HomeReviewsSayonara Wild Hearts
Wot I Think: Sayonara Wild HeartsGet out of my dreams, get onto my cool motorbike
Get out of my dreams, get onto my cool motorbike
Sayonara Wild Heartsis a sort of rhythm action arcade game, and as I played I kept getting flavours of different things. In terms of video games I feltThumper, then (less obviously)Fe, plusSuperHotandPersona 5. Oh, and that mine cart level in the first Harry Potter game.
But Sayonara wild hearts is also the drag race scene in Grease, the “Get in loser, we’re going shopping!” of Mean Girls, almost all of Edgar Wright’s version of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, playing DDR in the arcade at the bowling alley when you’re 13, the chaotic energy of DeeDee from Dexter’s Lab, and the first time you go to a club and it has thosecool lasers. I barely managed to keep a lid on it all.
Her emotional problem can, it turns out, be controlled entirely via WASD or the arrow keys. It takes a bit to figure out exactly how responsive the controls are, since they have a bit of resistance to them, like pulling a rubber band or poking a stress ball. And, importantly, you have to move in time to the music. Sayonara’s excellent soundtrack is a collection of swooping, pulsing pop songs that feel both modern and retro at the same time, and it’s a big part of the game’s appeal. Levels and obstacles swing to the same beat as the music you’re listening to, while lyrics will soar as you come to a particularly cool jump.
Sometimes you are speeding through what looks like San Francisco on a skateboard. Sometimes you’re on a rumbling motorbike, and that motorbike has forward-mounted guns. Sometimes you’re not even on a road at all, and are just falling through a psychedelic, non-Euclidean dreamscape. For one level, and one level only, you have a big ol' classic convertible, which turns like a shoe and does huge slides that swing the back end out. In the hands of a more skilled player, all the collectible hearts in that level could be scooped up with the swings of the car’s arse, and it would be spectacular. But I was not very good at Sayonara Wild Hearts.
Driving through the strings of hearts on screen are, likePac-Man’s lil' tictacs back in the day, the principle way of getting points. And at the end of each level, you get ranked (like in the Olympics), based on how many you got. I was usually ranked bronze, and sometimes silver - which at least means my near 30-year streak of being just adequate at everything remains unbroken.
There are other ways to get points. As well as the hearts, there are also little golden diamond shapes in daring or difficult-to-reach places, which net bigger numbers, larger hearts which also boost you, and rhythm/quick-time button presses that call upon you to mash the spacebar at the right time - the righter the time, the higher the score. Ooh, and when you do a near-miss on an obstacle, you get a few bonus points. Or if you’re doing a section where you have a gun (or in a few levels, a bow), shooting down enemy attacks also gets you extra.
That’s the heart of it, really. I think Sayonara Wild Hearts reminded me of all the cool things I’ve liked over the years, because it’s not saying anything deeper than “Cool things are fucking great, and being cool is great too.” Which is fine. It’s all said in this incredibly alluring wash of pink and blue and purple, this brief flowerbloom of a game, this stylish, inescapably cool thing that references Tarot without, you know, trying too hard about it. It is the older girl with a leather jacket who smokes behind the gym. And, like her, it is intimidating, and will make few concessions to you. You may, perversely, find that you want Sayonara Wild hearts to likeyou.
