I don’t know if it’s just me, but back when I was a kid who had just started playing the guitar, I’d view the instrument as a weapon at times. I was feeling like such a badass, and I’d consider it to be my loyal axe. Too ridiculous? Was it just me? Well, I guess someone else has thought of turning fledgling musicians into warriors, in an epic quest to save the land from… evil record executives. Okay, sure, I had never thought of that last bit back in the day, but that’s still a neat little idea, which has resulted in the widely entertaining Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson.

Fretless stars a fictionalized version of real-life musician Rob Scallon, in this case being portrayed as a young musician willing to partake in a battle of the bands competition in a faraway land. In this world, partaking in a musical battle is a more literal endeavor, as musicians can use their instruments to conjure magical attacks, as well as use their weapon-like shapes to deliver damage as weapons. The world of Fretless is constantly harmed by the CEO of Super Metal Records, your typical crooked record executive who’s (literally, in this case) draining the talent of other musicians and conjuring monsters out of them.

To be fair, the story is… fine. With a retro-styled presentation and no actual voice acting (just very small character models and text bubbles), I didn’t see the plot as anything else other than a decent setup for what are the actual stars of the show in this case: the soundtrack and the gameplay as a whole. Fretless is an odd case of an RPG where the story is just an excuse for you to partake in battle after battle. It helps that such battle system is absolutely fantastic, by the way.

The combat system is a your typical turn-based RPG fare, but heavily inspired by a couple of games I never thought I’d ever see anyone consider be something worth remembering: the deck-based Paper Mario games. Yep, not the cherished ones like the original or Thousand-Year Door. We’re talking about stuff like Sticker Star or Color Splash, the more “maligned” ones. Like those titles, Fretless‘ combat system is all about creating a small “deck” of attacks, randomly drawing them, and then performing a small QTE to enhance their strength. You also have access to special attacks which are charged the more you properly perform said QTEs.

When you’re able to use these big fat special attacks, you’re thrown into a Guitar Hero-esque rhythm section that works oh so well. It’s a perfect combination of rhythm and RPG elements that feels refreshing and never tiresome. In fact, every single QTE is rhythm-based. The game doesn’t spend too much time teaching you how to properly perform them – it just tells you to pay attention to the music, get used to it, and attack to the rhythm of the beat.

This is what made me enjoy Fretless‘ musical aspects. It’s not about using licensed music, brand new (and complex) compositions… it’s all about how it trains your ears and brain to listen to each song according to the beat, and bases its entire gameplay around it. Of course, it’s a compilation of excellent songs from all genres, depending on which instrument you’re wielding, but the real kicker is how a game like this can teach a normie how to pay attention to tempo, for instance. It’s almost like there’s a musical education tool hidden in the middle of this excellent RPG.

With that being said, I do have a gigantic issue with Fretless, one that made me enjoy it much less than I was expecting. By all means, this is an easy recommendation, and the game was shaping up to become one of my favorites of the year for its first couple of hours, but then I reached the first couple of boss battles (one is optional, one is mandatory). Boss battles feature some truly ridiculous difficulty spikes that make them a lot more unfair (not challenging) than any other fight you had encountered prior to them.

The issue is that this game doesn’t have experience points. You can only improve your abilities by acquiring new pedals or accessories for your instruments. And guess what: you get those AFTER killing a boss. As a result, the only way you can “grind” before defeating an enemy is by partaking in multiple fights against goons to amass money and materials to either improve the strength of your “cards” (they are called “riffs” in here) or crank up your potion stockpile. After defeating a boss, it’s back to defeating menial goons until the next roadblock – I really did not appreciate how this affected pacing at the end of the day.

But all in all, the pros MASSIVELY outweight the cons. Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson features an adorable premise, great presentation, and most importantly, an amazing combat system. The latter is a godsend, as the game will somewhat force you to grind a bit on goons and menial enemies before you’re actually able to defeat its bosses, which act like borderline unfair roadblocks. Still, there’s no way I cannot recommend this game. It’s fun, it’s original, and it’s about defeating evil record label executives with your instrument-shaped weapons. How would I even be able to not like it?

Graphics: 7.0 A cute, well-animated, though somewhat minimalistic pixel art coat of paint that might not be the most impressive thing in the world, but certainly gets the job done.	Gameplay: 8.5 Turn-based combat with some rhythm-inspired elements and deckbuilding. It reminded me of the more maligned Paper Mario games, in a way. The combat is really fun, but the “grinding” method is a bit too frustrating.
Sound: 9.0 It’s not about the soundtrack, but how the game trains your ears and brain to listen to each song according to the beat, and bases its entire gameplay around it.	Fun Factor: 8.0 I like the original premise, the themes, and the combat system. I didn’t care much about the story and definitely did not enjoy some of its difficulty spikes. Still a worthy recommendation, at the end of the day.
Final Verdict: 8.0

Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson is available now on PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB and Asus ROG Ally.

A copy of Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson was provided by the publisher.