As someone who adores all things theater and all things Hellenic, this game was certainly an experience; but I can't say for certain that it was a particularly good one.

The Good:

Stray Gods really shines in two distinct ways: its worldbuilding and its voice acting. I don't think it's especially controversial to say that Stray Gods has one of the more interesting interpretations of "Gods in the modern world," and the game really excels at expositing this to you, especially through its amazing cast of voice actors. The voice cast, with few exceptions, is phenomenal, and really serve to bring you into the moment.

The Bad:

The cast, however, truly is an array of voice actors first, and singers second it feels like. Some performances are downright atrocious, and sometimes it feels like they only did one take and left it in. So many flat notes here and there, and it makes the experience come off less like diagetic unprofessionalism and more like a directing error or singer inability. Furthermore, the songwriting is just not very good. Only a few of them really stick out as "good" to me, and many stick out as downright unlistenable, and this is mostly down to how they were written and how the sound was mixed. The game tries so hard to lean on polyphony, but fails to execute it in spectacular fashion, leading to jumbled verses and muddied harmonies. For a game which focuses so much on music, it was easily the weakest part of the experience.

Further driving this game back are some gnarly performance issues. My computer is halfway decent; it can run Elden Ring at a pretty stable framerate and I don't usually have any issues with indie titles like this. Stray Gods, however, absolutely killed my PC sometimes. The game would lag heavily when any new object was rendered, and any more than a couple particle effects at a time would stop everything for multiple seconds. This game is terribly optimized, and it shows.

Conclusion:

All in all, I would give this game a solid 5/10. The storytelling is pretty great, and the voice cast can be very good at times, but that doesn't offset the mediocre-to-bad song arrangement and performance issues. I don't necessarily regret purchasing this, but if you are to do so, I'd recommend doing so during a sale or skipping it altogether.

As someone who adores all things theater and all things Hellenic, this game was certainly an experience; but I can't say for certain that it was a particularly good one. The Good: Stray Gods really shines in two distinct ways: its worldbuilding and its voice acting. I don't think it's especially controversial to say that Stray Gods has one of the more interesting interpretations of "Gods in the modern world," and the game really excels at expositing this to you, especially through its amazing cast of voice actors. The voice cast, with few exceptions, is phenomenal, and really serve to bring you into the moment. The Bad: The cast, however, truly is an array of voice actors first, and singers second it feels like. Some performances are downright atrocious, and sometimes it feels like they only did one take and left it in. So many flat notes here and there, and it makes the experience come off less like diagetic unprofessionalism and more like a directing error or singer inability. Furthermore, the songwriting is just not very good. Only a few of them really stick out as "good" to me, and many stick out as downright unlistenable, and this is mostly down to how they were written and how the sound was mixed. The game tries so hard to lean on polyphony, but fails to execute it in spectacular fashion, leading to jumbled verses and muddied harmonies. For a game which focuses so much on music, it was easily the weakest part of the experience. Further driving this game back are some gnarly performance issues. My computer is halfway decent; it can run Elden Ring at a pretty stable framerate and I don't usually have any issues with indie titles like this. Stray Gods, however, absolutely killed my PC sometimes. The game would lag heavily when any new object was rendered, and any more than a couple particle effects at a time would stop everything for multiple seconds. This game is terribly optimized, and it shows. Conclusion: All in all, I would give this game a solid 5/10. The storytelling is pretty great, and the voice cast can be very good at times, but that doesn't offset the mediocre-to-bad song arrangement and performance issues. I don't necessarily regret purchasing this, but if you are to do so, I'd recommend doing so during a sale or skipping it altogether.