Road 96

 Switch
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 41 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 32 out of 41
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 41
  3. Negative: 6 out of 41
Buy Now
Buy on

Review this game

  1. Your Score
    0 out of 10
    Rate this:
    • 10
    • 9
    • 8
    • 7
    • 6
    • 5
    • 4
    • 3
    • 2
    • 1
    • 0
    • 0
  1. Submit
  2. Check Spelling
view
per page
  1. Manga64
    Aug 17, 2021
    7
    If you are into narrative style games, this is one to check. Graphics is a bit rough around the edges and the frame rate dips can be quite annoying and distracting. But overall, it does enough to keep you hooked for at least a few journeys.
  2. PMG-Writer
    Aug 19, 2021
    7
    Thus, "Road 96" shows itself from an interesting side and is also really fun in places. The plot is very exciting and the possibility to play with the different teenagers and experience their different decisions is very pleasant. At times we felt like we were in a playable movie. The controls work flawlessly and the technology is perfectly fine. In addition, the soundtrack can alwaysThus, "Road 96" shows itself from an interesting side and is also really fun in places. The plot is very exciting and the possibility to play with the different teenagers and experience their different decisions is very pleasant. At times we felt like we were in a playable movie. The controls work flawlessly and the technology is perfectly fine. In addition, the soundtrack can always provide a good atmosphere. If you would like to experience a different game on the Nintendo Switch and PC, you should take a closer look at "Road 96".… Expand
  3. Dyl_lionaire
    Feb 11, 2023
    8
    This game instantly hooked me when I first started playing, for starters I just thought It was a game about crossing a boarder, but the story and characters were completely new to me and I was all for it, while the political aspect was good I thought it could've been handled better and no so cutthroat.
  4. SourRamen
    May 20, 2023
    8
    Great storytelling of a cross-country journey. The characters you meet along your hitch-hiking travels are persuasive and enjoyable, though you don't get to choose who you meet next. That's fine for the most part, but sometimes you just want to follow one characters story more than another.
    The unknown trek ahead means you always have to be ready for whatever encounter you may have. You    Great storytelling of a cross-country journey. The characters you meet along your hitch-hiking travels are persuasive and enjoyable, though you don't get to choose who you meet next. That's fine for the most part, but sometimes you just want to follow one characters story more than another.
    The unknown trek ahead means you always have to be ready for whatever encounter you may have. You might need an abundance of cash, or a certain range of skills, or an amount of energy to commit to a task. It keeps you constantly aware of what might happen, engaged in what items you could pick up or what choice may or may not benefit you. It is as much luck as it is preparation. At times the journey can feel a little meaningless and drawn out, though the engagement with the characters and mini games can give you something to do.
    The overarching plot an backstory, a tyrannical political climate, shapes the characters in different ways. How some characters are connected to others through similar or competing worldviews gives them a realistic touch of humanity. It's a calming, yet impactful game that connects you with those you meet along the way. Worth playing.    … Expand
  5. Geist06
    Aug 18, 2021
    8
    Point, Click, and Navigate in this narrative game package. Great soundtrack. Good voice acting. Graphics dip around but game works wonders on the handheld.
  6. Nintenderek
    Jan 8, 2022
    9
    Road 96 is a fantastic game with a fantastic story. If you are a fan of games story driven games where you make a lot of choices like Life is Strange and Telltale games, this game may be for you. And if you have had trouble getting into those types of games, this one may still be worth giving a try as it's much more interactive than those types of games usually are.

    Each segment    Road 96 is a fantastic game with a fantastic story. If you are a fan of games story driven games where you make a lot of choices like Life is Strange and Telltale games, this game may be for you. And if you have had trouble getting into those types of games, this one may still be worth giving a try as it's much more interactive than those types of games usually are.

    Each segment usually has you making a few choices, interacting with a different character and playing a few "minigames," as one might call them. At one point this involves playing air hockey against one of the other characters and another one of them has you helping a character find the right broadcast signals for their TV by moving the antenna around. These types of interactions really help liven up the game a bit, making it more interactive than your typical "interactive movie" style game. In fact, even though it's a choice driven game, I'd have trouble referring to it as an "interactive movie," because there is so much actual gameplay involved.

