Have you played...? Unbeatable

Jun 27, 2026

I’ve always enjoyed rhythm and music games. From Guitar Hero to Taiko no Tatsujin, Ouendan, Rhythm Heaven, and many others, I’ve played my fair share. I’m not the best at them, but I love music and they’re tons of fun.

Earlier this year, my nephew (who had recommended the excellent BAD END THEATER a few years ago) showed me this interesting game that he was playing. It’s not a love story. Or so it says. It oozed style and attitude right from the setup screen, when you’re asked weird, sort of philosophical things like “what do you value more?” and “do you think you’re good enough? …at rhythm games, I mean”, and calibrates the input delay of your controller.

Unbeatable is, in theory, a rhythm game, but it also has a lot of story to tell. While I was playing with my nephew on his laptop, I told him I wanted to see the rhythm part. That took a while, around 15 to 20 minutes, maybe? I actually like story-heavy games, but I wanted to experience the actual gameplay while my nephew was with me.

Beat jogging on the beach and a flock of seagulls flying — Jogging on the beach, shooing away seagulls

By the end of our session, I wasn’t too impressed, but the story and characters intrigued me. I bought the game for myself on Steam and started playing, now enjoying the story at my own pace. I love the prologue and how it builds up the tension and emotion. You control a young woman who’s part of a famous band, just moments before their last farewell concert. It makes for a strong opening.

Beat running in front of a sunset, with her reflection on the ground — This game has some beautiful visuals

The first thing you’ll notice is how striking the visuals are. All characters are nicely drawn anime-style flat 2D sprites juxtaposed on 3D scenarios. This is not new, but I thought it was well executed here. Another thing you’ll notice is that a lot of the dialogue is voiced, and the voice actresses and actors did a great job. They really show personality and bring the characters to life with their voices. Dialogue is witty and well-written, very fitting for the tone of this game.

Tying everything together, there’s a lot of attitude, style and personality, which fits perfectly in a game about non-conformity, transgression, music, finding yourself, and not a love story. There are a handful of nicely animated cutscenes spread across the chapters that help flesh out decisive bits of the story.

Beat and Quaver practicing — Beat and Quaver, our main protagnists

The presentation is great, but a rhythm game is only as good as its gameplay and music. Starting with the music, I liked most of it. It spans a variety of genres, mostly punk pop rock and electronic, and even though I didn’t like every single track, they’re all very well produced and fitting. The gameplay, on the other hand, is what I found a bit lacking.

Most of the time this is essentially an adventure game where you explore a small set of locations and talk to people to advance the story. There are a couple of mini-games that don’t really add anything to the story, and every now and then we have the actual rhythm sections.

Rhythm section of the game — Some rhythm action

The rhythm sections seem to be almost entirely borrowed from Muse Dash. The protagonist runs from left to right and we have to hit the targets that come in her direction at the right time. These are usually mixed with a “fighting game” mechanic, where you have to time your attacks to hit your opponent and avoid getting hit. These rhythm sections are ok and work well, but the timing felt very lenient and not precise, even on the hard difficulty. Sometimes I felt if I simply mashed the buttons I would get through.

One gripe I had is that the game likes to switch the direction you’re facing, from right to left or vice-versa, without warning, and that can be disorienting if you don’t know it’s coming. That felt kind of cheap. Also, I felt there were too few music sections for a game that sells itself as a rhythm game.

One of the “fighting rhythm game” sections — One of the 'fighting rhythm game' sections

Unbeatable is divided into chapters, and, at the end of each one, there’s a climactic set piece sequence. They’re very fun and exciting, maybe the best parts of the game. However, they also suffer from the same lack of precision as the music sections and can also be visually confusing and messy sometimes.

I think messy is a good way of describing this game, in good and bad ways. I appreciate (some) messiness in music and art in general: I think it gives a fundamentally human touch that “perfect” and “clean” art might not have. But this game also feels messy as in unpolished, rough around the edges, maybe even a little incomplete.

Beat exploring the city — Exploring the city

There are many graphical glitches and bugs all over the place. I even got softlocked during a mini-game and had to force-quit and restart the game. The story is also definitely a mess. I know the game really wants to tell an emotional story, but there are so many jumps and cuts, and things that aren’t well explained (or explained at all) that it just makes things confusing. Here’s a summary of the plot:

After the prologue that I mentioned before, we suddenly take control of Beat, the pink-haired vocalist and protagonist of the game. She wakes up under a tree, with no explanation, and is befriended by Quaver, a blue-haired young teenager who’s curious about the guitar case Beat is carrying. She’s curious because, apparently, music is illegal, and so are musical instruments. From there, we go into an adventure where we break the law, beat up a lot of police officers and maybe learn why music is illegal. We also sort of find out where these characters came from, the losses and difficulties they faced.

I usually like this kind of loose storytelling, where everything is kind of vague or implied, and you piece bits here and there to understand the full picture. But for this one it felt a little pretentious and vague for the sake of it.

“Band posters are surprisingly effective at screwing with fascists” — Love these witty remarks

Unbeatable does have problems, but I still liked and enjoyed it for what it is. I’d give it a 6.5/10, recognizing its strenghts and flaws. Unfortunately I don’t think the great presentation and personality of the game overcome its shortcomings, the loose story and sloppy gameplay. But it was still a worthwhile - and even emotional - experience which I’d recommend to people who like music games and love stories.