Mixtape Review

Every day, the definition of video games is being stretched, yet there is a limit to how far things can go before the result is just alienating and frustrating. Sayonara Wild Hearts went too far in a few places by neglecting the gameplay aspect entirely, presenting itself as an audio/visual experience while emphasising a surrealist interpretation of a simplistic story. However, it still kind of resembled a runner/rhythm game from most angles. Mixtape is a game that operates in a similar arena and challenges the traditional understanding of video games by presenting itself as a “playable album” in the style of some kind of “coming of age” adventure game.

Stacey Rockford, Slater, and Cassandra Morino face the end of high school in the year 1999. The main plot centres on Stacy’s plan to travel to New York City to deliver a tape to a producer, demonstrating her worthiness as a music coordinator. This plan is not only incredibly risky and costly, but also flimsy. Furthermore, Stacy appears to be self-serving and unreliable. Her only interest seems to be curating music, and apart from her extensive knowledge of trivia, she has no other interests and never comes off as a real person. Her imminent departure forces the trio to confront the reality that their carefree days together are ending. What was once a planned cross-country road trip has been replaced by one final night of adventure before Stacey boards a morning flight. The story unfolds as Stacey curates the perfect mixtape for their last evening together. As each song plays, it triggers vivid, dreamlike yet fanciful reenactments of their shared memories.

Mixtape goes through a series of what can be best described as minigames: skateboarding through town, exploring an abandoned dinosaur-themed amusement park, sneaking out, throwing rocks at ponds, causing mischief, and navigating a cliched interpretation of teenage life in the 90s. It’s a nostalgic trip for things that never happened, and as someone who actually grew up in the 90s, these scenes are more inspired by movies than anything that happened in real life. For the most part, sequences are long-winded and have little to say despite characters droning on about things that ultimately don’t matter at all.

The game bills itself as inspired by John Hughes’ films, but comes off more like Richard Linklater than anything else. As the night progresses toward the penultimate party, chases, and heartfelt conversations, the friends grapple with change, loyalty, first loves, and the bittersweet knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again, wrapped in a ponderous and inauthentic package.

Mixtape leans heavily into being a “story-driven” experience, much like Sayonara Wild Hearts. Both games rely heavily on their soundtracks, but while Sayonara Wild Hearts has an interpretive and abstract story, Mixtape features a straightforward and meandering narrative that relies on famous licensed music. Stacy’s choices are somewhat eclectic or are tracks a much older person would have chosen. There are no grunge or heavy metal tracks in the game; it features more post-punk and new wave than anything else. Stacey’s tastes resemble those of John Cusack’s pretentious character from High Fidelity, showing off rather than reflecting the genuine understanding of a 90s California teen. It’s a playlist that prioritises indie-cred over songs that would realistically dominate a suburban teen mixtape of the era.

If the music doesn’t resonate with the player, then there is no hope that the gameplay will either. The term “gameplay” is being used loosely because, unlike most cinematic adventure games, Mixtape features very little of it. Life Is Strange seems almost arcade-like compared to the utter shallowness of Mixtape‘s gameplay. In most cinematic story-driven adventure games, there’s usually some element of a driving mystery. Sometimes there are puzzles to solve, or the players’ actions lead to consequences that make it feel like they’re shaping the scene in some way. This is not the case for Mixtape. There are no mysteries, no puzzles, and most of the minigames are automated with no fail states. The most complex it gets is that the game may demand the player to move Stacy around a room or walk through a narrow corridor.

The few minigames on offer usually make use of real-time physics for some amusing shenanigans. Mixtape is very railroaded and guided…going so far as to have a few scenes set on an actual railroad too! To make matters worse, the game feels awful to play. The animation is going for that choppy look that was so popular in the Spider-Verse films, which is not only thematically inappropriate and anachronistic, but makes the already slow and delayed controls feel worse. Everything is running 60fps, and moving Stacy around with deliberately choppy animation doesn’t look or feel artistic. It just makes the game feel like it’s having problems. This was a problem with South of Midnight, but that game at least had the courtesy to offer an option to disable it.

There is no replay value in Mixtape unless you really like the soundtrack. Don’t expect a branching story or alternate outcomes for scenes. There is no rating for performances in any of the minigames. Much of the gameplay is optional, raising the question of whether Mixtape should have been an animated film. As a movie, it still wouldn’t be very good because the story is inconsequential and underwritten with no stakes. The biggest moment of the story is when Stacy’s friends tell her how crappy she is (deserved) and when Cassandra dishonours her father (undeserved). It can be beaten in about three to four hours, but the pacing is so languid and dull that it feels like eight.