No Straight Roads Christmas update brings my new favourite Xmas album

No Straight Roads is a game you can catch me talking about at nearly every opportunity. It recently received a huge free Christmas update so here is one such opportunity.

The game is a marvel of matching music with gameplay in epic boss battles that feel like playing through an epic rock opera soundtrack as much as they do a game. It is also a bit of a buggy mess at times with some very unfun parts.

It sucks because in many ways I think No Straight Roads might be my personal favourite game released this year. But that’s only after some serious work with the game. Learning how to be good enough to not only not die but also play around the bugs was a pretty mean feet. Plus I no longer have to deal with the dull approach levels.

Everytime I pick it up I encounter one such bug or issue and have just learnt how to deal with them as they come. I hate to say it, but I still stand by my GameSpot review. It’s a game of really high highs but some dumpster fire shit feeling lows as well.

Enter the incredible free Christmas update just released for the game. Did it fix any bugs? Probably not! I fell through the floor of one level I tried. Does it have the greatest Christmas remixes of all time? Yes. Yes it does.

No Straight Roads is a game with an incredibly cool and powerful vision and it seems to have little interest in fixing things, and instead charges ahead with adding to that vision. It’s a bit frustrating, but I respect the hell out of it.

The Christmas update doubles down. Hard. It’s perfect.

Every boss battle now has a Christmas track you can select. Every single one of these goddamned masterpieces has been remixed to be Christmassy as fuck. Bells jingle amongst EDM wubs, tracks have changed from minor to major. It’s just great, and is easily my new favourite Christmas album.

The levels themselves are also totally reskinned, and in some cases I think may also have some new models. The handsome boy band robots now have somewhat less handsome with new reindeer heads. Yinu, the child prodigy pianist, is now an angel and her mother looks based off a Christmas tree on which she’d sit atop. When May swaps out her guitar piece, the usual menacing growl is replaced by a roaring HO HO HO.

Everything is brilliantly festive and superbly thought out, keeping in line with the game’s already pretty excellent senses of humour and style.

If you care about the way videogames and music can intersect I still firmly believe you owe it to yourselves to check out No Straight Roads, or at least the OST. the game has a lot of problems but a lot of value too.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcvA6bIGs0zLd2A8B8bpvYaPKCD1iTD0T Original Soundtrack Playlist

If you care about Christmas Music, then at least look into these remixes.

I’m hoping to do a few Twitch streams of the new content as well, if you’re wanting to check out the themed gameplay by someone who’s already gone through the heartache of getting somewhat decent at this game.

While the No Straight Road devs clearly have their Christmas gifting sorted, maybe you need a little help with our excellent gift guide full of cooking, boardgames, video games, art, music, and more.