Street 96, the procedural hitchhiking sport, was a title with an fascinating presentation and a slew of excellent concepts. Developer DigixArt took that nice basis and spun issues off into Street 96: Mile 0, a narrative-focused prequel that strips away the procedural components, changing them with rhythm gameplay.
The world introduced in Street 96 is an fascinating, albeit depressingly prescient one. Dwelling below the thumb of President Tyrak, you play the twin function of greatest mates Zoe, a personality from Street 96, and Kaito, a personality in Misplaced In Concord (additionally from DigixArt) as they fantasise about operating away collectively from the nation of Petria. Coming from wildly totally different upbringings, the chums have a stable bond, and their relationship is much and away the strongest element of the title, although they’ve their share of disagreements.
Gameplay is introduced uniquely, principally functioning like a Telltale sport, morality system and all. You observe the atmosphere and discuss to folks, commonplace stuff. However periodically, the sport interjects some infinite runner rhythm segments. The environmental design on these ranges is inventive, providing some standout visuals, and so they all really feel distinctive whereas making use of some killer licensed music. Nonetheless, it additionally shines a light-weight straight on the most important challenge plaguing the sport: tonal incongruity.
Whereas the musical sequences are introduced as a type of escapism from the rigours of existence for Zoe and Kaito, the script does a poor job of putting a buffer between the enjoyable of those ranges and the extra sobering narrative components all through the remainder of the story. Whereas it is one factor to debate Zoe witnessing a terrorist assault in her youth, it is one other to current it as a enjoyable musical set-piece.
The script itself does not strike a very good steadiness both, typically transitioning from topics equivalent to a rumination on class inequality straight right into a slapstick comedy sketch earlier than interjecting a information bulletin about an impending pure catastrophe. It is, to place it mildly, a large number. And this occurs time and again all through the 4-5 hours required to finish the sport. Whereas pitch-black comedy can work, the writing in Mile 0 is awkward sufficient that it feels unintended quite than intentionally irreverent. What you are left with is a enjoyable rhythm sport surrounded by a plethora of questionable writing selections.