While perhaps just a bit heretical in the eyes of devoted fans of classic JRPGs, I’ll admit that more often than not I’ve tended to get bored by them, mostly when it comes to combat. Thankfully, many have been wise enough to try to spice things up with some timed actions that can enhance your attacks or help you weather enemy blows, but over 20+ hours being locked into what’s typically very repetitive combat still takes some wind out of my sails. Throw in a pretty common adherence to traditional stories, art styles, and flow, and while there’s a very good reason these titles have continued to find success, they have also become quite familiar.

Bless indie developers who are willing to shake things up pretty thoroughly with titles like Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands. Sure, from a very pulled out view, this still remains a pretty traditional RPG in the sense that you’ll be working with your party of differently-abled characters, who’ll be on a generalized quest, and who’ll continue to be engaged in some form of combat against the relative forces of evil… but once you begin to take in the details it’s all refreshingly unique as well. Your party is made of a trio of old friends and bandmates who aren’t noble warriors, they’re just hungry musicians trying to make the best of life. Rather than being on a quest to save the world, or anything remotely so grandiose, they’re bound by an infernal contract that was only supposed to get them into a battle of the bands, now trying to survive. Finally, while the combat may still be turn-based, there’s a measure-based element that brings their musical inspirations into play, and that adds a refreshing element of strategy to the mix.

While that all serves to help pretty traditional play feel a little more modern and unique, it's the game’s overall personality that then helps to seal the deal. You won’t merely go into houses in search of things to plunder, you’ll be violently kicking doors in (for no particular reason), and that can sometimes elicit a laugh as you see the door lodged into the wall or more problematic spots once inside. You’ll accumulate a pretty substantial number of different skills and patches that you’ll need to carefully consider, customizing each member of your group and hopefully working out how best they’ll be able to compliment one another. By choosing each member’s class mod you’ll not only have additional bonus incentives, but that will also change up their look, which is a great touch. There’s just something so silly, smart, and refreshing to this game that it was a real joy to play, especially since it sits as an outlier to the rest of the genre in many ways, but also manages to be more polished than the likes of other oddballs like YIIK: A Postmodern RPG and Saturday Morning RPG before it.