Fretless

Ritual Studios’ genre-blending RPG Fretless was easily my game of the show for PAX East 2024. Fretless is a deck-building, turn-based, rhythm RPG that has a lot of things going for it. Its use of musical instruments as weapons can fundamentally change your strategy in each battle. If I had an acoustic guitar equipped, my cards would prioritize defensive buffs, whereas the bass guitar deck would hit harder, but have drawbacks that backfired on me.

But what I adored most about Fretless was how these different builds also informed the music that my attacks would riff on. The acoustic guitar’s joyful tones embody its playstyle, juxtaposed by the rumbling basslines when I used the bass guitar. Rob, the battle-ready musician who wields these guitars as weapons, would play a different melody with each card I played, and the background music would shift and sway to accommodate my improvisations. Every attack or defensive spell is perfectly punctuated by a chord, lick, or rhythm drumming to make a turn-based fight feel like a battle of the bands, with my enemies responding in kind.

Fretless has the kind of singular vision and vibe you can only get when a project is smaller. Every design choice, animation, and musical composition feels perfectly in tune with the rest of the game. If you want to try it out for yourself, there’s a demo on Steam until Sunday, March 31. — Kenneth Shepard