Sayonara Wild Hearts gamescom Preview

A trip through an interactive pop music video filled with skateboarding, motorcycle chases and balletic street fights with masked but spiffingly dressed gang members, Sayonara Wild Hearts has it all. It’s instantly easy to pick up and be pulled into its bright expressive visuals as you let its music wash over you.

It’s not a rhythm tapping game as such, things begin as a young woman in her bedroom slips into a dream, suddenly falling down with a skateboard in tow, and so suddenly you’re off hurtling down a neon path to a synthy remix of Debussy’s Claire de Lune, as hearts rush past. Naturally, you use the control stick to follow the correct lane to collect the hearts, adding to your score. It’s simple stuff, but how mesmerising these actions are, especially when you collect a bonus white heart that causes your character to perform a trick effortlessly while the camera constantly shifts, changing up your perspective on this sugar pop rush of a rollercoaster.

Things turn up a notch once you transform into a masked hero known as The Fool, surfing on a tarot card down a heart-shaped tunnel as the BPM rises, as wild a trip as Jeff Minter’s Polybius just without any shooting. Indeed, Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s synaesthesia masterpiece Rez would be another comparison here, but Simogo’s work is even simpler, and ultimately more forgiving, happy to let you experience the pop euphoria with next to no penalties. Later stages where you might fall or crash into an obstacle will simply rewind you back a few seconds to try again or you’re free to skip it entirely, though of course you’ll be compelled to play it again if you’re after a higher rank (on my attempts for this demo, I wasn’t able to hit a gold rank at any point).

It’s a demo that builds and builds to more audiovisual delights once the vocals kick in and you’re suddenly locked into a fight against a girl gang calling themselves the Dancing Devils, and after a rhythm-tapping choreographed fight (there is still rhythm tapping, but even it is much more leniently executed), you’re suddenly in pursuit of each one through the tight city streets while also suddenly transforming into Superman in the air partway. It’s dizzying to describe, and at times the camera can catch you off guard if you are following the trail of hearts, but it doesn’t really matter when you’re in the flow of its good times.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is quite unlike anything done by Simogo, previously better known for iOS narrative-based titles like Device 6 and Year Walk. But I have no complaints about Sayonara Wild Hearts when it’s imbued with the spirit of Japanese anime, arcade gems like Out Run and Gradius, or even Persona 5, another game dripping with style and references to tarot cards, stealing hearts, and masked heroes. It’s also another winner from indie publisher Annapurna Interactive who can seemingly do no wrong with eclectic experiences like What Remains of Edith Finch, Telling Lies, Donut County, and many more. As the vocals sing 'begin again' in its refrain, that's exactly what you'll want to do as soon you've finished.