4.5/5 ★ – BigSliceGaming's review of Road 96.

Valiant Hearts is one of my favorite games of the last decade and this topped it. Playing as various teens throughout the game, you’re working your way toward the border of the fictional country of Petrie as it goes through a heated election between the fascist president Tyrak and his opponent Senator Florres. Throughout your road-trip to Road 96 at the border of Petria, you make choices that influence both your character’s fate and the fate of the election. From enjoying the little heart warming moments of the narrative to being genuinely shocked when one of my character’s stories ended in arrest or death. Without spoiling too many details, I found myself genuinely shocked at one of my characters being arrested by police after failing to hop over the wall at the end of my journey. Every choice you make can influence that character’s fate. But some situations will leave you no choice, as you may need to steal money or food to survive the harsh trip to the border. There are a handful of characters that you meet on your trips that all play a role in the global narrative of the story. All of whom have their own unique stories that you learn between teens. Each teen you play will meet these main characters at various points through the story, piecing together who they are and how they’re related to each other. All of them are performed and written beautifully, and I learned to care about basically every one of them. One of my favorite characters is a runaway girl whose father works for the president. I’ll save the rest of that for you to discover though. The gameplay itself felt like a very typical game of this genre. It doesn’t do anything significantly unique, however it was cool to unlock different abilities from characters that would carry over from teen to teen. These abilities like obtaining a lock pick or learning an energy drink recipe to permanently increase you max stamina are examples of a handful of skills that you learn from the characters you meet. These skills carry over from teen to teen and opens up new opportunities when faced with tough decisions. The narrative of the game is by far the game’s strong suit and it’s one of my favorite stories of the year. I really grew to like these characters, even if every teen I played had no real identity, personality or even a name. I think that was the point though. Your characters are each meant to be another runaway teen starting a revolution. The hero of the story is the group of those teens, their collective effort and influence over their country’s future, and the group of main characters that they serve to aid. I greatly enjoyed this game and I implore you to play it. Don’t look up any walkthroughs or too many spoilers. Just play it for yourself.