Mixtape Review
This so much more than a Nostalgia Grab
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN DISCUSSIONS involving SPOILERS FROM THe Game. CONSIDER WHEN AND WHERE IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO READ THIS PIECE.
Platforms
We Reviewed our copy of Mixtape on Steam.It is currently also available on Playstation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X and Series S.
Wow. I’m speechless. This is not a game, it’s a cinematic experience and Mixtape just dropped onto my lap at exactly the right time that I needed it. You know how when you’re growing up as a kid, your parents likely spewed the whole “you’ll understand one day when you’re older” tagline to justify their parental decisions? It would make your blood boil and you vowed that you’ll never be as rigid and narrow minded in your way of thinking when you get to their age. When you’re a teenager, our lives are at such a raw and exposed stage where experience has not quite yet molded the trials and tribulations that warp our souls with wear and reality. The structureness and restrictive habits of adults often clash with the teen phase of self discovery. It’s extremely difficult to put into words what that transition from the wide-eyed teen identity into that of the uniformity of adulthood is like because the honest truth is most of us adults have long forgotten those intense hormonal emotions that trigger from a pureness of desire to find one’s self. When you’re in high school, your social circle feels like the entire world where every little decision and moment could determine your whole fate. When you look back at those times of youth in hindsight, it all seems so trivial in scale now. But the truth is it wasn’t. Those experiences of growth were just as instrumental and important as anything in adulthood. That’s why this game is a godsend. A gift for my soul if I’m truly accepting of what I’ve grown into. It’s a reminder of what was and I hope everyone gets a chance to experience it too.
Revisiting a time of youth
Teenagers up to no good
Mixtape is an indie game by Annapurna Interactive released on all major platforms that many reviewers and people would claim is aimed at the Millennial or Gen-X nostalgia crowd. While I inherently went into the game with that same belief, I quickly realized that this game was significantly deeper than that shallow analysis would perceive it to be. Mixtape tells a story about three high school friends on their last day together in their suburban town before they go off on their separate ways post-high school. You can look at it as a loss of innocence as it can also be interpreted as the last day of their youth. You mainly “play” as Stacey Rockford, a music-addicted teenager in the mid-1990’s as she executes her plans of having the greatest last day ever with her best friends Van Slater, and Cassandra Morino. I put play in quotation marks because you’re merely guiding the characters when prompted to for the most part. Yes these events are like mini-games that pop up between the cut scenes, but don’t go into Mixtape expecting a complicated or trying endeavor that engages your gaming skills. This is a movie or a tv show that happens to let you control the characters to explore for some deeper backstories within the environment.
The story details aren’t important. In about 4 hours, Mixtape delivers enough to make you cherish the bonds between the cast. That’s all I need to say about it. This is an experience that needs to be seen and heard for yourself and I don’t need to dive too deep into what’s happening to convey why this game is special. The plot is nothing revolutionary or unique for a coming of age story, but the developers knew exactly how to put the story together to push the emotions they were hoping to show. It’s a compact playthrough that I finished in exactly 4 hours, but it’s just the right amount of time for this experience without it becoming tacky or stale.
In terms of art design, Mixtape blends a bit realism with the somewhat 3D cell shaded look that was popularized by Sony’s Spider-Verse. I think it looks great and the use of camcorder footage and scanlines at specific times adds to the vibe of that era. The game is aesthetically pleasing to look at that is for sure. It’s an animated film disguised as a video game.
There’s a lot of classic hits in the soundtrack of Mixtape. I mean it’s a focal point of the story and our characters live and breathe music. Like most teens in the 80’s and 90’s, music was an anchor for their emotions. It was a gateway to express what their minds and hearts were exploring with every new experience they gained. I bet most people will be talking about the music aspect of this game and rightfully so. It’s a fantastic experience that was curated with meticulous intent. I felt each track and I could also dissect why the track mattered for the story beat it was assigned to by Stacey. Very clever by the developers.
There’s also plenty of little mini-games that are basic, but enjoyable to peruse through when the narrative comes across it. From skipping rocks in a lake, to painting a door, everyone of these games has a purpose within the narrative. They’re memories for these characters that shaped their bond as they reminisce about their time together in this small town. These are precious times that are fleeting as they go their separate ways after this one last night together. We get to experience the gravity of this impending change as we play these memories through flashbacks that trigger by interacting with things like a polaroid or a couch. As the plot progressed and we got to experience a few of these memories, I began correlating this game to another teen story from my own childhood memories.
