PENNY MY BELOVED

UNBEATABLE is one of those games where my prevailing thought is "how did this get made"

Affectionate, mind you- it's definitely a game that was made for me, and one that will stick with me for a long long time after. It's more a "this is so far from things like 'safe' or 'profitable' or 'mass-appeal' that the only way it gets made is as a passion project, either as a small independent team pouring their soul into it (which this is) or an established auteur director being given a blank check to do one of their wackier ideas". Which, is like a core idea of the game- the world is hostile to allowing this form of art. Art should be messy, a passion project, words like "safe" and "profitable" shouldn't be in the discussion (Translator's Note: I do wish everyone involved in art a very safe and stable ton-of-money). You shouldn't have to sand down your idea, your you, for mass appeal. unbeatable makes it very clear that some of the best art comes from those imperfections, the reminder that our human complexities and fingerprints are all over our art, not just in the high points, but in the troughs- the jagged edges especially are where the soul shines through. And it's a fine balance- I think specifically recently about how Kojima made Death Stranding 2 weirder after too many people liked it in playtest.

(I have been on-board since very early on, backer no. 245 nearly 5 years ago, and even with all that anticipation I'm very glad it lived up to my personal hype)

I was initially going to joke that it was the "Kingdom Hearts II of rythym games". Some of that tracks. I am fully cognizant of its flaws, but I hold it in my heart as an incredible game. The intro takes a long time before you get into any action, here, an hour or two before you get into any music at all, and then a good while before things open up; but in both games I will defend that slow start, streamlining it to get you to the action faster would be a disservice to the narrative. And lastly on the KH2 comparison- the gameplay is just hitting cross and triangle at different times but god if it isn't slick and satisfying regardless. (a really good wierd but beloved cult classic to call on would be killer7, or honestly 1000x resist with how much walking back and forth and talking to people is the core of story mode, the muse-dashy gameplay is mostly relegated to Arcade Mode)

Over-reliance on comparison is a disservice to UNBEATABLE as a unique work, but carrying that KH2 thread about "giving a blank check to an autuer", the game unbeatable reminds me the most of is The World Ends With You (honestly I'm still pleasantly shocked they let him do two TWEWYs)- a game that's also very stylish, very punk and very philisophical, revolving around a loner doing his best to learn how bonds, even with difficult people, make him a better person, and let him live a better life. unbeatable goes its own direction, but a lot of the core overlaps.

I'll not spoil the exact beats, but unbeatable has a lot to say about creating art in a world that's hostile to it, being true to yourself, processing time, trauma, et. al. I hosted a gaming philosophy panel before and honestly I could write a whole adjacent panel centered on unbeatable and a few adjacent games. I am also someone who thinks a lot about the purpose of lighthouses, and days later I'm still thinking about an early game quote about how the longer a lighthouse lives, the higher the chance that it wasn't enough. as good as art can make us feel, it's tiring, it's draining, and for all the effort we put into it can take so little for that to all fall apart; the support of our friends and fellow artists is so important when nothing exists in a vacuum.

This is also just a superficial aside but the game looks and sounds so good! You can see this from any of the promotional material, so I won't say too much, but all the art is so nice. They really captured the "90s anime VHS" aesthetic they were going for, the dub also has a charming retro feel- affectionate. It reminds me of the Discotek release of Gunbuster, or the PS2 game Robot Alchemic Drive in that it sounds "heartfelt" if not the "standard" you expect. This carries over into the music, which lovingly feels like your favorite local band (and I've definitely downloaded a lot of peak divide since, plus the CD I snagged at MAGFest 2025)- the game jokes that if you rule out "plastic instrument game music" you get rid of a ton of music, I feel that even more pronounced given my past as a Rock Band Network Author, the underground/user-generated store front for the Rock Band games. Getting to work with or near a bunch of cool folks just out of the mainstream was really neat, from the quirky Freezepop, the bluesy Brian Kahanek, Felsen, the poppy Dance for the Dying, friends like Bluefusion or Single White Infidel. The soundtrack of unbeatable reminds me a lot of those times, and of my time around local venues.

My main critique is that sometimes story progression would seem oblique or haphazard. I'm fine with breakneck developments, I'm fine with slow burns, but there were times in story mode where I genuinely wonder if event triggers were bugged because what I was doing, who I was interacting with, and how I was interacting with them could change on a dime. I'm not someone who needs every moment of a story spelled out or parroted back to me, but even in a game that's intentionally a bit "messy" and rough around the edges, there's a certain narrative cohesion I felt it lacked. We don't need to methodically enumerate points A, B, C, D, but there are several times where I felt we jumped from K to Z instantly, or spent a lot of time repeating F over and over again like a record skipping. Which is a lot of words to say some better segues, even brief, would have gone a long way. (There's a lot of ways to go about this, but briefly going back to the TWEWY example, it used brief texts for objectives, coupled with some obvious barricades)

That did not stop me from loving the game.

UNBEATABLE is not a game for everyone, but for the people it resonates with, I imagine you'll hold it very close in your heart.