No spoilers
Feminina:
Continuing to discuss Stray Gods, I found this review of the game that's kind of interesting since the reviewers are musical theater nerds like Butch and speak to some of the same specifically-musical-related issues: https://www.player2.net.au/2023/08/stray-gods-bless-my-soul-grace-is-on-a-role/
It's structured like a conversation, like the blog, and at first I was excited that we might have company in this important niche, but none of their other reviews seem to be that way, so hell with them.
Anyway, I thought their take was interesting, although they don't address the story much whereas we've dived way more into that.
Loothound:
Interesting review. I feel like some of what they're saying overlaps with Butch's critiques of this as a musical. What they're saying makes sense, it's really had to make numbers that snap and have a lot of meaning when you're trying to make them meaningfully interactive.
Man, it's a lot different commenting on games retroactively than as you're playing. I would have liked to hear those reviewers immediate impressions on some of the game elements. Still, another perspective is always nice.
Butch:
Hmm.
I think they're being a little harsh on it, but OK. I think their point about there not really being an earworm (though I think Lost Girls comes close) is what I was talking about with there not really being a traditional opening number or act closer (or finale, in a traditional Broadway sense. The trial was still, really, mostly, a duet). I've been going over shows in my head and asking myself "What song pops into your mind?" and all of them are songs that were missing from Stray Gods: Opening numbers, act closers, or comic/character songs. Somewhere from West Side Story (act 1 and 2 closer), Defying gravity (act 1 closer), Priest (act 1 closer), Get me to the Church on Time (comic), I'm still here (non lead character solo), Hakuna Matata (off character comic), etc.
Plot moving duets are never earworms. Who the hell remembers any duet between Elsa and Anna in Frozen (who hasn't seen it a million times), when there are several to move the plot? We remember Let it Go (which is an act closer, if you stage it) and Summer (an off character comic solo).
It's the structure of the beast. No big chorus numbers? No ear worm. No songs for someone else to take the stage and "cut a single" as it were? No ear worm. No real SOLO. I suppose we could've had Grace belt out her own single a la Elsa's Let it Go, but letting her solo would make the whole RPG thing kinda irrelevant. No gameplay. Nothing to influence or react to.
Something to watch if there's ever another musical game.
Loothound:
Not knowing theatre the way Butch does, I can't really compare quite as fully. I will say that despite being broken into acts and having musical numbers, this game didn't FEEL like a musical. That lack of traditional musical structure would really explain why.
Butch:
It did not feel like a musical, no. It wanted to. It was more a game with songs. Which is fine, that's great.
Hopefully, there will be more such musicals, and they will be more like musicals, and I will play them. Hopefully, Stray Gods will be remembered as a pioneer, if not a masterpiece, and that's OK.
Loothound:
I think the game definitely showed that the idea has potential. Maybe if the numbers were a consequence of the action rather than the vehicle of the action it would be tighter? If the songs were set and could be choreographed without having to build in that flexibility it would be easier to hit the lyrical and performative standard that you and the Australian folks from that other site mentioned.
You could have the structure of the musical, like you keep bringing up, but with the specific contents of the wish song, love song, act break, finale, etc. determined by the events leading up to them. You'd have that choice based variety with sharper musical aspects.
Feminina:
I'll play it. This was not a perfect gaming experience, whatever that would be, but it was a lot of fun.
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