Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians review: a few bad notes keep Beatbuddy from greatness

Usually, when a game claims to incorporate music and gameplay, the collaboration ends up as little more than, "Look! That thing in the background changes color after every fourth beat!" But Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians is different; in Beatbuddy, music is integrated in a way that playing the game without audio would not be impossible, but magnitudes less engrossing. That is because many puzzles and some character movements are affected directly by the music playing.

I was worried about Beatbuddy when I first started the game; not only have I been burned by claims of music and gameplay integration numerous times in the past--and quite recently with Rush Bros.--but Beatbuddy has one of the worst intro (and outro) videos I have ever seen, or, more accurately, heard; both videos feature voice acting that sounds like it is on a record being scratched constantly and it was incredibly annoying, so annoying I almost quit the game before it even started. But then the video ended and the game came to life, showing off some of the most beautiful visuals I've seen all year.

Beatbuddy is a beautiful game, featuring colorful 2D art that would look great hanging on any wall, but its beauty ends up affecting the gameplay in a negative way as it is hard, at times, to tell what is just flat background and what is actually part of the physical environment; many times I looked at an area, wondering where I was supposed to go, only to find out a section I thought was closed off by the environment was open because the flat background looked just like a piece of the actual environment. I really do love the way Beatbuddy looks--and it looks just as good in motion--but it becomes problematic when there isn't more to differentiate what is just there for looks and what is actually a part of the environment.

The game itself, when the visuals aren't getting in the way, is simple and fun as you control Beatbuddy, swimming through a colorful world filled with interesting creatures, solving puzzles that are never too taxing on the brain. The music is not only great for listening, but affects the gameplay as certain enemies and parts of the world need to be hit in correlation with the beat and, when you ride around in the "Bubble Buggy"--a vehicle that adds a little variety and different style of play--boosting with the beat increases the speed of the vehicle and just feels (and sounds) good. Even watching the way various parts of the environment move differently in correlation with different instruments is fun to watch. But as fun as the game is, the puzzles and general gameplay got old fast as the variety dried up about halfway into the game--which was about two hours into the game. Once I realized I wasn't going to see anything new, the game became more of chore than it was before. (All this music has me rhyming uncontrollably.)

Another problem with Beatbuddy is its bugginess, not to be confused with its buddiness. The visuals occasionally twitch and stutter and sometimes parts of the environment you are supposed to be able to interact with don't work as they should, but, most problematic of all is a very specific bug that, hopefully, is very rare or is fixed by the time of this writing. During the fourth chapter of the third level, I was driving in the Bubble Buggy when, without warning, the entire background disappeared. This happened in a section where parts of a cave were breaking, falling down all around me, and I had to make my way through the area without getting crushed; problem was, I couldn't see where I could move and where I couldn't move because everything, other than the falling rocks, was invisible. I managed to make my way through with some luck after about ten minutes of dying over and over again, but it was very annoying and even restarting the game didn't fix the problem.

Beatbuddy is a game I loved playing for the visuals alone, and it was often fun too, but occasional bugs, a lack of variety, and a beauty that gets in the way of its own gameplay keeps Beatbuddy from being a strong recommendation. If you're someone who likes the idea of music mixing with gameplay and don't mind dealing with bugs here and there, check out Beatbuddy because it pulls off the melding of music and gameplay extremely well and I can't say that about a lot of games.

*Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians is available now on Steam for $14.99.

Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians (Steam)