Today on the blog, we have a MUSICUS! tester’s corner from threepwood007!
Like DEARDROPS and KiraKira before it, MUSICUS! is a musical story from the hands of OVERDRIVE and Milktub.
Unlike DEARDROPS and KiraKira before it, MUSICUS! is probably not what you’re going to be expecting as you fire up the grand finale to the encore of OVERDRIVE as they take their final bow on the stage of visual novels. Unless you were expecting their trademark protagonists with their fondness of soliloquies, or the inclusion of one last school arc.
MUSICUS! does a lot of things that are very satisfying from a storytelling perspective. It’s an engaging game that embraces many of life’s common problems: an estranged, cheating father; the aimless, goalless wandering of youth; some good ‘ole depression; and of course, the exploitation of talent for money. That last one may not be all that common, but MUSICUS! separates itself from its predecessors as a story about music early on and does not look back, except wistfully.
Taking the story of a fledgling band as they pursue stardom would be an easy repeat of their previous plotlines, but MUSICUS! goes after different perspectives. Told from the viewpoint of a protagonist who (at least to this tester) was pretty noticeably different from the average human in their handling of emotions, relationships, etc., MUSICUS! doesn’t necessarily make the literal power of music the forefront of the story. More often, it lingers on the hardships and trials of “making it” or “getting noticed,” and the reader will note that this doesn’t change for most of the story.
Which is okay, of course; it makes for a different experience performing the beta test as the density of the text creates a very misleading forecast of the time required (by lines, MUSICUS! is very short; by “words”… oof). This is mostly due to the classic OVERDRIVE protagonist thought space, but the story is also driven by some pretty heavy conversations that add to the work’s bulk.
Then there is the slew of extra features with the game. The routing itself through the arcs isn’t necessarily intuitive, as the choices of the game center upon your views of music and the industry. Each choice of course relates to a character’s path, but there are secret choices and other paths that only appear in extreme circumstances so keep an eye out and try different things!
But naturally, it’s an OVERDRIVE game powered by Milktub so of course there are concert scenes, right? Well… you’ll have to play and find out. I can say with absolute confidence that the tracklist is a banger, but one song, in particular, had my hairs all on end.
Here’s hoping your experience is as enjoyable!
MUSICUS! is now available for purchase on MangaGamer.com and Steam!
