Everyone loves a good overthrowing. Now what if I told you you could not only do so with your singing voice, but in a turn-based RPG combat system not unlike my favourite ‘Mario & Luigi’ games! Here’s ‘Keylocker’ a Cyberpunk music-themed turn-based roleplaying game by developer Moonana and publisher Serenity Forge.
Keylocker takes the turn-based combat system, where the power of your swing is determined by your ability to time the action button to the right frame for maximum damage, and expands on it with a multitude of classes and weapons the player can choose from. Mix in a crazy world of future post-apocalyptic, dystopian craziness with an eccentric but serious script and you get yourself an ambitious and enjoyable action RPG.
Hope you got your tickets, it’s time to rock.
Crushing the Order
In Keylocker, players will take on the role of Bobo (B0B0, b0b0, et al), an energetic young lady with a penchant for destruction. Being a doppelganger and knowing only a life of struggle under an oppressive leadership that dictates everyone’s every move, she longs for the freedom to do what she wants. Freedom for everyone. And more importantly, to be able to freely sing and express herself. Music is illegal as it generates electricity and electricity is, not surprisingly, an incredibly important resource for a cyberpunk world. One prison break and a few incidents later, Bobo finds herself turning the world (and her’s) upside down.
A key point in taking down the order is understanding Keylocker’s combat system. Players are placed on a grid where actions are taken by whoever’s lined up first on the top right side of the screen. When you attack, you need to time it to the exact frame the game is looking for for a perfect hit—fail to do this and you’ll only do a tiny amount of damage, not get associated boosts with your attack, and even outright miss. The same goes for defending yourself against bad guys. Enemies will attack and you’ll have to match either the musical notes (think a very simple rhythm game) or time a button press to the same “white flash” your playable characters exhibit upon attacking.
The grid system is an interesting one. You can’t just swing a heavy attack at someone if they’re on the other side of the map. You’ll need to plan out your movements so that you can avoid attacks from enemies but also even special buffs and debuffs allies can apply to tiles. Attacking isn’t the only strength you have, however, as you can also have moves to counter incoming enemy swipes and potentially do even more damage. A satisfying screen cleaner is when a counter-ready teammate follows up with a successful attack of yours. Sometimes timing these attacks gets a little tricky, however, as some enemies hide their key frames well—same goes for some of your attacks. Though its easy to restart battles if you make a mess of things, I do wish these key frames were easier to catch. The game is visually pretty but busy too, and it can be easy to miss out on your attacker’s next move.
Now Bobo and company have the chance to pick their classes and multiclass as well! Keylocker’s level up system works a bit differently in that you need “keys” to level up. You can find keys all over the world map and by defeating groups of enemies. There are no random encounters on the overworld. Well, not the traditional kind, anyway. On the right side of the screen you have a “wanted” meter of sorts that fills up as you wander about. Once it hits a level, flying bots with lights will begin hunting you down. They are ruthless, going as far as to bug if you don’t bolt out of the way even after a successful encounter clear, which could get pretty annoying. It doesn’t help that there’s no “escape” option either, so you have to clear enemies out lest you reload a save.
Worth mentioning at least once, I did have two moments where the game’s combat logic froze up, forcing me to reload a save. One of those moments took me back 20 minutes and I was kinda miffed. Save often, the game lets you do so anywhere!
Hit That Beat!
But besides those, Keylocker does its best to keep gameplay fresh by introducing new ideas, unique encounters with plenty of its surrealist-style of dialogue, and minigames. They all echo the game’s cyberpunk-theme and the battle for self-pursuit. There’s always something new for you to do and that includes the concerts that Bobo and her band can play during key story moments. You’ll go from fighting to matching rhythms in this simplified ‘DJMax’ minigame with some awesome progressive rock music that can be heard not only in English but “Saturnian”. I do wish rumble was supported in this mode and I swear, there were times I felt that my inputs were being eaten. Still, I managed good scores on these wickedly-cool songs
Going back to self-pursuit for a minute, as an RPG, Keylocker’s got a lot of dialogue. Some of it is easily repeatable if you’re not careful! Bobo, her brother Dealer, and everyone else she calls family from the little Scrapyard she called home has a lot of things to talk about and listening to their struggles of keeping themselves secure or even others they consider friends slash family is heartwarming to listen to. They just have tendency to go a little overboard describing their situations.
On the bright side, we’re served to some seriously beautiful animated visuals during these moments. Keylocker has a lot of attention to detail, not just in its overworld and sprites but even down to the many portraits the game has for all these NPCs. And exploring the overworld is fun if not only to find a bunch of secrets and amusing tidbits of dialogue. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have a map and at some points, when you need to look for a particular trigger to advance the story, you’ll end up trekking the whole map. And the maps do get bigger and more dense as you advance.
For what it’s worth, I do appreciate the varied landscapes. Deserts, cities, creepy forests. I love the sense of scale as you go further up to find the truth (and Bobo’s truths). Keylocker’s narrative is surprisingly deep and the game, despite bemusing’s you’ll find in other surrealist games these days, does a great job balancing out its serious moments with its silliness. But I’ll also be the first to admit that, at times, I had no idea what was going on. All I could do was follow the music and fun gameplay to keep chugging along.
Keylocker is a fun, beautiful turn-based RPG that does a great job of meshing not only a fun combat system but a sleuth of other minigames to keep its journey fresh. If you like rhythm games and an extensive timing-based combat system, look no further than this one. ∎
Keylocker
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Keylocker is a beautiful game with a lot of attention to detail.
- Fun turn-based combat system.
- Interesting story amidst its surreal, eccentric cast of characters.
- Keylocker does lots to change up the game dynamics.
CONS
- Lots of visual clutter can make it difficult to gauge attacks.
- No map! Signposting to the next narrative beat could be a little clearer.
- Minor bugs here and there.
