Quality Time: Wandersong (Xbox One)
My experience when I learned about the game Wandersong is not only one common to many gamers, but to the perception of indie titles in general. When I first saw it, Wandersong did catch my interest with its distinct art style and a gameplay gimmick that seemed like it could go creative places, so I made a note to remember it and one day pick it up. I was in no rush to get it, there are a lot of creative and unique indie games in the world all competing for people’s attention, and while Wandersong would surely get its day, it would take it being added to Xbox Game Pass for me to really begin thinking about playing it.
However, even then, I decided to download the game, and if I had the opportunity and time, I told myself I’d pick it up and give it a shot. And so, Wandersong sat patiently in my Xbox One’s hard drive, waiting for its chance to show what it has in store. When the time finally came, I went into Wandersong with the same impressions that drew me to it in the first place, my expectations about on the same level as many indie games that look finely crafted and a bit quirky. While its start is somewhat unassuming as well, soon Wandersong began to suck me in, its true colors exposed as its growing narrative truly became the backbone for something wonderful.
The Quality Time review format is my way of highlighting amazing games, but so far, my picks have been rather safe. If you ask a Kirby fan for the best in the series, you’re likely to be told it’s Kirby Super Star Ultra. Marvel’s Spider-Man is highly regarded as not only one of the best Spider-Man games ever made, but one of the highlight titles of the PlayStation 4 library. And of course, Banjo-Kazooie has become lauded as perhaps the definitive collect-a-thon platformer that members of the genre are often held up against. However, Quality Time could also be a chance to help others find an underappreciated little title, an opportunity to share a game that dazzled me in some way and deserves more love. There are plenty of Fantastic games to talk about at length, and I feel Wandersong is deserving of a highlight so it can find its way into more player’s hearts.
While I won’t dive into every beat of the plot, Wandersong’s tone, messages, and clever ideas can all be discussed pretty easily without dipping into the deep end of its later story elements. The tale Wandersong tells isn’t just defined by the events along the way after all. It’s a deeper examination of things like self-worth, the value of interacting with others, and optimism, even when faced with the end of all things.
THE ADVENTURE
Wandersong looks like a delightful, colorful, and cheery game, and the pop-up book aesthetic makes the game appear like it’s going to be a bubbly adventure about smiles and fun. And yet, in the first few minutes of the game, you are informed by the emissary of the detached and unseen goddess Eya that the universe is about to end. You are given a brief moment of hope as the player character is asked to take up a sword and be the hero who can save it… only for our protagonist to find the blade too heavy to handle. And so, he’s told that the universe is pretty much a lost cause, this is just a natural course of events, and sent off to live his last days however he sees fit.
This is all portrayed as a dream at first, softening the blow somewhat, but this opening can seem like a downer, perhaps even a subversion of the colorful world and even some of the words I’ve said so far about optimism. The game’s marketing doesn’t hide the stakes of this story though or the impending eradication of all things, so unless you go in blind, it won’t truly take you by surprise. However, our protagonist, a simple bard in a small town, wakes up and doesn’t seem to bothered by the unusual dream at first, but his adventure is about to begin.
Seven Overseers are meant to keep watch over the component parts of existence, but the longer a universe lasts, the more things begin to drift apart. People become discordant and conflict with each other, and as the denizens of existence push apart, the universe pushes in, preparing for its demise. The Overseers are the key to overturning the eventual collapse… except despite the cycle of universal death and rebirth going on for so long it can’t be quantified, never has one managed to escape its end. To do so would involve completing the Earthsong, a part of which is known to each Overseer and, if sung together by the peoples of the universe, can prove to Eya that it is not the inevitable fate of this universe and its people to fall apart. Emboldened by this alternate means of being a hero, the bard decides it is his duty to search out the parts of the Earthsong, traveling the world to find the Overseers and learn their lyrics.