    The characters are easy to connect to, with a lot of strange personalities and humor. You take several trips across the country that the game takes place in and each trip is completely random. You'll never take the same trip twice. This sounds more impressive than it actually is however, as it's mostly pulling from the same 80 or so scenes and putting them in a random order, however the randomness of that order can affect how those scenes progress, giving more reason to come back and replay the game. There's also several endings and I have at this point replayed the story of this game four times trying to get every ending. There is a lot of replay ability here. The story itself is also quite interesting and I find myself intrigued by the political aspects, which are quite heavy within the story.

    And it would be wrong of me to not mention the soundtrack. I'm not usually one to notice sound tracks in video games but this one is particularly good. I find myself humming the tunes in every day life, even when I'm not playing the game. However, when it comes to the graphics, there's not much particularly impressive. Some of the environments are pretty and nice to look at, but there's a lot of pop-in and the textures, while certainly not horrible, aren't particularly impressive either. Graphically, this almost looks like something out of the Wii/PS3/360 era. I however did not notice any issues with frame rate or performance and it seemed to do quite well on the Switch.

    All in all, I was impressed that such an amazing game could have been made by such a small team and this game is the perfect example of how good an indie game can be. The main story is probably about 10-15 hours, but there's so many reasons to go back and at this point I've probably spent closer to 30-40 hours on the game. Would strongly recommend to almost anyone.    … Expand
  7. btmgov
    Aug 27, 2021
    8
    Overall, a pretty captivating package. Some stutters and bumps in the road, but nothing to get up in arms over. Plays much better in docked mode than handheld. Fairly interesting story lines across all main characters. Replay value is pretty high.
  8. Tom_Supreme
    Aug 19, 2021
    8
    The game looks a rough around the edges and the controls are a bit clunky sometimes but that can be neglected because the characters are so well written and alive. Road 96 has a high replay value and I will start the journey through Petria again to see what happens when my decisions are different from the first time.
  9. aidanmccc
    Aug 19, 2021
    9
    Road 96 is a great game that will keep you entertained the whole time with highly likeable characters and a great soundtrack.
  10. SmogUA
    Aug 22, 2021
    10
    Great game, I like the storytelling way and soundtrack. I am enjoying the journey in this game.
  11. Reciter5613
    Oct 18, 2021
    8
    This was a fun journey to go through more than once. It had interesting characters and surprises.

    The graphics were a bit lacking and sometimes glitchy but didn't get in the way of the gameplay. The only issue with this was sometimes your sight was wobbly when making a choice it could sometimes make you pick the wrong thing. One major issue I had was sometimes when you start with a    This was a fun journey to go through more than once. It had interesting characters and surprises.

    The graphics were a bit lacking and sometimes glitchy but didn't get in the way of the gameplay. The only issue with this was sometimes your sight was wobbly when making a choice it could sometimes make you pick the wrong thing.

    One major issue I had was sometimes when you start with a new character the first encounter could only end with the choice that depleted your energy and ends with getting arrested. That was frustrating.

    But overall, I hope to see more story-driven games like this.    … Expand
  12. vodkaffee
    Mar 28, 2022
    9
    great game, always throwing new mechanics at your face, there are a lot of them, but there is no dip in quality, everything is very polished. It has some rough edges when it comes to mo-cap and some actors but overall is a great experience worth of your time
  13. sssdf
    Aug 31, 2021
    8
    Great game with a super story, some rogue-like experiences, nice and memorable characters. You can expect that every journey you make is different. But the graphic quality on the switch was not really the best.
  14. BrianDavid94
    Sep 1, 2022
    8
    Quick background on me the reviewer, I tend to like single player games that is heavy on narrative the most. I also play a lot of racing games and use to play multiplayer games in my high school days but now that it's hard for me and my friends to find a good time to link up so now it’s more rare for me to get into a multiplayer game. Up to try any genre of games and sometimes I findQuick background on me the reviewer, I tend to like single player games that is heavy on narrative the most. I also play a lot of racing games and use to play multiplayer games in my high school days but now that it's hard for me and my friends to find a good time to link up so now it’s more rare for me to get into a multiplayer game. Up to try any genre of games and sometimes I find something new that I didn't think I'd like. I own a PC (built by me), Xbox One X, Xbox Series X, PS3, PS4, PS5, and a Switch. I prefer Playstation due to their focus on narrative games. For scoring, I’ll be using the Gameinformer review scale and of course influenced by my personal opinions.

