Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical review – Write your own song

Greek mythology has managed to last through the centuries due to the larger-than-life personas that have been attributed to the characters and the exploration of those characters. Whether it be the brutality of God of War or the heartfelt ballads of Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, these characters still serve as tropes to explore and defy, with developer Summerfall Studios ensuring it’s done both in spades.

As someone who grew up in staged shows and even went to college for musical theater, I was incredibly excited to play Stray Gods and see my two favorite mediums combined. I wasn’t let down, as there were some moments truly worthy of the musical designation, leaving me pumping my fist in the air or feeling my heart break as new information was revealed.

While the voice-acting and visuals are incredible, there were also parts of Stray Gods that let me down in that I felt there were many opportunities within this idea. What’s there is enough for fans of either Greek mythology or musicals, but it doesn’t seem like an expert in either topic, with the title sometimes feeling like it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be.

A tale in three acts

Players will start as the lead singer in a band, Grace, lost and alone after years of feeling like she was drifting with no real progress in life. This is until a strange woman named Calliope visited her late one night. After she dies in Grace’s arms, she’s forced to inherit the Eidolon, the thing that gives Greek Gods their powers and is passed from host to host, depending on who’s closest to the deceased god, or Idol, as they prefer.

Immediately, Grace is thrust into the spotlight as she’s accused of being responsible for the death of Calliope, kicking off a murder mystery that could decide her fate. It’s a great premise that gets players into the action quickly, using different traits of Grace that you can pick like being Kickass, Charismatic, or Intelligent. They’re pretty simple, but they do offer different tones in dialogue and song choices.

Most of the story involves the player character and one of three companions, traveling to different homes of Idols and either helping or ignoring them. The answer to getting their help always felt pretty easy to understand, to the point where I think I got a good ending just by being nice to everyone and trying to use my powers for good.

The different Idols, the ones that remained after centuries of conflict, are all genuinely unique and it was a lot of fun exploring their different personalities, singing styles, lore, and more. There are countless nods to stories from Greek mythology, some that are more common and others that will likely take a few Google searches to understand, but I never felt like I was missing out on something either way.

Like in any good musical, each character has their own motivations and they’re strong, showing the most personality when the player encourages them into singing. These songs vary in how good they are, with one or two feeling like an excuse to dump exposition as opposed to some of the stronger entries like Grace’s rap attack on Persephone early in the game.

A voice among the Chorus

Players who are interested in Stray Gods should know that it is more of an interactive musical movie above all else, with there being very few mechanics outside of scrolling dialogue options or item searches. The player will have choices like encouraging someone or telling them your opinion, but there’s no real moving outside of using an overview map that shows the city, something that was frustrating to use.

While only one or two of the songs weren’t necessarily something I’d like to listen to again, there were a lot of strong moments as well. That being said, it often felt like the ability to choose how the song continued provided mixed results, with some additions flowing way better than others. What really attracted me early in the game was the ability to change the direction of the song, they’re just not all weighted evenly.

Something else with the audio that was unfortunate was the fact that the sound mixing felt like it was extremely off, with some characters speaking in a relaxed tone and others, Freddie, sounding like they were yelling at me every time they talk. While she’s definitely an excitable character, the stark difference between them often had me adjusting my volume.

Visually, it’s very pretty, even if the animations were starting to slip behind the dialogue and lyrics later in the game. You can kind of see where the game has holes though, such as anytime that two character models get close to each other, there is a bright light transition that I was able to call out as I began to near the end of Act III.

Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website!