However, as mentioned, the Earthsong is useless if the world is too consumed by conflict and distrust to ever be united by the tune, and this is how the game manages to both have such dire stakes but feel so light-hearted and whimsical. While the world of Wandersong is gorgeously colored and presented in an adorably simplified style that evokes paper cut-outs, there is an undercurrent to it all that things really have reached that point of discordance. People have grown apart, clammed up, and seem content to slip into the lives of little effort even if they don’t seem particularly melancholy about it. It is a world that smiles, dances, and even sings, it is one teeming with cute little moments of humor and with characters with enough personality that humor can be derived just from seeing the actions they choose to perform. Wandersong manages to make the inhabitants of its world goofy, inviting, and memorable even though their lot in life isn’t quite as bright as their appearance might imply.
Still, while many don’t stick around long, striking designs, small but memorable interactions, and a heaping helping of character makes the people you meet along your adventure a highlight despite their plight. The pirate crew the bard joins up with all lean pretty hard into a single defining character trait, but put together they make a band of enjoyable friends that it’s a shame to move on from. The band you play with in town becomes known to you as you unite them and play together, but the adventure must continue, and they too leave a small mark on your heart. To list all the delightful characters wouldn’t mean much without the context of why their brief impact on your journey feels so consequential, but to have an old face pop up later is like seeing and old friend, and while the game does have a few central characters with the level of depth you’d hope for in a longer narrative, the cumulative impact of the supporting cast both plays into the grander messages of the plot on things like the satisfaction found in helping others while also peppering in memories for the player to look back on fondly.
No matter where you go on your journey, you seem to find a world that is both worth saving for the kind and likeable people that inhabit it but one clearly drifting apart. Some are as simple as a town clearly wanting a band to perform, but despite people wanting the show and the band wanting to play, no one has the gumption to go out and pull it all together. In a different gloomy town, people have their lives set to the clock, everyone able to live and work at the factory but finding their lives exclusively tied to that schedule with no room for personal entertainment or seeking out fulfilling activities. And in one of the more direct cases of overt conflict, a war between two kingdoms takes place, neither seeking to understand the other as they allow themselves to believe that the other side must be bad because they, of course, are the good side. The problem is not that the people involved are bad, but it is more they have settled into a lifestyle they can’t escape, one that keeps them away from what they truly want and from each other.
And that’s where the bard comes in. This gung-ho little guy has no weapon to fight with or status to make what he says important, he just has plenty of determination and a song in his heart that he’s happy to let out. This is of course more literal and relates to the gameplay side of things, but by being kept away from the violent solutions to conflict, the bard is made to find solutions that rely on forging connections between people, resolving conflict by opening lines of communication, and extending a hand to the people who have sequestered themselves from others as distrust seeped into their hearts. And perhaps most important, while the fate of the world is definitely on the line, he is not being kind to the people simply in an effort to restore order to the universe, a fact made quite apparent by the presence of his traveling companion Miriam.
Miriam is an ornery witch who devoted her magical studies into the violent power of explosion magic. She is bristly, easily irritated, and wants to solve any problem in her way by blasting it aside, and since she too believes the Earthsong might be the key to saving the universe, she joins the bard on his journey only for their contrasting ideologies to continuously highlight many of the core messages of the game. While it is always more of an underplayed side of saving the universe in regards to what the characters focus on, the need to unite its people is just as important as collecting the song parts from the Overseers, but Miriam represents the raw practicality of gunning for the goal in ignorance of the world around her. The many characters inhabiting the cities you encounter are all charming little people who are fun to interact with even if many are quite simple, but Miriam would pass them by if she could just to gather the Earthsong pieces. The bard not only chooses to interact with them though, but seems to get sidetracked from the main objective just for the sake of helping them.
The bard builds up personal connections, sets things right, and leaves places better than he found them not out of a sense of obligation or because he believes it ties to his goal of saving the universe. He does it because it is the right thing, because the people deserve to be happy, and his optimistic world view inspires him to find the best in others. However, he is not blindly or foolishly optimistic, just like how Miriam isn’t a one-note pessimism machine. Emotion should not be ignored in favor of raw practicality, but the bard can’t just smile his way through every problem, and there are parts that test his resolve. The world that begins bright and inviting gradually begins to dim as you near the end of the game, the weight of your quest becomes more apparent, and the bard begins to show that he’s got more going on under the hood than the drive to do what’s right. The important note is he pushes forward to do the right thing even when it’s not easy, even when it might not be the solution that gets him to his goal the quickest. He could try to brute force his way to the Earthsong, but he can’t ignore the people around him, and bettering their lives is rewarding for its own reasons even if many helped individuals do then pay him back somehow.