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Music plays a pivotal role in Stacey’s life
When I was in school during a rainy day or when a substitute teacher was lazy, I remember the old bulky televisions being rolled out on a cart and the iconic 80’s film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off being played to occupy our time. It’s kind of ironic looking back at why they’d play a movie about skipping school while we were in school. Many people my age saw that movie as a benchmark for the teenage coming of age story. Skipping school, being delinquents for maybe the final time together. It all felt very familiar because Mixtape exudes exactly those same fundamental ideas. It channels Ferris Bueller and the imminent threat of change so eerily similar that it's haunting for me to rekindle my own feelings regarding that window of time in my life. I had all but left that behind and forgotten those feelings. Those last minutes with people you’ve known for what was essentially your whole life suddenly about to explode and splatter across the world, never knowing if you’ll see those faces again. Nothing as you knew it to be will ever be the same again. How could it be? That part of life is coming to an end. Yet it hasn’t ended yet. Whether it was the last week before graduation like in Ferris Bueller, or the last night before one of your best friends heads to New York to pursue her dream, this is all a rite of passage we’ve gone through too in our real lives.
That’s what I truly appreciate Mixtape for. It understands this and it respects it. It doesn’t downplay this moment or make it seem trivial in hindsight. As I was experiencing Mixtape there was a moment that triggered a feeling in me I had not felt or thought about in many years. As I left my teen years and progressed into adulthood, I had promised myself that I would remember exactly how it felt like to be trivialized by adults. All of what I went through in school and growing up in my home, constantly being told that there was a world outside of high school and that my problems were small and would ultimately mean nothing- it irked me. I told myself I would never do that to my own child and that I would remember what they were going through when they got to this phase of life because I too had felt that. Those feelings were real and they mattered.
Alas, fast forward decades later and I’m closer to 40 years of age than I am 30 and with a son of my own now. In Mixtape, there isn’t really an antagonist, but there is a schism between Cass and her father who is a police officer. He’s a minority who says he sacrificed everything to give her daughter the means to succeed and blend in with their community in America. We see what he perceives as guidance by placing his daughter in activities that elevate her status. However, in the eyes of the teenagers that we experience this story from, this father is controlling his daughter’s life to the point where she has nothing in her life she can truly consider of her own accord.
This really hit me hard watching this play out. Not that long ago I completely understood and sympathized with Cass and the teenagers. This parent is forcing his own agenda on his daughter. He’s deciding who she can and cannot be friends with. Yet I also completely understand his perspective now that I’m a father. If I saw my son start vandalizing houses, or drinking underaged outside of a mart, my instinct would be to react in a similar manner.
This was a harrowing reminder of how much I’ve changed. How much life has has worn on me. I’m not saying the me now and the mindset I have now is incorrect. I’m merely stating that I’ve lost a nature in me that saw life in a way that I cannot now as man nearing the middle years of his life.
The cynic In us
It seems like this game has a dramatic split between people who seem to find it to be a masterpiece in storytelling, and one that finds it to be shrouded in controversy over the lack of traditional gameplay mechanics. To me gaming is another form of storytelling. It could even be the strongest of the visual mediums for storytelling. What makes a video game? Is it competitiveness? Is it the ability to challenge one’s skillset? There are plenty of games for those purposes. Can a video game be merely a transcending emotional experience? I always resonated with narratives and story-driven games. The Final Fantasy epics, the Telltale Games catalogs, these are games that were able to influence my emotional core like a great film or television show could. It could be the default screenwriter nature in me, I don’t care if my control over the characters are minimal. I don’t care if the game wasn’t challenging for my hand-eye coordination.
My own personal high school experience wasn’t an exact match to the protagonists in Mixtape. I didn’t go drinking at parties in the woods, or sneak out at night. I also wasn’t a huge music lover in my youth either. Yet I still found this game to be deeply moving and relatable. You don’t have to be an 80’s or 90’s kid to understand what these characters are going through. I was a high school senior 20 years after Ferris Bueller and yet I still understood exactly how Cameron felt when he had to confront his father man to man for the first time in his life. Teenagers will always be teenagers no matter the generation. Life will always push us to face similar rites of passages.
For me, Mixtape was a reminder to be more forgiving. To be less judgmental. I’m a grumpy old man now. Right before playing this game, I would see teenagers being rowdy with their friends riding around town with their e-bikes and I would get annoyed at the sight. I see a high school kid litter outside of an In-N-Out as if they were shooting hoops and bricking off the trash bin. I cringe and roll my eyes. But the reality is that these are just teenagers being teenagers and that’s okay.
I had done the very thing I told myself I would never do. I’d forgotten what it was like to be young and on the cusp of developing independence. Those days of hopefulness. Those moments of genuine bonding without monetary influence. Consequences in life are real, but youth affords us the opportunity to test the boundaries of what’s right and what’s wrong. These kids aren’t committing these acts because they’re bad in nature. They’re exploring life because they’re trying to find it in their own way. Spending a day with Slater, Cass, and Stacey- their last day, made me remember that. I hope I don’t forget it again, but if I ever do, I now know where to go to remember that feeling.
The last day of their youth
Alex
With nearly a decade under his belt running his video production team, and countless hours traveling the country to report on pop culture events during his tenure as a contributor for AXS Examiner, Alex has relied on a lot of gadgets over the years. That still hasn’t satiated his need to get his hands on the newest and greatest the world has to offer!