Sayonara Wild Hearts: What Makes It A Great Indie Game?
One great aspect of independent game development studios is that they have the freedom to make games without any creative boundaries. They can also creatively work around the limitations that small teams with limited budgets face. There’s little doubt that these studios have to fend for themselves without getting much help from publishers or outside owners.
No matter what, this genre of video games is booming these days. The budgetary constraints rarely hold developers back from creating games that touch the soul of gamers. One such game is Sayonara Wild Hearts, which has become the topmost game for PSLS 2019. Let’s get to know more about this game here.
What is Sayonara Wild Hearts?
Developed by Simogo and released on September 19, 2019, Sayonara Wild Hearts is a dreamy action-arcade game revolving around riding motorcycles, dance battling, skateboarding, wielding swords, shooting lasers, and breaking hearts at 200 mph. Be careful, because the balance of the universe is perturbed as the heart of a young woman breaks.
Sayonara Wild Hearts takes you on an electrifying ride through a universe of lively pop culture. At the beginning of the game, the narrator (voiced by Queen Latifah) talks about a world run by three powerful mysteries, and a new heroine who has appeared from the piece of a broken heart. She is then seen riding a skateboard across an astral highway, running behind an ethereal butterfly.
When she captures the creature, she changes into a masked superhero. She then embarks on a journey through a purple-and-pink fantasy realm where she pursues biker gangs, rides on a deer through a surreal forest, and traverses a retro-futuristic, virtual-reality world. Everything only gets stranger after this, which is why you should lay your hands on this game to know what happens.
Video Source: Youtube
Development
It took nearly four years for the developers to finish Sayonara Wild Hearts. During the first six months, the team was just involved in experimenting with different prototypes of the game. They tried hard to find out a way to put those myriad influences into a single coherent project.
Initially, the game wasn’t so bright and exciting, as we see today. It started out with a much darker and eerier feeling. Developers brainstormed a plethora of ideas to combine surf rock, taiko drums, and Ethiopian influences. They had to make several iterations to reach a final idea. In fact, one early version of Sayonara Wild Hearts was even completely motion-controlled.
The final version of the game, which was released on PS4, the Nintendo Switch, and Apple Arcade, is a tight, arcade-styled fever dream. The game is almost unyielding when it comes to throwing new surprises at you. One minute you will find Sayonara Wild Hearts to be a side-scrolling shooter, and then, you will see it switch to a rhythm game where bikers fight through dance. You will see massive boss fights and roller coaster-like trips taking you through strange locations. However, it’s all stitched together with a smooth-running, frantic pop music soundtrack.
Going beyond music
However, that pop influence in Sayonara Wild Hearts also goes beyond the music and into the overall layout of the game. Each stage of the game is short and unique. After you complete the game, you can play through the stages in any order you like—something like picking a soundtrack from a CD. The developers followed the same philosophy as a music album; all levels of the game are self-contained components with their own ideas and twists, but they form a larger concept together. At the same time, the developers wanted to avoid repetition of any sort. They didn’t want to incorporate the same ideas at every level to create a distinct feel.
Sayonara Wild Hearts is a rare blend of electrifying music, appealing visuals, and engaging interactivity. It allows you to experience and feel a spectacular concept album in a way that connects you with the music and themes on an emotional level.
On playing Sayonara Wild Hearts, each player is likely to derive their own meaning from the soundtracks, visuals, and gameplay. They will certainly latch onto some elements that resonate with them quite realistically. Just like any great album, people would like to come back to Sayonara Wild Hearts on many occasions. They can either play the full game, challenge themselves on some select music, or even just listen and grove to the tunes on Spotify. It’s surely an experience that’s surreal, memorable, and hearty.
