FREERIDE Review – A Train Well Worth Catching

You can learn a lot about a person by how they play games. We all have our little habits, and we often make small, heat-of-the-moment choices, both consciously and unconsciously. Do you hoard items, hoping you’ll need them all later for some purpose you cannot yet predict? Do you stop and talk to absolutely everyone you meet, hoping to learn as much about the world as possible? Are your eyes constantly on the objective ahead of you, or do you often find yourself backtracking to ensure you’ve found everything you can? Of course, even the way we treat NPCs can say a lot about the player.

FREERIDE, the newest game from Flightyfelon Games Inc., takes this very notion and runs with it. Self-describing itself as an oddball RPG, FREERIDE also doubles as a personality test. Each little decision you make, every conscious and unconscious choice, is taken into account by the game, and once you’ve finished your playthrough, it’ll give you a rundown of your personality type. It’s a concept that immediately drew me in upon learning about it, and I was excited to see whether it could live up to my initial expectations. FREERIDE proceeded to take me on a journey, one with plenty of ups, but not without a few faults in the track along the way.

Everything begins on a lonely station platform, where Proto (the player character) waits for The Fate Train 001. The train soon arrives, and the conductor, Princess Lepida, invites Proto on an adventure to the spirit world, an afterlife that occasionally overlaps with the human world. In the spirit world, spirits live much like we do, and each of them awaits the day when they can take care of their unfinished business. Proto eventually stumbles into the role of conductor and has to contend with learning more about their new life, while also uncovering the mysteries of the spirit world and its inhabitants.

From the get-go, I was very taken with the characters in FREERIDE. There are many of them, and each has its own charming, quirky personality. They’re not particularly deep or multilayered, but I got pretty attached to characters like Albion, a wise old bird with a Shakespearean vocabulary. There’s a good sense here for simple but effective character writing, as they’re able to make even the smallest interactions very memorable. There were even a few characters I initially disliked, but ended up really rooting for in the end. It is satisfying to uncover their unfinished business and help them with their dreams.

I think where FREERIDE comes apart a little is in its overarching plot, however. Supposedly, this game is about the player, but it never really feels that way. Most of the time, while you are involved in proceedings, the narrative never really feels personal. Proto is mostly a blank slate, to aid in the idea of this being a personality test, but it often feels more like a story about the spirit world and its many inhabitants than about you, or the test you’re taking. You definitely have an important part to play in the overarching narrative, but the idea of this being a personal journey feels very underplayed. This also ties in to my feelings about the personality test itself, but we will circle back to that later.

As a whole, the core narrative of FREERIDE is driven by its cast of lovable, rootable characters, but it never quite comes together for me to say that it is truly successful. The pacing is brisk, which is definitely a plus in some regards, but as a result, it doesn’t quite feel as if we spend enough time for everything to properly be digested. But I think it speaks to the strength of its characters at least, that by the end of my time with FREERIDE, it still emotionally resonated with me. I felt genuinely sad that my time in the spirit world had come to an end; even if the journey itself wasn’t consistent in its quality, I was certain that it was an adventure I wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

But what of the promised ‘personality test’ that this game offers? Well, I am personally in two minds about it. FREERIDE tracks your every in-game action, from the big choices to the smallest, and it uses that info to generate a result at the end of each playthrough. For example, if you spend a lot of your playthrough exploring, rather than moving towards your objective, then you will be seen as curious. Gifting items, throwing items, hoarding items, eating items (whether they’re actually food or not)… all of this and more can factor into your results as well. You’re mostly expected to not think too much about what you’re doing, and just do what comes naturally to you.

But when I got my first result… I immediately disagreed with it. Perhaps that’s natural, it even seems like the devs have thought of this. On the Steam page, it mentions that if you don’t like your result, you can always retake the test; “You are who you choose to be.” This aspect kind of weakens the idea that this is supposed to be a ‘personality test’. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t expect FREERIDE to give me any sort of life-changing information about who I am. However, I was expecting it to do more with the concept; I was expecting, or rather hoping, it would shine brighter than it did.

At the same time, I’m almost certain that this was intentional; rather than being a true personality test, FREERIDE could be said to be a game about the concept of personality tests. It’s a game largely about choice at the end of the day, and that largely, they don’t always have to define who we are as people. Personality tests are fun, we all enjoy them from time to time, whether or not you agree with the result or not. Taking them too seriously is kind of missing the overall point, you aren’t defined by what a quiz made by a stranger. Many of the characters too in FREERIDE aid in this idea; many of the core characters pine over choices they’ve made in the past, or seek to change their fate somehow. They each believe that their past choices define them, rather than moving forward into the future.

If this was an intentional writing choice at all, then I mostly think it’s done pretty well. The personality test aspect is a fun cherry on top of the overall adventure. As the well-used phrase goes, sometimes the journey is more important than the destination itself, which is very fitting in this context. It is fun to see how the game sees you, how it views your playing habits. I admittedly wish there was a way to view past results of the test, so you could perhaps track just how your tendencies change from playthrough to playthrough. Regardless of that, I’m definitely still a little split on how FREERIDE utilises its core concept, but I can’t deny that it is intriguing.

So my thoughts on FREERIDE until this point have been largely mixed. But when it comes to visuals and music, there’s no question: FREERIDE is an absolute delight. As technicolor as they come, the spirit world is visually gorgeous, whimsical and as endearing as the many characters that inhabit it. The designs of each of the characters are so memorable in their own right. The whole game just oozes creativity, and that all plays a huge part in just how likable FREERIDE is. Then the music is just an absolute joy; some of the songs in the game have just wedged themselves into my brain forever, in the best way possible. Bright, popp,y and catchy, FREERIDE is just a delight to listen to.

When it comes to runtime, FREERIDE is a little on the shorter side; one playthrough is going to last you three to four hours. But the game wants you to, and actively encourages, replays, so you can see everything the game has to offer. There is an end goal, which took me a total of eight hours, but you could spend much longer playing if you’re searching for all of the ways to end each ACT, and even the multitude of secrets. Even if you find everything, FREERIDE is the kind of game you might want to pull out every once in a while, either just for fun or to see if your personality test result shifts somewhat.

I encountered a few glitches during my time playing FREERIDE, usually ones that caused soft locks in certain rooms. This was usually resolved with a game reset, but it happened a few times too many. I’m hoping these issues will be fixed, but for the time being, remember to save often, whenever possible. I also generally thought the throwing mechanic was a bit fiddly to use, especially during certain points where you need actually to throw things to damage enemies. These moments aren’t terribly common in the game, but they were frustrating nonetheless.

FREERIDE is such an intriguing game to me; while I don’t think it is entirely successful in what it sets out to do, once it hits its stride, it really gets going. The narrative doesn’t quite land at times, but it is emotionally resonant, and got me really hooked by the end, despite any misgivings I had about it. It is just a pure, fun, entertaining ride, through and through, which sometimes is all a story needs to be. While the personality test might not really tell you anything earth-shattering, it doesn’t need to, so long as you had a good time getting to it, that’s what really matters. FREERIDE is a charming, laidback, lovable adventure, one which I wish had been just a little bit better, but I’m very happy to have experienced it.