Road 96 PC Review
Set in the summer of 1996, Road 96 uses frightened teenagers to tell a story of a country ruined by a fascist dictator called Tyrak. Teens are trying to flee the country of Petria looking for greater lives beyond “the wall”, a feature created to stop anyone coming in or out of the country. Playing as various characters, your only job is to escape; are you going to ignore the cries of your country or fight to make it free again? Dying or surviving, it doesn’t matter what happens to your fleeing teen, their choices and actions will forever change the shape of Petria. You can die in Road 96 through various means, at the hands of a character, when your energy drops to 0, or if caught by guards trying to stop you from fleeing.
Throughout your journey you will meet various, wacky characters that all have their own beliefs about Tyrak’s system; these characters will take you on a journey through the past, present and future of Petria. You meet each of these characters numerous times throughout the game but always when playing as a different character; through the conversations you have and the actions they perform you can uncover the mysteries of Petria. Each interaction comes with many different choices, most of which will contribute to the different endings you can experience. The characters are so well developed, and I love going to the next place and finding out which character you’re going to be interacting with next. Their stories come with a few twists which aren’t too hard to figure out, however it’s still fun to go on that journey with them and see how their stories will end.
You can travel the country of Petria in numerous ways: Stealing a car, hitchhiking, walking, catching a bus and calling a taxi etc. Each way takes up a different amount of stamina and gives you different character interactions. Throughout your journey with several different teens, you will find the best ways to travel and the ways you absolutely should NEVER travel unless you must… But I’ll let you find that out the same way I did. It’s probably obvious which ones take up the most energy but I’m going to mention again that the game is too easy and these choices don’t matter too much. In fact, in the end I was choosing my options based on what characters I’d most likely see, and not which option conserves my energy. However, the wide range of options and the way the game forces you (early on, not after you have the power ups) to take bad options makes all journeys unique.
On your travels you will have to keep an eye on various things: your energy and money. Your energy will go down every time you travel and during some events, meaning that you must make sure you have at least 1 bar or you will die and end that teens journey. The way you get more energy is by finding a place to sleep or eating some food. It is up to you how you do this, you can sleep outside, pay for a room – if you can – or, depending on the situation, steal keys to be able to get a free room. Money is found in a variety of different ways, stealing, helping characters, or finding it somewhere. In the end I thought money was a little too common, I always ended up with a ton left over at the end and there is something you can do with it, but I would’ve liked the game to be a little harder so your decisions mattered more.
There are 6 power ups overall and you get them from the different characters. I don’t know if you can miss any or if you must do the dialogue perfectly, but I got them all and – I’m going to mention it again – it made the game easy going forward. You have: Hacking, lock picking, Lucky Star (increased chance), cleverness and Government pass. Hacking and lock picking are what I used the most, with those powers you could easily make it to Road 96 with no problems. It’s because they allow you to steal way more money and car keys so you can steal cars therefore using less energy. I enjoyed the other skills way more because they added additional dialogue options, more chances to get information out of people or different ways to escape the border. The last power up can only be obtained if you sign up to HP Omen, I didn’t do this mainly because I didn’t want to sign up for anything, but also because it gave you 2 extra energy bars which I wouldn’t find fun.
Overall Road 96 really surprised me, as I’m getting older, purely story driven games don’t grab my interest as easily. However, putting my headphones on and getting taken on this wonderful journey, that is made all the more better by the heart-warming soundtrack that coincides perfectly with Road 96, took my breath away. The only gripe I have is that later on the game can get too easy, however, I learned to just sit back and enjoy my time with these wonderful characters. I was laughing, upset, and sometimes even scared while I was playing. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Road 96.
