First Impressions: RISING STAR 2 Could Use More Game in the Gameplay

Gilligames recently let people try out their new game Rising Star 2 during Steam’s Summer Games Festival. They were kind enough to send me a copy early and I’ve enjoyed playing the game a little bit, but at the same time, I felt like it was missing something. Now, the game doesn’t officially launch until August, so maybe there will be some tweaking between now and then, but here are my first impressions of the game.

Rising Star 2 is about being a rockstar, but it doesn’t let you be a rockstar. In the bit of the game that I played, I got to create a custom character which was great. Your character gets to play any instrument of your choice and the tutorial does a decent job of explaining how things are done. For most of the game, you’ll go around in a first-person perspective and then select what you want to do. So, what do you do in Rising Star 2?

Well, you can go around recruiting band members, buying instruments, buying clothes, writing songs, practicing songs, doing odd jobs for money, recording songs, listen to gigs, and I imagine eventually you get to play gigs (I have no idea how to go about doing this). The problem is, there’s not much gaming going on. You manage some resources like your bandmates’ health and time, but it’s pretty empty. To write songs, you have to complete a simple 4-piece jigsaw puzzle and many odd jobs require you to just drive round town on fetch quests. Those are the most game-like qualities of Rising Star 2.

When you go to practice a song or record a song, you simply say how long you’re going to do it and then it’s done and people gain experience points. When you go to listen to another gig, you have a boring cinematic and a super generic song being played. This gives you reputation points with clubs and other bands. All of these provide a stale gaming experience. I really wish that there were some more gaming elements thrown into the gaming. For instance, I was expecting more of a rhythm game experience when practicing or recording songs.

The graphics aren’t great either which I can get graphics not looking great, but it is a bit of an embarrassment when the game looks like it’s an early PS2 game in 2020. While graphics don’t always sell a game, they do help and when the gameplay isn’t very game-like, you need something to pull in the crowd.

I love the idea of Rising Star 2. I want to play a game where I start a band, write songs, and go on tour. My experience so far has not been great though. Maybe some things will change by the official release in August.