Sayonara Wild Hearts

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

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Review:

Sayonara Wild Hearts is… a difficult game to describe. Throughout the game, every time I feel like I’ve got it pinned down, it seems to add a new element to the gameplay, shaking things up and adding a bit more depth to it. It starts as a simple Arcade-style on-rails auto-scroller where you are simply moving left and right to dodge obstacles and collect pickups, but then the game adds in timed button presses to the sound of the game’s music, and then free movement around the screen… I hesitate to say more for fear of spoilers.

Despite the game working in so many different elements, everything meshes together pretty well thanks to the simplicity of everything you’ll be doing. The challenge, where it exists, is usually just in the fast pacing, and responding to each change in how the game is played and adapting accordingly.

One of the elements tying this game together is its presentation, which is absolutely phenomenal, a stylized neon landscape where your character plays some sort of motorcycle-riding, sword-wielding superhero fighting battles with various feminine motorcycle gangs and other enemies in a symbolic struggle to overcome heartbreak… or something.

Yeah, it’s hard to fully comprehend just exactly what is going on here, but I can say that it’s all really cool, and delivered with visuals that are truly slick and memorable, and give this game an amazing sense of style. The music and sound, also, deserve recognition here, with some really catchy electro-pop tunes with a female vocalist, and a narrator/announcer (voiced by Queen Latifah) that feels perfectly in tune with this game’s unique badass feminine style, matching the game’s overall feeling of “this is cool and weird and I’m not quite sure I understand what’s going on, but I like it”.

The game’s music ties into the gameplay in other ways too, often surprising and delighting the player, but I’ll leave it to you to discover that. Suffice it to say, the music here is great, and an integral part of the overall experience.

The game does have its flaws though. First, the game has some serious issues with its difficulty, which fluctuates from wayyyyyyyyy too easy to occasional difficulty spikes that make you wonder how the game could expect anyone to do that. This is particularly noticeable when you have to judge where your character is in relation to objects zooming towards you, but your perspective is skewed.

The other problem with the game is its length – this is a game players can breeze through in a few hours. Thankfully, it’s designed to encourage players to repeat levels to try to top their scores, but the game still gives players the feeling that it’s all over too quickly.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is a really unique experience on the Switch. It’s cool, stylish, and fun. It’s a treat for the eyes and the ears. It’s weird and surprising, and has some issues with fluctuating difficulty, and it’s over far, far too soon. But above all else, it is well worth playing, especially for those looking to try something a bit different.

tl;dr – Sayonara Wild Hearts is a cool, stylish Arcade-style game that ties together multiple elements into simple but fast-paced gameplay that repeatedly finds new ways to surprise the player, all while delivering a stellar, memorable presentation. It has some issues with wild fluctuations in difficulty level, and it’s over far too soon, but this is a unique experience well worth having on the Switch.

Grade: A-

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2019 Game Awards:

Winner:

Best Music – This was a very competitive category this year – multiple games with excellent soundtracks got cut by my “only five runners-up” limit, and I changed my mind multiple times before deciding on a winner. However, in the end, I felt I had to give it to Sayonara Wild Hearts, a game that not only creates a truly memorable experience using its Electro-Pop soundtrack, but I would argue that this game simply wouldn’t be the amazing game it is without its soundtrack.

Best Song: Parallel Universes by Daniel Olsén and Jonathan Eng feat. Linnea Olsson – Like choosing Best Music, it was tough to choose a favorite song from this year, and I had to cut plenty that I thoroughly enjoyed to make it down to five runners-up and one winner. Few songs got played on repeat during my day quite like Epilogue from Farm Together, few songs perfectly encapsulated the spirit of the game they represented like Kakariko Crypt from Cadence of Hyrule, and few songs were as deeply moving as Light of Nibel from Ori and the Blind Forest. But in the end, I feel like this should be about what the song does for the game, and Parallel Universes from Sayonara Wild Hearts is not only a fantastic, catchy song, but the way it was utilized in the actual game made for what was, in my opinion, the best singular musical moment of 2019 in videogames.

Runner-Up: Best Song – Sayonara Wild Heart by Daniel Olsén and Jonathan Eng feat. Linnea Olsson, Best Graphical Style

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