Optimism is a difficult mindset to hold because many things can challenge it, and as such many associate it with naivety or willful ignorance. Even in the context of the game, Miriam starts off thinking that the bard’s insistence he try to appeal to angry individuals or work out a problem instead of breezing on by it is foolish and a waste of time. However, her views do soften, and as she begins to try and understand him, she can also come to see the deeper complexities to his world view as well as seeing him experience emotional lows as he needs to fight to regain his hope. At one of the story’s lowest points, the bard has had his world view completely upended in a way he can’t handle. His goal seems impossible, and he has no direction, so he heads home, to the gloomy town where everyone lives their life by the clock. It’s a place where time moves oddly fast and yet life seems like a crawl, and people are beaten down by their acceptance of their lot in life. While saving the universe is the most important task of course, the hardest for the bard personally will be crawling out of this hole, because without the hope for something more, the belief we can be more than what we do and that we can be defined by more than rigid logic, that is how optimism helps us, and it doesn’t involve the absolute rejection of negativity to achieve it, because Miriam is the one who sparks it here despite being the counterpoint view.
Miriam and the bard share a wonderful growing friendship that continues to provide what initially seems like the pessimism angle that exists only to be refuted, but as she goes from jokes at her expense to a more complex character over time, even the optimist makes an effort to show her viewpoint is valid. They may not be able to think alike but they can healthily integrate each other’s worldview into their own. There is nothing wrong with the uncertainty and fears Miriam experiences, but the bard tries to show her how to press on. Admittedly, a lot of this is not directly stated, and while they have a few moments of more frankly discussing their worldviews, Wandersong does not feel it has to barefacedly lay out every instance of the softening up of Miriam or the bard’s personal battles to remain optimistic to get them across. The main point of it all feels like it comes across whether or not you wish to look deeply though. There is intrinsic value in doing good and we should endeavor to do it regardless of what is weighing down on us, be it personal worries or impending doom, but whether we approach those deeds with boundless enthusiasm or trepidation, it is always valuable to take those steps to make things better, for ourselves and those around us.
Perhaps the most masterful part of weaving these important narrative messages into everything is that it would still be a delightful journey without them. There’s enough to the colorful world to make it appealing on its own merits and plenty of scenes are focused more on fun little interactions or simple and sweet diversions. It doesn’t lose focus so much as it knows that an inviting world is all the better for carrying across the messages. Unexpected swerves work as fun parts of an event-by-event narrative as well as playing into ideas about human nature, so even if you don’t want to sit back and consider everything going on under the surface, you still have a lot of people to meet and stuff to do to keep things entertaining… although after that you can maybe reflect on what you read here since you got this far at least and know some of the underpinnings the game hopes you’ll pick up on.
But, those are the main themes of the core narrative. The value of positive action and interconnectedness feel pretty clear, and we can of course find the self-worth in there as well by looking at Miriam’s developing mindset, but that’s not quite how it dives deep into that subject. Most of our focus has been quite naturally on the protagonist, the bard who does have a name but since you the player make it I can’t refer to him as one definitively. However, I believe it’s time we shift our focus to the HERO of the story.
THE HERO
This is Audrey, and she is the hero of Wandersong. Picked by Eya and actually able to wield the sword, this young lady is everything we’ve come to expect from a video game hero. She charges into battle, receives adulation for her deed, and needs to defeat seven evil Overseers to end the world! …That last part doesn’t sound quite right, come to think of it.
As the bard travels across the world, righting wrongs and making people love and trust each other again, Audrey is cutting a path through it as she goes on what seems like a more traditional adventure. The bard had thought himself the hero as he was aiming to save the world and do right, but the hero is chosen by the goddess to speed up the end, something Audrey seems perfectly fine with doing. Here is where we get into the message on self-worth, both in regards to the general human condition and, surprisingly, in how it relates to a video game playing experience.
