Old School Musical

Genre: Music-Rhythm

Players: 1-4 Co-Op (Local)

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Review:

Old School Musical is a Music-Rhythm game where the “old school” in the title refers to old NES and SNES-style videogames that this game parodies through the adventures of its dimension-hopping siblings, as well as its chiptune soundtrack.

Visually, this means that you get levels that look like they were pulled directly from Mega Man, Metal Gear, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other classic videogames. The attention to detail here is wonderful, with some really superb look-alike levels and some funny little in-jokes based on the games in question. The music here is… okay. None of the game’s chiptune music really struck a chord with me, but it was all decent, at least.

The problem I have with this game is that none of it really meshes together at all. Seeing the parody versions of classic games playing in the background makes me really want to play those games, but the gameplay itself is a pretty plain, average, “hit the buttons as they fall onto the screen” sort of thing that became old hat for music-rhythm games ages ago. The music is chiptune stuff, for sure, but none of it resembles the games being parodied – if I’m playing on a Mega Man stage, and the game’s focus is on music, I want that music to at least sound vaguely like Mega Man music… but it doesn’t.

So in the end, Old School Musical really only succeeds at making me want to play a bunch of other games that came out decades ago. The gameplay here is bog-standard music-rhythm stuff, the soundtrack is merely okay, and the great unifying theme tying it all together doesn’t really tie anything together. I feel like there was an opportunity here to do something more, but as-is, this is just a generic music-rhythm game with some clever visuals.

tl;dr – Old School Musical is a Music-Rhythm game that delivers generic gameplay over levels that look like classic videogames. The music is just okay, the gameplay is nothing special, and the one thing that really stands out is the presentation, which doesn’t really have much to do with the rest of the game. This feels like a missed opportunity.

Grade: C

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