UNBEATABLE Review

A good soundtrack can make or break a video game. There've been plenty of mediocre titles that were actually enjoyable because of their music, and only slightly fewer that were effectively ruined by their tunes. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, for example, was pretty par for the course as far as the series goes. However, its licensed tracks helped elevate its single-player to actually enjoyable levels. Not Tonight 2 wasn’t exactly great, but the fact that you had to play it on mute if you didn’t want a headache didn’t help its reception. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the best video games of all time, and that’s in no small part because of how fantastic its soundtrack is. UNBEATABLE’s beats are second-to-none. The rest of the rhythm-based game leaves a bit to be desired, even when it’s at its best. But because you’ll want to keep listening to the game’s score well after you finish it, it’s still worth playing.

Despite the game’s name, you can in fact beat UNBEATABLE. In the title, you play as a girl named Beat. She’s been beat down by the government for playing music in an anime-themed world where cantatas are banned. However, not wanting to let the man oppress her, she teams up with a few walking stereotypes to take down the powers that be. To do this, you…well…don’t actually drop the beat that often. Instead, you mostly walk around stylish environments, interact with NPCs and complete menial non-rhythm-themed mini-games. You also sit through plenty of cutscenes while trying to make sense of the disjointed overarching plot. UNBEATABLE’s campaign is not great. Its pacing is a mess, most of its characters are one-note cliches, and you’re seldom given opportunities to interact with its rhythm gameplay. There’s a handful of genuinely fantastic moments throughout its 6-to-9 hour runtime. The arenas you run through are surprisingly varied and the game’s dialogue is witty. But you don’t play this sort of title for its story, and the lack of actual fun moments make it a slog to complete.

Thankfully, there’s more to UNBEATABLE than its main plot. More specifically, the game’s real highlight is its arcade mode, which exclusively involves mashing your mouse or controller to 100-odd excellent tunes. Doing that isn’t all that complicated: enemies come at your screen from two directions, and at either the top or the bottom of it. To defeat them, you simply press one of two buttons depending on where they are. If you’re successful, you’ll be able to keep the beat going in whatever song you’re playing through while racking up a high score. If you don’t, though, the title is extremely forgiving. You won’t have to restart a song every time you miss a button press, and the game has a good tutorial. It’s extremely satisfying to play UNBEATABLE. It may not have the depth of the likes of Guitar Hero or Hi-Fi Rush, but it’s still fun.

That’s because UNBEATABLE has the two essential elements of any good rhythm game: an amazing soundtrack and great visuals. The former is a remarkable blend of songs you’d find in an anime, and ones that wouldn’t seem out of place in Cyberpunk 2077. Listening to them while you smack enemies is as enjoyable as can be. It’s a great way to zone out or get your blood pumping, depending on your mood. Regardless of how you feel, though, the background environments your eyes will glaze over when you’re focused on incoming monsters are beautiful. They all have a genuine sense of style that’s technically cartoony but still kind of grounded. UNBEATABLE’s audio and visuals aren’t unique in the strictest sense of the word. They are, however, the highlight of a title that would otherwise be unremarkable.

The question is if those two aspects alone make UNBEATABLE worth buying. And the answer is yes, as long as you’re mildly interested in the genre as a whole. UNBEATABLE won’t make you love rhythm games if you hate them, and it won’t make you love them even more if you already spend hundreds of hours playing osu! or Beat Saber. The title’s story mode occasionally has interesting moments, but for the most part doesn’t make sense. It’s enjoyable enough in short bursts, but not something that redefines the genre or industry. UNBEATABLE’s free play mode, on the other hand, is genuinely fantastic. The gameplay works well for what it is, and has more than enough soundtracks to keep you playing for dozens of hours. UNBEATABLE is a great example of a developer’s passion project that thankfully panned out because they paid attention to what really matters: the music.