I have no rhythm, absolutely none but I still try to play rhythm games because the soundtrack is usually awesome and this week’s game is no different. This week’s game is an RPG mixed with some rhythm elements, this week is Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson.

Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson is an adventure RPG from Ritual Studios and published by Playdigious Originals. The game has a release date of 2024.

You take the role of a man from a forest village with the dream of duking it out in the legendary Battle of the Bands. To be a part of the show you have to be invited and to be invited you have to beat down on some important guy. It looks like this Battle of the Bands is much more than meets the eye.

Fretless is an RPG at heart. You are walking around collecting stuff, talking to people, getting the story straight, and learning about music. It also has mechanics where you can equip pedals which give you passive stats and upgrade stations are available to add stuff to your guitar for now buffs. Music is the lifeblood of this universe, it is everywhere. Frogs crossing to be a beat, ancient stone speakers, you literally fight with music.

Combat is pretty easy to understand. Walk into enemies, fun little animation puts you right into the fight. In typical RPG fashion you are placed on the left and the enemy on the right. You have a variety of attacks to perform, dealing damage, generating shields, and am ultimate ability. You can choose up to three abilities to perform and when you have acquired enough points by performing specific moves you can participate in a rhythm-based game, that when you do well, will deal more damage kind of like in Hi-Fi Rush.

After each attack is performed they are replaced to mix the combat up, which makes combat more random.

Pixel graphics AGAIN and it still impresses me how developers can make pixel animations even better. I am engrossed in the way that Fretless looks. The design of the enemies is phenomenal and the environments alone are outstanding. Fretless is a very nice-looking game.

Fretless so far, from the twenty-minute demo that I played, is a pretty decent video game. The gameplay is fun. The enemy types offered are a great insight into what kind of enemies we will be seeing later on. The ultimate ability is super fun to watch and participate in.

The game looks great and I had a lot of fun.