Wandersong’s adventure averts the violent quests we’ve been on before, the bard not fit for such action-packed battles and instead finding his glorious moments of victory in helping people, having fun and silly moments with new friends, and setting out to stop the fighting. Pretty much all he does is selfless and motivated by the righteousness inherit in the actions, and yet, he is not the hero. He begins thinking he is, the early game even playing into that idea as he starts to experience the life of one as people start to praise him and elevate him… until it crashes down with Audrey’s arrival. The game’s unassuming start really starts to fall away here, as the charming humor and sense of adventure is now part of a more layered examination of personal value. The bard was built up and growing to believe himself a hero, so being told outright that not only has someone else been designated for that role, but he essentially runs counter to what Eya and many others believe should and will happen. Something that looked and felt right is now identified as incorrect. Wrong. Possibly even entirely worthless, for few believe the Earthsong can even do what it is claimed to do. This is what causes the crisis of ideals in the bard, and even as he recovers from it, it lingers in his head. He wanted that affirmation, he wanted his positive feelings supported, and he can’t just decide he’s fine when his beliefs are challenged, but at the same time, we’ve already discussed how he rises above all of that.
But we haven’t REALLY talked about Audrey yet.
While at first painted in a pretty negative light, she is actively assisting the destruction of the universe after all, we later learn that she’s defined by that struggle for affirmation as well. She feels like what she’s doing is right as people keep telling her it is, and the praise people give her once they learn she’s the hero props up her ego more and more. Before she was chosen for this role, she was unexceptional, but given purpose, even one so dour, motivates her and becomes how she defines her value. There is a reason the game calls her The Hero more than it calls her Audrey, as she becomes the role in an attempt to extract value from it, and even thought what is asked of her can feel wrong, the whole world is trying to tell her it’s right, and it’s hard to resist that extrinsic motivation, that extrinsic assignment of value. The polar opposite of how the bard is validated by the intrinsic value of his good actions.
And, when you look closer at it… Audrey is the player, but not of this particular game. Of a different game. This is lead into and supported in many interesting ways. You find the marks of her work before you ever meet her, finding defeated bosses and empty treasures chests in a dungeon that you aren’t really fit for exploring as the bard, but she IS since she’s the capable video game hero. One intermission chapter has you actually play as Audrey, the only point in the game where you truly fight anything since it’s the only part of the game with generic enemies meant for combat. During this section as well, you will keep flagging achievements, and while this game is probably amazing on any system it’s on, the Xbox One’s achievement system is perfect for cementing this idea that Audrey is the “hero”. Seeing a pop-up to reward you for something hollow like jumping twenty times or beating some simple enemies means a lot more when only Audrey is getting such accolades from the game, and their simplicity plays into how some other video games reward you for the simplest actions despite them having no real value. It is the video game using the trappings of its medium to further emphasize how the hero draws value from the extrinsic definitions of what is right rather than what feels right. Even at points in the plot where the bard was seemingly about to achieve something himself, if Audrey is on hand or an active participant, the pop-up for it congratulates her, but not by saying something like “Audrey killed the Overseer.” Instead, the pop-up simple says something akin to “Killed the Overseer” as if you were the one playing as her.
While this may seem rather meta, only the interpretation of it really is. The game never really acknowledges it’s a game, and while it has some knowing winks at the tropes of adventures and action games, the characters are simply pursuing quests and solving puzzles as part of their world rather than acknowledging them as video game elements. This feels important, as does having the time to show Audrey’s issues of self-worth, because while Wandersong is about finding a different approach to solving problems and saving the world for it, the hero element could feel like a condemnation of violent video games where problems are solved by murder… but it doesn’t. The desire to find worth from how others view you is framed sympathetically and shared by most of the main cast even though they come to grips with it in different ways and find different means of internal and external value. When you turn on a video game like a Legend of Zelda game though, you are searching for a fantasy of importance in a way. You are the hero who will get new items, who gets to lead the story, who gets to fight the bosses and gets the reward for progress. You are doing what’s right in that game because you are being told by the design of the game it is right, by the achievements marking your success, and by the hero growing into something better.
