Where the Music Dies Review: A Dark but Deeply Engaging Visual Novel

While browsing through Steam one day, seeing what was new, I came across Where the Music Dies. This is a visual novel from Red Skald, a game creator with a focus on dark RPGs and visual novels. I’ve never done a visual novel before, and this one sounded intriguing, so I decided to check it out. Although Where the Music Dies is dark, covering themes such as depression and suicide, I felt like I’d been taken through a real experience, stepping into somebody else’s shoes for a while. It was one of those experiences that I don’t imagine I’ll forget for a while. I was so intrigued that I decided to write a review about it.

Where the Music Dies is available for free on Steam and itch.io. Additionally, you can get the bonus content on Steam, Mirror of Regret, for $2.99, which includes bonus characters, new encounters and locations, extra endings, and a digital manual.

Unfortunately, there’s currently no trailer available on YouTube, but it is available on the game’s page on Steam if you wish to view it.

Story – A Short but Stark Journey 

The main theme of Where the Music Dies is loss, as well as regret. The story is told through the eyes of Locke, the bass guitarist in a band. Along with his other band members, they are struggling after the sudden death of their drummer Matteo, who committed suicide. They decide to head to a festival they have visited before, hoping to rekindle old memories and find some kind of way of moving on and dealing with what happened. At the festival, Locke is confronted by old friends, old memories, old regrets, and demons who won’t go away. As Locke, you are faced with many important decisions. How will he deal with his past and present, as well as his future? How will he interact with his old friends? What will he do at the festival, where will he go? What choices will he make, and will he – and you – regret them? 

Although one whole playthrough of Where the Music Dies is only 1 – 2 hours long, it doesn’t really need to be any longer than that. In this space of time, the story takes you on a rollercoaster ride of decision making and emotions. It’s very deep. 

Where the Music Dies takes place at a music festival, where the narrator is heading to with some old friends.

The story of Where the Music Dies is very well written. The dialogue is beautifully fluent. It doesn’t feel janky or unnatural. There’s no recorded voice overs, just dialogue boxes, but it feels so real that you can almost hear the voices of the characters when they speak. They feel like real conversations. This makes the whole experience a lot more immersive, and can make it easier to make a decision when it’s presented.

The characters are important in this story. They impact on what decisions you make, and they react to them, sometimes leaving you to wonder whether or not you make the right choices, as well as intrigued to replay the story and see what would have happened had you gone with the other options.

Since Where the Music Dies is a visual novel, getting the story right is crucial, and in this case, it succeeds. The story is one of those that will keep you hooked, wondering what will happen next, who you’ll encounter, where it’ll all eventually lead to.

Gameplay – Where the Story Goes Is Your Choice

Where the Music Dies, while a visual novel, is technically labelled as a game because it is interactive. The main focus is the story, but you as the reader get to choose what Locke does throughout the course of the story, which mainly takes place at a music festival. You’ll frequently be faced with dialogue choices, as well as what action Locke will take next. Some may seem insignificant, but others will have consequences that will influence events, including the ending.

Where the Music Dies is told through written dialogue, with Locke sometimes monologuing to himself, usually over what to do next or expressing what just happened. You do have to pay attention to the dialogue and make a mental note of what’s going on. The story overall doesn’t last longer than 2 hours, but a lot is packed in, and there can be a lot to take in. You have to remember who’s who, who you spoke to, what happened, etc. As far as I know, there’s no way to track the story so far or get a recap. You just have to make sure you’re paying attention and remember everything that’s happened so far, as well as who all the characters are.

It would be great if there was an extra option to look up all the characters in Where the Music Dies, like an index. It doesn’t have to be overly detailed, just so that you can look someone up and remind yourself.

Where the Music Dies has an additional feature that’s quite interesting; choosing your next destination at the music festival. Sometimes you don’t have a choice, but often you do, choosing between 2 or even 3 places to go. You have to remember what the location is on the map and who’s there, since the game doesn’t tell you. It’s another thing you have to make a note of. It would have been great if the map had been labelled, both with the destination name and the person you’ll encounter there. On the map, it’s not marked that clearly, so you just have to click somewhere and guess.

Where the Music Dies features multiple characters, including some love interests.

Decision-making is core in Where the Music Dies. It’s basically a choose-your-own-adventure type of experience. Your choices can make a big impact on what story is told. It can affect relationships, friendships, and Locke’s actions and thoughts. For example, when a character is speaking to you, you can open up to them, or dismiss them. These can offer different branches of dialogue and take the story in a new direction.

Whenever you’re experiencing games such as this, you wonder whether you’ve made the right choice, what might have happened if you’d chosen differently. The feeling I got with Where the Music Dies is that it’s hard to tell what the “right choices” are in order to get the “good ending”, but I quite like this aspect. It adds more dynamic to the story and characters. Do we ever really know what is right or wrong? How do we choose between friends? Do we always know what the consequences of our actions are? I like it whenever something gets me thinking in a deep way.

Right or wrong, all choices have consequences.

Graphics & Audio – Appropriately Moody and Melancholic

Where the Music Dies isn’t a horror experience, but it is pretty dark, with its themes of loss, regret, suicide, and depression prevalent. It’s not a totally depressing experience, but a thought provoking one. It’s important then that the visuals and audio comfortably complement the story and gameplay. Thankfully with Where the Music Dies, it does just that. The dialogue is easy to read thanks to the good-sized text and easy-to-read font. The choice options are also presented clearly.

One thing I have to say about Where the Music Dies is its art style. It looks rough and bleak, but in a good way, matching the mood of the story perfectly. It has a really edgy look, suitably unpolished but easy to distinguish what the scene is. The characters all look great too. One thing I liked was the fact that they’re all in a certain color to set them apart, so one might be a light blue while another is green.

There was one thing I wanted to touch on that impressed me visually, which was Remmy, who serves as Locke’s demons talking to him in his head and tormenting him. These scenes are well done, suitably stark. You can really sense the change in the mood. It’s surprisingly powerful whenever there’s a blank scene with no images, just dialogue. Remmy’s appearances when he shows up can be unsettling as well. You can sense Locke’s torment.

Let’s move onto the audio. This mainly concerns the music of Where the Music Dies. Music plays an important role in this story. There’s beautifully subtle and melancholic background music which plays as you go through the story, changing to reflect the scene. Never does it feel distracting or annoying. I cannot imagine this experience with the absence of the music. It really completes it.