Sayonara Wild Hearts

Sayonara Wild Hearts' music and art combine for a stirring, unique experience.

Sayonara Wild Hearts has moments of brilliance, but too often, movement and timing issues disrupt its enchanting aesthetic.

Maybe this is perfume, following the shape of the breeze. From top-note to drydown, vividly here and then vividly gone.

Sayonara Wild Hearts feels like the perfect game to relax to just before going to bed, with hopes of washing my dreams with the pink-purple colors of a neon sunset, surrounded by beautiful people who fight as if they’re falling in love.

Sayonara Wild Hearts crackles with style, but is an ultimately inconsequential ride

I think Sayonara Wild Hearts reminded me of all the cool things I’ve liked over the years, because it’s not saying anything deeper than “Cool things are ****** great, and being cool is great too.” Which is fine. It’s all said in this incredibly alluring wash of pink and blue and purple, this brief flowerbloom of a game, this stylish, inescapably cool thing that references Tarot without, you know, trying too hard about it.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is what you'd get if Robyn ran the Grid from Tron. A stunning collection of music, action, heart, and radiant setpieces, it's easily one of the most inventive and unpredictable games of 2019. And it could have been one of the best too if only the developers had made the decision to present this album as a whole upfront rather than take players through it track by track.

It’s undeniably cool, and if it’s not your thing, then Sayonara Wild Hearts is like, whatever. It wants to take whoever does love it and ride off into the neon sunset with them.

Despite its short length, this is still very much a trip worth taking.

Sayonara Wild Hearts is the video game equivalent of Prince: it's extremely short and its journey maybe ends a little sooner than you'd hoped, but it packs so many varied and beautiful ideas into its brief life and masters so many different styles that even though there's a real disappointment it's over so quickly, what it did give you will remain with you for an extremely long time. A true creative masterpiece.