Sometimes, a prequel can be a bad idea, but Road 96: Mile 0 provides an enjoyable insight into life in the totalitarian nation of Petria, even if it lacks the clear direction of the original Road 96.
Gameplay
Unlike the original, you don’t leave Petria in Mile 0, and instead of playing as multiple people, you only play as two teenagers, Zoe (whom players of the original game will be familiar with) and Kaito. While both have experienced turbulent childhoods because of the state, they couldn’t be more different. A large part of this narrative-driven adventure game is centred around their friendship and finding an understanding of one another. This aspect feels very similar to games like Life is Strange.
The tone, however, couldn’t be more different and is a little all over the place. You go from deep, meaningful conversations to rebelling against the state to listening in on a bodyguard trying to woo a local celebrity. This is woven with minigames, too, such as creating some graffiti art. Being pulled through such a confusing array of themes and ideas can sometimes leave you feeling a little disjointed. By the same notion, being pulled through a seemingly random assortment of activities feels like real life. It also gives a nice break from the ‘heavy’ stuff, like dealing with a totalitarian regime and its impact on the player characters and supporting cast of NPCs.
With each interaction, there will be choices, and these choices matter – each character has a bar which can influence how things end up – will these teenagers understand one another or not? The choice is yours.
Get your skates on in Road 96: Mile 0
Road 96: Mile 0 is not just a narrative-adventure game, however. It also has aspects of rhythm games, presented in the form of skating. Every so often, a point, idea or dream will be explained in a vibrant array of fast-paced skating, upbeat music and bright colours. These stages are pretty fun, even if sometimes confusing, as you will need to dodge, change lanes, jump, and duck through the course collecting tokens.
Perhaps my favourite, which I think is the most well done, is where Kaito tries to explain to Zoe how bad the state is. You see her view – a town outside the capitol, which is picture perfect and then his, the reality that it’s all propaganda and the town is in ruins. As well as visually interesting, it’s a stark reminder of the power of propaganda and how scary this regime is – even though it’s presented as a cartoon version of a dictatorship.
Audio and visuals
Road 96: Mile 0 keeps the same cartoony, blocky art style of the original. It’s friendly, looks inviting and even feels ‘fun’, which gives you a sense of unease when dealing with the heavier topics the game addresses.
Weirdly, when the music kicks in and the skating begins, the bright colours or variations don’t feel out of place quite so much. I think the art style works perfectly for this, and had they tried realism; these moments would have felt very out of place.
The whole cast does a fantastic job of voice acting, and the sound effects are decent, too.
Final thoughts on Road 96: Mile 0
Road 96: Mile 0 is a confusing romp of how two teenagers relate to each other and the dark world that has shaped them. It is nothing like the original story or gameplay, but the narrative style works perfectly for the prequel story they are trying to tell.
