A Musical Story in the test: short road trip with rhythm in the blood

These weird birds are the mascots on the labels of the canned food that the protagonist Gabriel puts on every day to earn his living.

There are many types of rhythm games. One type focuses on high scores, sometimes in combination with finger contortions or even the rudimentary learning of instruments – Guitar Hero is a typical representative. The musical counter-draft is thriving, especially in the indie genre, The Artful Escape from a few months ago and currently A Musical Story are perfect examples of this. You don’t get points for playing and the music doesn’t consist of well-known hits, but was tailored to the game and its story.

In the case of A Musical Story, the plot revolves around the young man Gabriel, who makes a living putting labels on tin cans in a factory, day in and day out. In his free time, he meets up with two friends for jam sessions when he’s not staring at the television in an obsessed state. One night, the trio decide to perform at the massive Pinewood Festival. Together the hippie bus is loaded and cleaned, and off we go, while Gabriel obviously ends up in the hospital – this is the first scene you see in the game.


Within about two hours you will find out how it came about and what the band experienced on the trip. The narration manages without any disturbing words or vast amounts of text. In clear, colorful images on the one hand (which shine especially on the OLED screen of the new Switch model) and the wonderful soundtrack everything that is important is presented.

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The tracks flow into each other and are based on the blues, prog, funk and psychedelic sound of the 70s, think of Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix. You should have a little bit of heart for this kind of music in order to be able to enjoy the whole package of A Musical Story to the fullest, there are no tracks to sing along or poppy catchy tunes with dull, stomping rhythms.






These weird birds are the mascots on the labels of the canned food that the protagonist Gabriel puts on every day to earn his living.

Source: PC Games




The presentation of the melodies in the gameplay sections is unusual at first. Arranged on a circle are round symbols, anti-clockwise you have to make the corresponding inputs in time. You only need the two shoulder buttons. Depending on the color of the circles, you tap one or the other, sometimes you have to hold the tone.

While the track is running on the circle there is no indication of where you are, you have to hear that for yourself. Before you can lend a hand, a preview of what the result should sound like is played. A good sense of rhythm and the talent to delve into the music helps enormously. Alternatively, you have the option of activating an assistance function that graphically shows where you are at the moment.

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Reference-www.pcgames.de