constantly changing levels. I felt the Heartbreak levels were slow and short enough to give you a breather. Those slower levels aren’t bad; they’re the only gameplay switch-up in the game, but they are a bit jarring.

Words cannot adequately convey the experience of this game. It needs to be played, and I don’t know why I waited so long to play it. I downloaded it multiple times on different consoles, including Game Pass and PS Plus, and even tried a demo a couple of times, but it just never clicked for me until now. I love the soundtrack so much I listen to it outside of the game too. Anyone who loves rhythm action games, 80s techno-pop, or beautiful art shouldn’t miss this game. I just wish it were a bit longer.