Road 96 Image
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 43 Ratings

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  • Summary: Summer 1996. Today is the day! You hit the road. Adventure. Freedom. Escape. Run. Flee the Regime. Try to survive. On this risky road trip to the border, you'll meet incredible characters, and discover their intertwined stories and secrets in an ever-evolving adventure.
    But every mile opens
    Summer 1996. Today is the day! You hit the road. Adventure. Freedom. Escape. Run. Flee the Regime. Try to survive. On this risky road trip to the border, you'll meet incredible characters, and discover their intertwined stories and secrets in an ever-evolving adventure.
    But every mile opens up a choice to make. Your decisions will change your adventure, change the people you meet, maybe even change the world.

    There are thousands of roads across the authoritarian nation of Petria.

    Which one will you take?
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Road 96 - Launch Trailer
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 11
  2. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. Apr 26, 2022
    90
    Road 96 is a masterpiece in storytelling and depending on your own experience, you may even be moved by its through line of hope, loss, and the ultimate goal of personal freedom. Many of the game's themes haven't directly applied to my life, but Road 96 is an education in empathy and it really makes you feel for the folks out there who are scrambling to get their lives in order because of other people's actions. It's not a perfect game — mechanically things could be improved at times — but its story is about as close to perfect as you could ask for, and for that, we recommend it without a shadow of a doubt.
  2. Apr 29, 2022
    89
    The team of around 15 developers created a 15-20 hour game that is heavily influenced by the works of Tarantino, the Coen Brothers and Bong Joon-Ho and inspired by many stories, including The Goonies. Although unlikely, I would very much like some extra content featuring the loveable bumbling team of Stan and Mitch. While the game fell a bit short of it’s promises of your outcomes drastically being different because of your choices, it really doesn’t matter. You could strip away all the decision making, and you’d still have a gripping and intense story that you struggle to put down.
  3. May 26, 2022
    85
    Road 96 is fun to play, a challenge, and also makes you question your political beliefs. Play this game, help others and always vote against fascism.
  4. Apr 14, 2022
    80
    We didn’t realise how much we’d missed the episodic story framework of a Telltale game, and Road 96 – while not being from Telltale – is a long-lost cousin to it.
  5. 80
    I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Road 96 as much as I did. I thought it would be slower and more disconnected. Instead, I experienced a rewarding and deep title where my choices mattered.
  6. Apr 14, 2022
    80
    Apart from being an excellent first-person adventure, Road 96 is an overwhelming experience and an emotional dive into the '90s, with their music and style. As you stand on the side of the road, fantasizing about a better future, you'll wish that journey never ends.
  7. Apr 19, 2022
    60
    It's a shame that Road 96's great character writing is stuck within such restrictive framing, even if many of its most memorable dialogue sequences only work given that the premise has allowed for this assortment of personalities to intertwine. It doesn't mean that there's no reward for seeing some of them through, but if you're hoping for an introspective look at the complexities of revolting against an oppressive regime, then Road 96 doesn't deliver on that front. It is, however, an enjoyable point-and-click adventure outside of that, with a neat procedural twist that keeps each of your escape attempts entertaining, with dialogue choices that feel purposeful and entertaining minigames to keep things varied.

See all 11 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 13
  2. Negative: 4 out of 13
  1. Aug 7, 2022
    10
    A beautiful game that brings a sense of nostalgia and comfort. Nice plot and DELIGHTFUL music.
  2. Apr 17, 2022
    10
    It's a masterpiece. This game is true Indie hidden gem many players won't play but you absolutely should. The story is impressive, charactersIt's a masterpiece. This game is true Indie hidden gem many players won't play but you absolutely should. The story is impressive, characters are very well written it has full voice over. Choices really matters and there is always a place to replay it again to see another side of the story. Soundtrack is absolutely 10/10 Expand
  3. Apr 15, 2022
    10
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The game is just incredibly beautiful and also fascinates with its pleasant races. I love to play it Expand
  4. Jan 1, 2023
    9
    Simple, amazing game, and only reason I rate it 9 instead of 10 is there could be little more main characters in the game.
  5. Jun 6, 2023
    8
    Engaging, rated 8. Gripping narrative, immersive soundtrack, and compelling characters. Simple yet effective graphics. Engaging gameplayEngaging, rated 8. Gripping narrative, immersive soundtrack, and compelling characters. Simple yet effective graphics. Engaging gameplay mechanics. Conveys a clear message and prompts reflection. Expand
  6. Jul 16, 2022
    6
    This is a decent narrative game. I like the concept, but it gets pretty tedious. The characters you spend most of the game interacting withThis is a decent narrative game. I like the concept, but it gets pretty tedious. The characters you spend most of the game interacting with suck. There are two that I genuinely 'liked' and even that almost changed towards the end of the game. All the characters are so obnoxious and they're written mostly terribly. Also, your dialogue choices rarely seem to matter. The game plays out the same regardless. You'll notice this pretty quickly. The game will give you two or three options, but the majority of the time, no matter what you pick, the person you're talking to says something so open-ended and vague that you'll realize it could've "worked" for every choice given. You can tell there are not many genuine 'branches' or dialogue. I will say, towards the end of some of my playthroughs, there were some moments where something would go massively wrong and I actually felt like "damn, if I would've done ___ differently, that wouldn't have happened." And that was nice. Based on the mostly faux dialogue choices, I'm not certain those moments aren't scripted, but if they are, they're done so very well if they had me feeling like it was *MY* fault things ended poorly. That part actually works nicely.

