Skip to main content

Goodbye Volcano High’s dinosaur drama is more enticing than its rhythm interludes

Teen dramas are all the rage, but society is running out of ideas. How many ways can you spin the same coming of age story? Developer KO_OP has risen to that challenge with its upcoming narrative rhythm game, Goodbye Volcano High, by daring to make something new: a high school dinosaur simulator.

Goodbye Volcano High - Story, Gameplay & Release Date | PS5 & PS4 Games

Goodbye Volcano High ditches your regular old mammals and instead focuses on teenage dinosaurs on the brink of extinction. Fang, a senior with lofty dreams of becoming a musician, has one year to live out their dreams before a meteor threatens life as they knows it. It’s up to the player to choose how they live their last year of high school, whether its smooching their friends or rocking out.

Recommended Videos

As an absolute fiend for young adult stories, I’m ready to see its story all the way through based on a demo I played at PAX East. It’s a narrative experience that explores growing pains in a unique circumstance that teenage dramas typically steer clear of: the Big Bang. However, limited dialogue options and an iffy rhythm component have me feeling like I’ll have more fun watching than playing it.

Rhythm and blues

Goodbye Volcano High has two main components to its gameplay: decision-making and rhythm game interludes. Any choices you make can impact its ending, according to KO_OP. Later chapters force the player to choose between focusing on Fang’s band, her friends, and other priorities.

Adding a musical element to the game makes sense because of how important Fang’s music is to them. However, Goodbye Volcano High‘s current iteration of the minigame doesn’t quite feel intuitive yet. Many successful rhythm games (or mini-games in existing products) involve pressing buttons at the right times, like in Guitar Hero, simulating beats and rhythms. Most of the satisfaction comes from pressing the keys on beat, to the point that you can listen to the song for the cues without looking at the screen if you’re really locked into the music.

Fang playing bass rhythm game in Goodbye Volcano High
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Unfortunately, the controls didn’t quite come together for me during my hands-on time. Musical segments prompted me to hold the control stick in different directions based on clear visual cues, but I needed to time my inputs slightly ahead of when the prompt would actually appear because of lag (it’s unclear if that was an issue with the way the demo was set up or a timing quirk in the game). Some prompts involved timing control stick inputs and button presses at the same time, which felt like the gameplay version of patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.

If it were a movie

Despite some issues with its controls, the bits of story I saw signaled a promising teen drama. I could believe Goodbye Volcano High would be a Netflix animated series if it weren’t a video game. That’s where I’m left wondering about the final product and how much interactivity makes a difference in the final experience.

KO_OP describes its game as a “playable cartoon” or “interactive movie,” which it pulls off with its fluid, hand-drawn animations and evocative voice acting. Though there was some inconsistency in the acting during my demo, the talent in Goodbye Volcano High adds depth to the characters down to the tone of voice and cadence in their speaking patterns — like the way actual teenagers would talk to each other rather than a rushed voice-over.

Fang, Trish, and Reed playing in Worm Drama band
KO_OP

I’ll give Goodbye Volcano High the benefit of the doubt on its limited dialogue options, as the demo didn’t progress far enough to lean toward a particular ending. I didn’t even get to the realization that the world was ending, only learning that it’s Fang’s last year of high school and they submitted a song for Battle of the Bands that clashed with their band’s original vision. As seen in the trailer, the stakes will eventually rise higher than the lighthearted demo lets on. Though I’m not sure how I’ll feel about it as a video game, that story tease still has me eager to see how it all unfolds. I’m willing to see Fang’s story through to the end (of the world).

Goodbye Volcano High launches on June 15 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

Jess Reyes
Jessica Reyes is a freelance writer who specializes in anime-centric and trending topics. Her work can be found in Looper…
Lost Records: Bloom & Rage proves that narrative adventures can still innovate
Kat in Lost Records Bloom and Rage

At this point, the gameplay formula for narrative adventure games is set in stone. Third-person exploration in confined spaces interspersed between conversations where players have to make impactful, story-shaping choices is the genre norm. Occasionally, a puzzle is thrown in for good measure, but these gameplay segments are often the weakest parts of narrative adventure titles like Life is Strange: Double Exposure. Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, on the other hand, does not have that problem.

In 2014, Don't Nod was the first studio outside of Telltale to show that the narrative adventure genre had legs with the original Life is Strange. Now, many of the developers who worked on the first two Life is Strange games are back with a new game looking to push the genre forward yet again. While many narrative adventure games can feel the same nowadays, the first episode of Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, which is out now, reminded me that there's still plenty of room for innovation in the space.

Read more
NYT Crossword: answers for Tuesday, February 18
New York Times Crossword logo.

The New York Times has plenty of word games on its roster today — with Wordle, Connections, Strands, and the Mini Crossword, there's something for everyone — but the newspaper's standard crossword puzzle still reigns supreme. The daily crossword is full of interesting trivia, helps improve mental flexibility and, of course, gives you some bragging rights if you manage to finish it every day.

While the NYT puzzle might feel like an impossible task some days, solving a crossword is a skill and it takes practice — don't get discouraged if you can't get every single word in a puzzle.

Read more
NYT Connections: hints and answers for Wednesday, February 19
New York Times' Connection puzzle open in the NYT Games app on iOS.

Connections is one of the best puzzle games from the New York Times. The game tasks you with categorizing a pool of 16 words into four secret (for now) groups by figuring out how the words relate to each other. The puzzle resets every night at midnight and each new puzzle has a varying degree of difficulty. Just like Wordle, you can keep track of your winning streak and compare your scores with friends.

Some days are trickier than others — just like other NYT Games favorites The Mini and Strands. If you're having a little trouble solving today's puzzle, check out our Connections tips and tricks guide for some good strategies or check out the hints for today's Connections puzzle below. And if you still can't get it, we'll tell you today's answers at the very end.
How to play Connections

Read more