REVIEW: ‘Fresh Tracks’ Brings Fresh Tunes And A Fresher Story

Few genres require a mastery of skill like roguelites and rhythm games. Fresh Tracks, by Buffalo Buffalo, decided to combine the two into an epic. But there are challenges with creating a game that doesn’t end with the music getting annoying, with the required repetitiveness to conquer an ever-resetting game. Have no fear, Fresh Tracks pulls off this hat trick with excellent music and an even better story.

Fresh Tracks puts you in the skis of Skaii, a human of the fable land of Norwyn. Norwyn’s people have become stagnant. They don’t adventure. They stay in their homes and only repeat past stories for entertainment. They’ve lost what made the Norwyn people who they were in the before time, the time of Mythics, encouraging their people to discover new story-songs and instill emotions. Mar, the Mythic of Terror, was the cause of this stagnation, and Skaii has taken it upon themself to defeat Mar and return glory and progress to the freezing lands of Norwyn.

What makes the story of Fresh Tracks so endearing is how it’s told. Skaii doesn’t say a word. Their only input is from their actions and eventual recruiting of the Mythics. It’s the Mythics themselves that tell the story of Norwyn. Through songs and through talking to each other, you get the full picture of Mar’s meddling. 

The more time you spend with Fresh Track’s Mythics, the more story they unveil.

Through their talks, we learn how the Norwyn people need that inspiration from the Mythics being around to save the people from oppressive darkness. Plus, the songs themselves are so fitting of the world to tell us of these peoples and Mythics’ pasts. All of the songs feel custom-made to be the Norwyn’s story-songs. The lyrics are as enchantingly insightful as they are catchy.

The story is only improved by making the Mythics an equippable item. As you progress through Fresh Tracks, you unlock more Mythics to join you. And prior to each run, you pick the one that will be your partner on that run. Each changes the gameplay, like giving you more health, giving you a free re-do if you fail a level, or changing the difficulty of the boss levels. 

The Mythics’ biggest attributes are the stories they tell. Their song preferences encourage more dialogue lines from them. Sogvar, the second Mythic you unlock, will change the story told in the first boss level, or give you more insight into a certain character if you pick the same song again as you did during your first runs with Koda.  Each Mythic is excellently voiced and makes the journey to reach Mar feel like a Scandinavian epic.

Every run feels unique, with how many variables go into them.

Each run starts very similarly. You are skiing down an open hill with the shop in front of you (on its own skis). Here, you can pick your skis, which add some small bonuses like additional health, the amount of currency you’ll collect, or even a redo, your Mythic, a weapon, and any Diskords, which are challenge modifiers. These choices are few at first, but grow exponentially as you beat each of the acts.

After you start your run, you quickly approach a choice between two to three songs. Each song clearly tells you if you’ve ever encountered it before, the difficulty, and its boon. Boons can be anything from a bonus of currency, a full heal, or changing your gameplay slightly, like with a greater immunity window after taking damage, or increasing the recharge rate of your weapon’s special ability. 

The boons are all very similar to the equips that come with the Mythic and skis. The song choices and their boons are all different every run, hence the roguelite elements. Some of the boons feel much more useful than others, though. Having more health or more charges of your weapon’s special ability always feel more beneficial to runs as compared to getting an extra jump.

Geniusly, the song difficulty is like the rating system you’d see on the slopes. Green circle for easy, Blue Square for Medium, Black, Double Black, and the super rare Triple Black Diamonds for higher difficulties. The choice is fairly quick, so rapid thinking is required. Better yet, a strategy of what goals (boons for reaching the end versus discovering more new songs) you’re aiming for is key. Once you choose your song, you continue down the slopes, and the beautiful landscape changes. 

True completion requires using every Mythic, and you’ll want to get true completion in the end.

Each song has numerous challenges that require quick responses to survive. They’re pretty simple on their own; it’s the combination of these actions that makes the later levels and more difficult songs way more challenging.

From leaning quickly, ducking, or jumping first to attacking directionally at different obstacles or enemies that pop up, the number of obstacles is surprisingly large. Conversely, the sheer amount of stuff on screen can easily be overwhelming. But it’s all readable. Adapting how you approach rhythm games is key to being able to read everything coming your way. 

And again, the songs are such a highlight. So many of the tracks in this game are quickly going to end up on my workout and general day-to-day playlist the first moment they’re available on streaming platforms. Honestly, at times, the number of songs doesn’t feel enough, even though 28 songs are a lot for a smaller-sized rhythm game like Fresh Tracks. 

While that may be a negative, it’s also not. The runs are short enough that variety and replayability are a huge hook. To truly complete Fresh Tracks, reaching the end isn’t enough. You need to do it with each Mythic, so you must conquer their different difficulty levels. Once I beat the game once with Koda, and was told I needed to do it again to get more out of the ending, my first thought was, “Oh heck yeah. An excuse to play even more!”

Developers Buffalo Buffalo offer something for everyone with diverse music genres.

Yet, there are some elements that at first feel like they carry a little more weight than necessary. Especially the whyspers, a currency you earn during each run that resets when you lose all your hearts. These are spent at shops prior to each boss fight to buy some extra boons. But as you progress, you can choose to skip boss levels you’ve previously beaten with that Mythic. It’s nice to save time. But this also makes the boons feel less necessary.

Inversely, it’d also be nice if some shops were always passed at specific spots, regardless of skipping, like before the final boss, to spend whyspers. But in their current form, as you get better at the game, the whyspers tend to feel like an afterthought in the grand scheme of a run. Especially if the runs up to the fork in the road already gave great bonuses. 

The Ekkos, though, are vital and feel much more elusive. These are used to buy songs to play outside of the journey mode. Additionally, they’re needed to buy new skis and random items at the start of a run. Plus, nothing is too expensive, so a grind is never really necessary to unlock the equipment you want for your next run. 

Be careful, because if you vibe with the different genres of music represented in Fresh Tracks, you’re going to get really hooked. The pop songs sound exactly like the ones you’d hear on the radio today. The metal songs go so hard, which makes playing the game pretty difficult when you want to head bob.

The more musical theatre-like songs are so catchy and are represented on screen excellently by stage performance-like obstacles appearing. And the remaining genres, I really don’t want to spoil. The last one unlocked came out of left field. It wasn’t a genre I liked before, but I love it now. 

Obstacles feel aligned with the beat of each song, sometimes in exciting, unique ways.

The obstacles and levels do a great job of playing to the beat, even in ways you’d not expect. It’s kind of mindblowing how they represent some lyrics as actual actions in a game where your main controls are: lean, jump, change lanes, and slash your weapon. There’s a special level of creativity to making fun rhythm-based levels, but to do that 28 times, each of which feels unique, is extra impressive. 

While the current number of songs feels limiting, the tracks and Mythics create a challenging and encapsulating experience. Fresh Tracks is especially full of tunes that quickly become earworms after one listen. Fun challenges and fantastic narration told through a mix of story-songs and an excellent narration by different Mythics make each run feel unique, leading you to want to do “one more run” over and over again.

Even if roguelites or rhythm games don’t typically grab you, Fresh Tracks expertly mixes both into a form that almost doesn’t feel like either. In other words, Fresh Tracks is such a unique experience and deserves all the recognition coming its way.

Fresh Tracks is available August 26th on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.