    Again, genuinely cool concept. I mostly enjoyed my time with it, but it's far from perfect. I'd love to see the devs evolve on this concept and put out something bigger & better in the future.
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  7. Mar 6, 2023
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. A wonderful concept that fails miserably to reach its potential. I would have *loved* if this game had been good, but sadly, the concept is the only thing propping this game. So much more could have been done with the idea of a country full of teens fleeing a dictatorship, but it left me wanting so much more, fantasizing about what the game could have been. Feels like a shower thought that was shared with friends and ruined.

    The attention to detail is terrible. Tachometers and Speedometers in cars don't match with the sensation of speed when driving, or realistically what your kind of car could even do, and you can see the background "Pop" into existence like it's inflatable after looping every dozen seconds or so. The weather can also change in seconds, going from mostly clear skies to downpour right before your eyes. A mountain that's supposed to be several thousand miles away appears as if it is several hundred miles away, and a psychotic taxi cab driver is *somehow* available every single day across stretches of road spanning literally thousands of miles to pick up any one of your playable characters in a given run.

    Dialogue, and other choices, move around when the screen shakes or other effects happen, making picking a choice you didn't want very easy. Voice acting at the best of times is "satisfactory", but most times leaves you disappointed.

    The characters. The characters are bad. Some of them are stereotypical geniuses. Some of them are too dumb to live. Some of them are filled with juvenoia to a ridiculous extent to the point of overriding any empathy. Too many are like that. Some of them get incredibly weak redemption arcs after being horrible people that cheat and lie. Some of them are just "Good", with no real character flaws, and one of them goes from "Good cop" to "ACAB" to "Good cop" whenever the story demands, and unironically says "Fake news" while pulling a gun on people on a bus that ask her about labor camps for teens. Compared to the other characters, the psychotic taxi cab driver feels more realistic, and at least you know what to expect.

    If it wasn't so prevalent in the story, it'd be in the next paragraph, but frankly the political commentary in this game warrants a separate paragraph, or the next one would've been a horrible wall of text. I swear to god I'm not a Trump worshiper, the political "commentary" really just is bad. The (definitely not) Fox News station that reports spun stories for the "red" candidate, will show the entire election getting more than 100% of the vote. Oil is bad, Bush did 9/11 (not exactly, but it gives me comedic relief to say it. The government unironically did do a terrorist attack in game though and blamed it on an unsympathetic activist group that sometimes has extremists), and the red candidate will order the wholesale slaughter of teens protesting in the streets at his 50ft concrete border wall.

    The story. Written by "The Whole Team", it takes place in a fictional country called "Petria", but it's very similar to the United States in terms of political commentary, infrastructure, and culture. Your role in the story is of a nameless, faceless teen that's trying to escape a dictatorship that's kidnapping teens to be put in work camps and sometimes mk ultra'd. It is never explained in the entire story *why* teens are being rounded up. Apparently adults in this universe just have no empathy, and no foresight whatsoever. Your "choices" really lead to 3 main endings, which are...

    SPOILERS:

    The red candidate stays in power and keeps being a brutal dictator.
    The blue candidate wins the election, and everything is going to be perfect in the future, but not before the blue candidates supporters have a violent protest because reasons.
    The blue candidate doesn't win, but a violent protest happens, and blue candidate is installed by the people anyways.

    SPOILERS OVER.

    Overall, this game is just a massive disappointment. I was very excited at the start of the game, but the execution is terrible. I have no idea why this game is so widely loved. I have have to believe these people just don't play many other games, and the devs have tapped into an edgy demographic.
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See all 13 User Reviews

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