Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical is an Australian game that came out in 2024 that I’ve always wanted to play. To finally get around to playing the game years later, it’s been fun, if not a little frustrating.
In Stray Gods, you play as Grace, a young singer who is unexpectedly granted the powers of a Greek mythological muse. In a visual novel ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style game, you have the option of picking between three different traits. Kickass (red) which makes Grace bold, aggressive, outspoken and allows Grace to confront her suspects head on. Clever (blue) is more logical, thoughtful, focusing on reasoning and gathering clues. The third and final option is Charming (green) which allows Grace to be more empathetic, initiative and makes her more of a sweet talker to what people want to hear.
For my first playthrough, I chose the Clever (blue) trait. You do get to pick a second trait later in the game, although, it is a little almost too late. So, if you want the power of choice, make sure your first decision is the one you feel that you will really make use of.
Stray Gods is one of the most unique games I’ve played. It’s a musical, first and foremost. Yes, the characters really do break into song randomly. With Grace as ‘the last muse’ it is a superpower of hers to convince other gods to help her cause through song. Did I mention, this is also a murder mystery visual novel? Grace is accused of murder! And you follow her journey through modern Olympus and the Underworld to prove her innocence.
The controls aren’t difficult to follow. You have a wheel to toggle during songs to pick different parts of songs, or different lines of conversation. However, the final answer is the one that determines what happens next, no matter what colour you choose through a musical number.
The singing in the game, despite being a musical, is a little above average, but it’s intentional. Not everyone that Grace uses her powers on has excellent singing vocals (I’m looking at you, Minotaur). You’d be pleased to know that the voices for speaking are the same for singing! Laura Bailey is fantastic as Grace. You really feel her vulnerability. Other standouts include Janina Gavankar as Grace’s best friend Freddie. You can hear through her affliction that she’s the quirky, nerdy friend that would do anything for Grace. But especially, I adore Troy Baker who plays Apollo, the God of Prophecy and member of the Chorus.
Despite the game being developed by Summerfall Studios, right here in Melbourne, Australia, with songs written by Australian artists Montaigne and musical comedy trio, Tripod. I must say that it was disappointing for the game to not have a single character with an Australian accent. That’s right, despite the game being developed in here, there’s not a single Australian voice actor. Disappointing is an understatement. Another issue is the spelling of the captions, I’ve noticed spelling mistakes and sometimes scenes where some things that should be are out of place in the timeline, or clearly meant for other decisions.
The replay-ability is high, as there’s so many different routes and paths to take. Not just story wise but romance wise there are four different love interests! You can choose between Pan (Khary Payton), Persephone (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn), Apollo (Troy Baker) and Freddie (Janina Gavankar). The animation is basically just different slides, it’s not full animated like trailers suggest, but it’s more like comic book style slides.
I’ve played the game twice now, and I’m playing it a third time to get all the PlayStation trophies, but what’s frustrating is that unlike other visual novels, there’s no fast forward options to get through the dialogue you’ve already played! Overall, Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical is a fun and fascinating game to play once through. Replaying, however? It’s a little tedious and tiresome.
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical that’s available now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Windows.