Wandersong does not feel like it’s saying that is always wrong though, but that we can find value in different experiences, like a game where you sing to people to make them feel good. In fact, Wandersong has many moments where the reward for a moment is not something you carry along on your adventure, because you never get new items or abilities. Instead, you might stop and make a song for someone looking to make a jingle, and the value of it is that you made something yourself and helped this regular guy out. Talking to many people in a city doesn’t provide you with any reward beyond the enjoyment of who they are and how they fit in this world. Entire characters with plenty of dialogue exist just to be pleasant, and while some of course tell you what you might need to do or play into the plot, the bard begins his quest as he ends it, never having gained one new power and never being the capital H Hero.
And yet, despite averting all of that, Wandersong is still a fantastic little journey of discovery, both personal and in regards to what the game designers put in the world for you to come across. And to that end, perhaps it’s time to take a look at how this game even plays, huh?
THE SONGS
Wandersong is, for the most part, an adventure game, the focus being on going to new places, interacting with people, and solving their problems to move onto the next area. The texture of the world is what makes your activities interesting and worthwhile, but unlike many adventure games where dialogue choices or found items are used to progress through puzzles based around people’s wants and needs, Wandersong involves you using a color wheel that ties to different musical pitches, and while again I think the joy of the experience is agnostic in regards to the console you play it on, having a controller makes using the wheel incredibly natural. Aim your right control stick in the proper direction and you’ll sing that note for as long as you hold it that way, and by moving it around the eight colors, you can make the bard sing a richer song, the colorful world around him even dancing around a little as it gets caught up in your crooning.
How do these songs integrate into character interaction and puzzle solving though?
I don’t think I have the time or you have the patience to read about the many imaginative ways the game uses this simple mechanic.
During the pirate adventure part of the story, you guide your ship around the map by singing a wonderful shanty with your crew, the direction of it corresponding to your pitch. When ghosts invade the village at the start of the game, they play a game of musical Simon with you. When a powerful wind is pushing you back, you fight back by singing a song that counters its direction. You end up playing a pipe organ with your own pipes, invoking magical spells that alter the landscape, and play along with a band on stage. You help repel a wave of shadowy creatures at one point, but then at another you need to find clues hidden around an island to sing the proper song. You technically get in a few fights with it, but never is your song directly harming the creatures, instead helping to make a shield for an ally, power magic, or otherwise end the enemy’s aggression. At many points you’ll be made to sing along with on-screen prompts, and thankfully, even when they start to get pretty hard, Wandersong doesn’t seem like it wants to punish failure. If you are on the ball and performing well, things go quickly and your singing often matches up with a lovely background track. If you aren’t doing well, you just spend more time getting the notes down or figuring out the trick to the current gimmick.
There are failure states though, usually pretty merciful ones tied to the excursions the bard takes into the spirit realm to see the Overseers. Each time you are on the cusp of learning an Earthsong, you must first make your way to the palace of the Overseer, and other than interacting with their delightfully quirky attendant fairies, you must also participate in the closest this game truly gets to a puzzle platformer. Most of the game takes place on 2D layers that you can hop between to explore a city or area to find what you need to do, and sometimes you are asked to explore or do some decent jumping, but the only point that really feels like it’s trying to be directly difficult is when it comes to approaching the Overseers. Just like with solving the puzzles of the world and the problems of people though, these end up being incredibly creative yet remarkably reserved. Each trip embraces a new gimmick such as plants that grow in directions based on which part of the color wheel your singing lines up with, the bard riding them around to navigate that trial. Another might involve changing the shape of platforms by changing pitch or doing things like reversing the movement of automatic traps so you can slip through. Even the wrapping up as you learn a part of the Earthsong involves some new concept related to your singing voice being toyed with, and while a few ideas do make returns eventually, it’s for thematic or story reasons rather than just recycling old concepts. While these are puzzle platforming elements, they are fairly closely tied to the adventure game elements because they are often more about figuring out how to proceed rather than how good you are at jumping or timing things, although that is still somewhat important.
