Fresh Tracks Review

Fresh Tracks is a rhythm roguelike ski-’em-up developed and published by Buffalo Buffalo. Although I’m not the greatest rhythm gamer in the world (I literally can’t play Guitar Hero on difficulty higher than Medium), I still enjoy moving to the beat and listening to great tracks, and this game seemed like fun. So, will Fresh Tracks make me sing its praises, or will I need to send it to the deepest, coldest level of my Steam library?

Welcome to the snow-covered lands of Norwyn, where everything kind of blows right now. The pantheon of Mythic Gods that protected the land has been splintered, and now Mar, the Queen of Terror, is in charge and making life a lot harder for its residents. You are Skaii, a Champion of Mythics and armed with a pair of skis and a sword, you’re now on a quest to reassemble the Mythics and defeat Mar to restore Norwyn to a place where one can freely sing their story-songs.

I enjoyed the narrative presented here. Each song has a backstory behind it and a deeper meaning within the lyrics that I wish I could focus on if I weren’t trying to dodge rocks and trees on the beat. Special mention goes to the gods that will help you on your journey: The Mythics.

Each Mythic is voiced by some serious talent, such as Peter Stormare (Fargo, Until Dawn, American Gods, Constantine) and Michael Antonakos (Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Gotham Knights). They have their own perspectives on the story with their colourful narration, unique abilities that will help you on your runs, and their own song preferences. If you want to play more Inspiring songs and easier boss tracks, you’ll choose Koda, the Goddess of Pop. If you want to focus on Heroic music and a little extra health, you’ll choose Sogvar, the God of Metal.

I enjoyed the Mythics and what they added in with each song, telling different tales about the significant figures or offering a new perspective. They do repeat dialogue after a bit, but I still kept their voices on; they added to the music rather than taking away from it.

But enough about that, let’s get our skis and sword and start the adventure. To beat the game, all you have to do is make it to Mar and take her down, but getting there won’t be easy. The path forward is filled with… different songs that you can choose from based on their difficulty, and the rewards they give you for selecting them. Whyspers is money, Ekkos are the meta currency, and Charms will buff and improve your chances of beating songs.

In the actual track, you’ll need to do a variety of actions to make it to the end. You can change lanes, jump, swing your Rhythmic sword, duck, and lean to the beat of the music. Although it is technically optional, following the Whyspers placed down along the track will be your best chance of surviving whatever the game throws at you, from natural obstacles like rocks and trees to enemies and dragon fire. However, if you find yourself in trouble, you do have a backup ability: your sword. If you perfectly time your attacks, you’ll fill up a special gauge and once full, it can be spent to activate a special ability that changes between each Rhythmic, like granting temporary invincibility.

I really liked the gameplay. The controls are snappy and easy to grasp, but will take a bit to really master. I should point out that the game recommends that you play on a controller, though, so if you don’t have access to one, you might struggle. Honestly, this would work pretty well in VR; it’s almost like Beat Saber in a way.

However, since this is a roguelike, getting hit and making mistakes will cost you HP, and running out will end the run. You get to keep your Ekkos, which are used to purchase new skis and items, but that's it. All your Charms are gone unless you manage to make it back to where you failed and pick them up. That’s right, there’s technically a corpse run in Fresh Tracks. That being said, you can go to the equipment menu to change out your sword, Mythic, skis, or add some more difficulty to your trips with Diskords before you start your run again.

This all doesn’t matter if the music itself is bad, though. Thankfully, I really enjoyed the soundtrack. The songs featured are really good, with a good variety of tracks to ski and slash to, ranging from pop to metal, and electronica to orchestra. There are 28 original songs, and several of them have more difficult variants that can throw you through a loop. But the real trouble comes in the form of the boss level tracks.

The boss songs are difficult, going on for seven minutes or more. To put that into perspective: “Through the Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce is 7:19 while “Stardust” from this game is 7:40. Not the longest song I know in a rhythm game (that goes to Rock Band’s “2112” by Rush, clocking in at 20:27) but it still feels like a marathon, and that’s not counting all the tracks you’ll have to play through to get to that point.

Thankfully, beating the boss will unlock a shortcut for the Mythic you selected if you don't want to spend time replaying routes, although you won't get any compensation for it: no merchant, no free Whyspers, no Charms. If you aren’t taking advantage of shortcuts which, for some reason, didn’t work for me despite repeatedly fulfilling the conditions to unlock them, you’ll be playing for a good while and failing at any point is a heartbreaker.

However, maybe I just need practice to blitz through these tracks. At the Hub, you can go to the Lurk and check out all the songs you’ve previously played and, after spending some Ekkos, freely play them without dealing with that roguelike faff. It won’t progress the story or anything, but it’s a nice way to master songs. And, if you’re really struggling and you have the option turned on, the game will detect what songs you’re struggling on and spawn more health pickups until you beat it.

Now onto performance, and it runs incredibly well with no frame drops or stutters. The load times are barely noticeable, making it like a continuous ski trip all throughout a run. Aside from the aforementioned glitch with shortcuts, I did have a slight issue with accidentally activating my Rhythmic ability while swinging the sword. That might need an option for a double click or something.

I do like Fresh Tracks. The gameplay is snappy and intuitive, the voice acting and lore are great, and each track is a serious bop, but I’m not exactly feeling the roguelike nature of the game. It just makes you play all the same songs over and over again, and eventually you start to get sick of the repeats. Still, those who endure the cold will find a great warmth within this rhythmic winter.