Never Say NO to This Game

10/10 Game of the year, review done…..

Joking, but in all seriousness, I LOVED this game!

Say “NO” More is a…..well….I guess you would call it a rail shooter, but you’re saying no to people. It was developed by Studio Fizbin / Lux Games and published by Thunderful Games.

You are the new intern in a company where the word NO is forbidden, and you must say yes to everything! After you are stationed in one of the saddest desks in the office, and your manager steals your freaking lunchbox, you find a hidden cassette player that unlocks your hidden potential in saying NO! From there you must face the bosses of the company, and story wise there are a surprising number of heartfelt moments that still stick with me.

You start out with a generous character creator, and then get thrown into this wacky world. The quality and pacing of the story, even with a protagonist that can only say NO, is astounding. Yes, there are a bunch of crazy scenarios, but the underlying moral and the emotional weight in some of the scenes is palpable. Not only was I invested in my character’s struggle, but even some of the characters you meet throughout are well fleshed out. There’s even a whole side story about a cult of staring contest employees that was a blast to try and finish.

I don’t want to go too deep into the story because there are a few great twists, so let’s move on to gameplay.

Gameplay is focused around saying the word NO, but there are many different ways that you can say it. You use the dpad to change the “type” of NO used (From heated, to sarcastic) and you can use the right stick to throw out a few condescending emotes to startle and throw your enemy off guard. This will also build up the NO meter which you can charge to let out a super powerful NO blast. By the end, though, I didn’t really find any use of each of the different types of NOs outside of the comedic factor. I still need to try out other combinations, but I’m pretty sure they all work about the same.

In the audio department, I was pleasantly surprised that this entire game is voice acted, and not just minimally. All but a very few of the characters sounded amazing, and I really enjoyed the dialogue both written and spoken. Music and sound effects are also very polished, even if the music doesn’t really stand out as memorable. Actually during writing this I was listening to the OST from Julie Buchanan, and although the music is good, it’s not something I would listen to on a daily basis. (Edit: #14 No by Heart is beautiful )

So far, ‘Say “NO” More’ is one of my favorite games I’ve played this year and I would highly recommend it. It was such a unique experience both in story and gameplay.