It’s been over a month since I finished everything there was to do in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, and yet I still found myself craving more. I had my qualms with what direction the story took in the final act, but the combat had me hooked and never let go. The satisfaction of mastering parry timing and crafting the perfect build with the Pictos and Luminas was more than enough motivation to finish the story and take down every optional challenge the world had to throw at me.
While I could go back and mess with the difficulty modifiers for a new challenge, I instead found a hidden gem of an RPG that scratches that same itch for tactical but reactive combat, but with a few unique twists that have more than filled that void.
Tune up
Fretless – Wrath of Riffson was about as far off my radar as possible until this week. I decided to give it a shot one morning based on nothing more than the pixel art and description as a turn-based RPG themed around music. In my mind, I imagined a neat little adventure with a simple combat system that incorporated Guitar Hero-style gameplay for special moves or something of that nature I would play for an hour or so and then move on. While those button sequences do show up, it was the deceptively deep combat and build crafting that drew stronger comparisons to Expedition 33 and kept me hooked for the entire weekend.
The setup for Fretless is refreshingly lighthearted and charming. The visual style of the game is lovingly crafted and with big, expressive animations. Nothing in this world feels static as I explore, and as a sucker for puns, names like Drop D pier and renaming status effects as status FX hit me just right.
That musical theming is incorporated into every element of the game, most notably combat. Timing button hits to either reduce damage from enemies or buff your own will be familiar to any Expedition 33 player, or others like me who go all the way back to Super Mario RPG‘s action commands, but having musical cues to lean on means I didn’t have to eat damage the first couple times I saw an attack to learn the timing. I could instead stay on beat and predict the right moment to react.
Action commands are just one note in the riff that is Fretless’s combat. At the start, I am able to choose three riffs to use on my turn, which represent all my actions, such as attacks, defends, buffs, etc. These act more like cards from a deckbuilder than traditional RPG skills. For example, I can only choose between a handful of riffs per turn, not my entire slate, and there may be duplicates or ones I don’t want. After using three, the others stay and three new ones are added. This, combined with the ability to see exactly what the enemy intends to do on their next turn, adds a strategic layer I don’t typically see in RPGs where I have to think about what riffs I want to use now and which I want to save for later.
Once I got new riffs, the deckbuilding influence became apparent. I am able to remove and add riffs up to a set amount, plus invest materials to upgrade specific ones. I can already see the deep potential for crafting busted builds from this system alone, but there’s even more to tinker with. Each main instrument (your weapon) has special attributes and various components like strings and fret boards to swap out for even more modifiers.
Early on, I invested in a shield-based build where I stacked myself with riffs that built shields (sometimes while also dealing damage) and a card that paid out all the shields I built up as damage. I still had to play tactically to keep enough shield-granting riffs in my lineup while cycling other riffs out until I could make the perfect turn, but once it clicked, I felt that same itch to find my next combat encounter as Expedition 33.
There’s no somber introduction, complex and conflicted cast of characters (from what I’ve seen, anyway), or grand mystery to solve in Fretless – Wrath of Riffson. If that’s what you connected to most with Expedition 33, then this isn’t going to be to your taste. But, if you’re down for a jolly, feel-good story full of hope and stick-it-to-the-man energy with a rock solid combat system, you owe it to yourself to give Fretless – Wrath of Riffson a spin.
Fretless – Wrath of Riffson is available now on Steam.
