Give Me Music Or Give Me Death!
HIGH Vibrant atmosphere with expert storytelling.
LOW Unbalanced, grindy combat.
WTF People flying by spinning in place.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com!
In some places, music is more than just the rhythm of sound. On Saturn, music is the source of electricity and life for its highly cyber world. In this sci-fi setting, Bobo is an imprisoned sinner not because she’s committed crimes, but because she has an ability that most do not — she can sing. After an escape from confinement and a decision to rebel against the system in earnest, she’ll uncover the truth about Saturn’s music and a secret artifact known as the Keylocker that will set their world free.
Keylocker is a turn-based tactics RPG where players control Bobo as she leads a rebellion against the corrupt Emperor of Saturn who’s outlawed music in order to control electricity. Players will fight against members of the Saturn church while gathering equipment and resources to ultimately take on the Emperor himself.
Just a glance will show that Keylocker is gorgeous. The pixel art is both beautiful and decrepit, highlighting both the neon-soaked city and the slimy dregs that Bobo pulls themselves up from. The characters are also great, each with a unique portrait and style, from the hacker wearing a computer version of Greek drama masks, to the gas mask girl with a keyboard guitar. These faces are in stark contrast to most of the enemies who are shown in muted colors, all feeling very uniform.
For most of the campaign, players will follow cyborgs Bobo and Dealer. They seem a bit one-note to start with Bobo being rebellious and wild, while Dealer is aloof and self-centered. However, they quickly evolve from tropes into much more. Dealer soon shows a softer and caring side, while Bobo learns self sacrifice and the value of the greater good. This growth also applies to the enemies as well, as their initial notes of infighting during story scenes are revealed to be varying motives that reveal themselves as players progress.
Combat has players managing both EP (electric points – the equivalent of mana) and LP (life points). Once the LP of a character drops to zero, they are out of the fight. EP is used for everything during a skirmish, like charging up a shield for allies, providing armor, or powering up moves that attack enemies directly. The developers lean heavily into timing-based fights similar to something like the Mario and Luigi series. Selecting an action will trigger a prompt, and if the player hits the action command perfectly, they’ll receive a bonus to the action like more damage on a hit, or completely dodging enemy attacks.
It seems fine on the surface, but the problem with Keylocker‘s combat is how frequent and unbelievably brutal it is. As players finish each enemy, a danger meter will fill. When it’s maxed out, more enemies will spawn in. This can lead to some encounters having waves of enemies instead of just a single group. And as I mentioned just a moment ago, timing is key to every action. If a player attacks and misses the mark, the damage they deal is significantly reduced, or they might even take damage themselves in the process. And that’s just for attacking. If players miss a single button on defense, that could mean a character death, even if they’re at full health — And this is on the normal difficulty!
The other problem is how grind-focused the campaign is. Players need to fight to level up, but this timing-based fighting is just too dangerous, and players with imperfect rhythm might find the early parts basically impossible to crack. On the other hand, someone who can nail the timing consistently could probably walk through most of the content with nothing to worry about.
I want to like Keylocker more. The world is beautiful, the atmosphere of cyber-Saturn is great, and I have found parts of the story to be genuinely moving. However, those things just aren’t enough to make up for its grindy, repetitive and punishing combat, and ultimately, this is a hard one to recommend to anyone besides the most hardcore RPG players.
For me: Keylocker gets 6.5 sad guitar plucks out of 10.
Disclosures: This game is developed by Moonana and published by Serenity Forge. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBS/X. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Steam. Approximately 10 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was not completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E10+ and contains Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, and Mild Language. Characters will be seen coughing up pink blood when they are close to death, and the portrait screens for the characters will become bloody and beat up. Players will be using everything from musical instruments to firearms to attack robots, cyborgs, and animals. There is some cursing (d***, b******, etc), but not the major curses (f*** or s*** for example).
Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles can not be altered and/or resized. All of the audio cues required for gameplay also come with visual cues. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable controls: Controls are completely remappable.
While Sonic and Street Fighter were great places to start, his first love was Final Fantasy X when his dad bought a PS2. Ever since, that love for gaming has evolved -- there are a number of game worlds out there, and he intends to explore them all. RPG to horror, platformers to casual and everything in between -- if it’s available, he’ll play it.
While his time is short between writing reviews, tabletop gaming, and attempting to start a cheesecake business, he has caught all 806 pokemon and can speedrun Star Fox 64 in less than 40 minutes. He’s always looking for new things to try and new challenges to conquer. You can find him on Twitter -- @eugene_sax.
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