Wandersong

PC, Switch

Developer/publisher Greg Lobanov Format PC (tested), Switch Release Out now

At the risk of sounding unkind, Wandersong’s protagonist has a face only a mother could love. It looks like it was knocked up in Microsoft Paint during a lunch break, resembling a South Park resident with the dark, dead eyes of Animal Crossing’s Gyroids. It’s probably the ugliest piece of character design in the game, but before long you’ll wonder if that isn’t the point. This optimistic, good-natured bard is not, by any means, your regular videogame hero; they are, as one NPC memorably puts it, “a weird song dork”, their very plainness central to the story. And looks can be deceiving. With a nudge of the right stick, those oval eyes will shut tight as they extend one arm, clasping the other to their chest while they sing for all they’re worth. And they can certainly carry a tune.

It’s a more useful ability than it first seems in a world that isn’t exactly in musical mood. In fact, it’s on the brink of destruction – though, with the envoy of the goddess responsible taking a shine to your genial troubadour, you’re told how you might just save it. This sparks a quest to collect and perform the various parts of a mythical song, as you travel to various realms to meet the so-called Overseers holding them captive. On the way, you’ll interact with just about everyone and everything via the medium of song. The right analogue stick brings up a colour wheel, with each of the eight cardinal directions representing a different note. And Wandersong takes great delight in finding creative ways for the bard to harness their goddess-given talent. In multiple-choice dialogues, you’ll sing each syllable of your replies; later, you’ll translate ghost speech to pacify spooked villagers. Your voice can guide sprouting stalks, their flowers carrying you past obstacles and up to higher ground. It can deflect attacks during the rare monster encounters. And through sheer force of lung power, it can be used to battle through strong winds.

Other tasks are more overtly musical. There’s some freeform composition as you’re charged with inventing a jingle for a local sweet shop, while you’ll perform onstage with a hastily assembled band, and lead an orchestral coup within a downtrodden factory town. The disparate parts of the central song, meanwhile, tend to involve simple call-and-response mechanics, whether you’re blowing air into the pipes of an organ, plucking giant strings, or hopping between the keys of a giant piano. And when it’s time for the percussion, you simply match the beats by jumping.

Sometimes these activities are only tenuously connected to the act of singing, functioning more as an excuse to repurpose the right stick, with the sound often incidental to the process. In one area you’ll whirl it around to pause, rewind and fast-forward spinning cogs and moving platforms. In another, you’re tasked with sweeping up leaves from a yard. A third sees you guiding a galleon around a map – though on this occasion your shipmates accompany you with a cheerful shanty that stays in key regardless of your bearing. If the world seems to be in tune with you, it’s odd that the more conventional note-matching interludes – short and infrequent though they may be – should feel so awkward. Their rhythm never quite feels natural, though perhaps that’s partly because the analogue stick is hardly ideal for hitting markers precisely.

At least it’s forgiving, which is the saving grace for the clunky puzzle-platforming gauntlets leading to the Overseers. Generous checkpoints and quick restarts just about cover for awkward and sometimes overly fussy platforming sequences where hazards and bottomless pits abound. The game’s one stealth section is the worst offender, where your voice inexplicably becomes a torch beam, illuminating pitch-black passageways patrolled by sinister demons. Still, the darkness gives your eyes a bit of a break from the game’s gaudy colour palette, which seems to be overcompensating for some rather bland environment design. Yet it’s not the world you’ll want to save so much as its people. Throughout the bard’s journey, we’re given brief glimpses into the lives of a wide range of wellrealised characters. The tone veers between comic and melancholic, and for the most part the shifts are deftly handled. Your voyage with those coffee-loving pirates includes a moment of physical comedy as funny as anything in Chuchel. Otherwise, the atmosphere is frequently wistful: the world is about to end, after all. One early encounter deals with a shy accordionist looking to connect to the ghost of her dead mother through her music: at times like this, Wandersong risks becoming painfully twee, but the writing avoids hollow sentimentality, resulting in a genuinely touching episode. And the bard’s grumpy witch companion, Miriam, is a constant joy. Any time things threaten to get too mushy, she’ll find a sharp, pithy way to undercut it.

The further the narrative strays from McGuffins and machinations, the better it gets. By the final act, even as your objective seems all the more urgent, it finds time to take a break for the sake of character development. At its heart, this is a story about a burgeoning friendship between a prickly curmudgeon and a wide-eyed optimist, using anger and song respectively to hide their underlying insecurities. It’s a touching moment when they finally let their guard down, but there’s better to come. Wandersong’s finale, where the cumulative effect of the bard’s unwavering kindness is revealed, abandons snark and silliness entirely for something heartfelt and sincere as it builds to a euphoric choral crescendo. For all the bum notes it hits along the way, the conclusion of this musical journey is guaranteed to send you off with a skip in your step.

Generous checkpoints and quick restarts just about cover for awkward platforming sequences