Goodbye Volcano High demonstrates best of the genre ( PS5 / PS4 / PC )
Goodbye Volcano High is a cinematic story game I have been eagerly waiting to release for nearly a year, and having now played the game through beginning to end — twice — I have to say that the wait was well worth it.
The excellent soundtrack and the music mini-games help to keep the story tight and to reinforce the overarching theme. The protagonist is Fang, a nonbinary pterodactyl ( they/them ) singer/songwriter whose main passions in life are their musical aspirations and their friends. Sometimes Fang has to make tough choices between the two. As a musician myself, I immediately connected with Fang and empathised with their struggles.
Early on in the game, it becomes apparent that this world of anthropomorphic dinosaurs is being threatened by an incoming asteroid. The game takes about 6.5 hours to complete, but has replay value. There is a significant amount of new content to be discovered on the second, and even the third play, if you make different choices along the way.
Aside from the excellent soundtrack, the character development in this game is top-tier, and the voice actors do a fine job of bringing the characters to life. I don’t see how anyone with blood pumping through their veins could fail to empathise with these characters during a full play-through. I particularly enjoy how the characters, all of whom are in their late teens, deal with the existential dread of the end of the world in a way that people their age would. As someone who remembers being a teen, I know that I wouldn’t respond to the crisis in quite the same way today, but I think that I was that age. Playing this game has got me fondly remembering my late teens, with a desire to recapture that sense of spontaneity.
The animation on show is good, not fantastic. Some have complained about the quality of the animation. I would say that if you’re holding the animation quality in this game to the same standards as an animated Disney film, you have unrealistic expectations. But if you’re accustomed to watching anime, you’re going to feel right at home.
Speaking of anime, this game takes obvious inspiration from that genre, and there’s a lot here for anime fans to enjoy. Same goes for fans of tabletop gaming like D&D. If either of those genres are to your tastes, you’ll find plenty to enjoy here.
When the developers originally announced this game, they made a point of the fact that Fang is nonbinary. Unfortunately that drew the wrong type of attention from 4chan trolls who ended up releasing a parody game in 2022. I haven’t played that game and I refuse to, but I know enough about it to know that its entire premise is predicated on transphobia. If you’re a transphobe, I guess that’s your game. But Goodbye Volcano High is for us.
If you’re down with trans people or are a trans person yourself, I’m happy to tell you that the trans representation in this game is the best I’ve ever seen — and that includes other LGBT-positive story games I’ve played like Night in the Woods and 2064: Read Only Memories. LGBT people and trans people specifically were involved in the making of this game, and that’s a good thing, despite what some cynics will say, because it this game represents the queer experience in a low-key, realistic fashion in the way that we really experience it.
Fang, Naser, Rosa, and Naomi are characters who I know I will still remember a decade from now. Fang’s story has helped me to unlock some creative blocks I’ve been experiencing in my own music writing, and I’m grateful for that. [ Spoilers regarding trans representation in game ] The subplot of Fang trying to cope with their mother who rejects their chosen name and pronouns felt authentic as a transgender player, and it turns out that Fang is far from the only trans/nonbinary character in the game who has faced such challenges. In fact, this is the first videogame I’ve played where I can’t count the number of trans characters on one hand. It feels great to be represented.
I’ve said a lot of positive things about this game, but I do have some quibbles. First of all, on launch, the game released with significant bugs, some of which I noticed, but nothing that made the game unplayable for me. Because I recently joined the dev’s Discord server and have been helping with the bug reporting, I can see that some other players encountered more serious bugs than I did. But I can also tell by the way the devs have been responding to those bug reports that they will be fixed soon, so I am confident that this as a temporary problem — but one that’s all too common in the videogame industry these days.
I also need to point out two issues with the music mini-game. The music mini-game difficulty starts extremely easy, and smoothly ramps up in difficulty up until the final song. But even towards the end, I never felt my skills especially challenged. The game does have an easy mode setting, it is great for people who need it, but I really found myself craving a hard mode that just doesn’t exist in the game. Aside from that, there is the issue of music mini-game re-playability. There is none. Your only chance to play the music minigames is when the storyline decides its time for you to play. There are no ‘unlock’ mode after completing the main story to play the music mini-games a-la-carte, nor is there a way to decide to practice your songs alone before a big show, in the way that Night in the Woods allows.
Despite its imperfections, Goodbye Volcano High is a fantastic game. There have been, and there will continue to be, comparisons drawn between this game and Night in the Woods. Having now played through both titles multiple times, I would have a difficult time choosing between the two. I might give Goodbye Volcano High a slight edge in creating memorable characters, and Night in the Woods a slight edge in story-crafting. But in a world of mediocre furry-themed visual novels, Goodbye Volcano High is in the upper echelons alongside Night in the Woods as best of all time for the genre, and both have earned a permanent place in my heart.