Of course, I can’t rightly close out this segment without drawing attention to the actual musical composition on show. Beautiful orchestral tracks know when to really nail in the emotional impact of a scene, whether its the hilarity of a situation, the delight in whatever interesting scenario you’ve come across, or the gravity of something tied to the plot. When the bard sings something of importance it is often backed up by something beautiful yet powerful, and while you need to play your part in the song to make it truly turn out as the fully-fledged track it was written as, it can still sound lovely even if you’re a little late at hitting your marks. Naturally, listening to many tracks on the soundtrack will turn out better if we’re speaking purely on the composition, but Wandersong knew musical excellence was key to a game built around sound, so while it may not be as catchy as some traditional video games, its score takes care to build up the right moments to where some of its best story beats wouldn’t hold the same weight without it. The excellent use of sound in the climax both portrays the situation perfectly and perfectly conveys the messages of the grand finale, and even just thinking of the song is enough to make me tear up after the ending brought with it such a flood of emotions that pay off the narrative arc of its characters and wrap up the importance of its messages. Even what feels like a loose end in the wrap-up reveals itself to be the last part of the underlying examination of different views on life both as something real and something in a game context.
THE CONCLUSION
A positive outlook on life does not need to be perfect. It does not need to deny the hardships, and it’s okay to be disappointed. You can stumble, you can even be afraid, but that doesn’t mean you have to lose that song in your heart.
Wandersong is an introspective look at things like self-worth and the inherent good of doing what’s right, but it manages to do this by weaving it into an adventure with plenty of humor, character, and a surprisingly robust exploration of a musical mechanic that endeavors to be both incredibly accessible but highly creative. The play of solving puzzles and using the color wheel for unusual platforming continues to make the player’s participation interesting while a plot that doesn’t ever get too dour explores deep topics with an approachable degree of levity. Lovely to look at and listen to, Wandersong is a realization of a specific vision that manages charm and tension expertly to make for a wonderful and heartfelt adventure.
It’s easy for even a stylish and well-realized indie game to fall through the cracks as more and more quality games compete for our attention. Wandersong isn’t totally obscure, it’s likely on many people’s radar if they’re at least somewhat interested in indie games, and there are even people who did give it a shot but dropped off before things could pick up steam and show the creativity put both into the way music interacts with the world and how that world ties to the narrative’s messages. It probably won’t wow anyone on its mechanics alone though, but it is an emotionally endearing tale with characters that are easy to like and a plot that works well for pushing forward their character arcs.
Wandersong is definitely a game that comes together well because it is so effective as an experience, the totality of its elements being what comes together to make it shine. It knows how to get you invested with little things like the personality of the side characters and then keep you on board with constant shifts to how things are played, and it works its way into your heart so when it is time to start looking inward and exploring its ideas, you’re primed to be receptive and feel the emotional impact of the scenes. It’s a rich adventure in a well-realized world with random nice touches like everyone in a certain kingdom having a bonded animal or the option to just dance at almost any moment if you want to have a little fun, and the adventure works both on its surface level and in what lies underneath if you’re willing to look.
I don’t want to call it an underappreciated game that doesn’t get the praise it deserves, because I want to see the best in things. I want to see this game find the loving audience who will embrace it when they give it a chance, and that is why I went so in-depth not only on a narrative analysis of sorts, but on highlighting both the complexity that can be found in its deeper elements and the charm of what’s found on the surface. It is worthy of this praise and love, and even if this didn’t convince you, don’t worry.
Wandersong will be patiently waiting for you to play it, and if you don’t, that’s fine. If it can make you happy, it wants to, but if you want to find that elsewhere, that’s valid too. But I’d like to do one good deed myself, one that I do only for the intrinsic value of knowing I helped someone else have an enjoyable time. If Wandersong sounds like something you might want to play, take that jump and give it a little time to grow into the lovely little game that I’m glad I could have shared with you.