    (8) Very Good. Innovated, but perhaps not in the right choice for everyone. This score indicates that there are many good things to be had, but arguable so.

    I just happened to give this game a try and I ended up enjoying this game. It reminded of that middle school video game that you played called, Oregon Trail. You’re hitchhiking to the border and run into random events that you have to make important decisions that may help you or may not help you to get to the border. There are multiple ways to hitchhike to the border and unlike the AAA games your choices have a significant impacts which makes it worth replaying repeatedly and it’s made that way. Whatever you do just make sure to continue playing the game even if you make it to the border. The only reason I’m not giving this game a higher score is because there isn’t much in the way of gameplay, movement is rough around the ages so other than a narrative reason there isn’t much I can go on to recommend this game to someone. This game has a good sound track and voice acting too.    … Expand
  15. george_bondo
    Jul 24, 2022
    9
    this game is just perfect with that beautiful music , characters and atmosphere
  16. Yaters
    Nov 2, 2022
    10
    Such a Beautiful Ride from the start the music coupled with the beautiful visuals with your decisions shaping the journey making it an incredibly emersive experience that everyone should enjoy that gives it a chance!
  17. xamrah
    Aug 18, 2021
    4
    I may come back and edit this later, I'm only half way through right now.

    I have the game on switch, and it holds a nice steady 12 fps. Exaggerated obviously, but the frame rate is extremely distracting. If the game was at least a stable 30 all the time it might be a better experience. The gameplay is honestly minimalistic., Bordering on being boring. You will get a few dialogue options    I may come back and edit this later, I'm only half way through right now.

    I have the game on switch, and it holds a nice steady 12 fps. Exaggerated obviously, but the frame rate is extremely distracting. If the game was at least a stable 30 all the time it might be a better experience.

    The gameplay is honestly minimalistic., Bordering on being boring. You will get a few dialogue options in each section usually followed by a mini game of sorts. These mini games are shallow, and usually very very easy trial and error types. Some have been better, but they are still fairly obvious as to how to beat them.

    The dialogue is... Weird. Which is why you are playing this type of game in my opinion. the voice acting is mediocre to bad, but a good script can do wonders. There are parts that surprise me, but mostly I'm thinking "why tare they saying that?" Or else the NPC answer won't perfectly match what you asked, meaning they would have answered the same way no matter what you asked, removing the illusion of choice.

    The characters are very diverse and pretty interesting actually. They are easily the best part of the game. I'm very interested in their backstories, some more than others, as some of them feel like you know everything there so to know about them after one interaction (looking at you Alex). This is because the dialogue beats you over the head with an overly specific story of that character's life. Most characters are vague and make you want to play again to learn about them though. In fact that's the only reason I haven't dropped the game already, I want to know the motivation of some of these characters, but I can tell I won't have to wait long, and then the fun will be over.

    The gameplay loop of dying or failing is a good idea, but it is waaay to short in practice. It took me 15 minutes to fail my first time, then thirty minutes to cross the border my first time. There is also only a small challenge in managing resources, as most choices are pretty obviously a good idea or a bad one. Only at the end do you think maybe I should have done this different. Until then, choices don't matter much.

    All in all, it feels like a rushed game, made by a somewhat talented group with a good idea but no money.    … Expand
  18. Vikiren
    Mar 31, 2022
    0
    ringrazio tutti i ragazzi della Digixart,questa perla è frutto di tanto amore e passione,tantissimi minigiochi contestualizzati,una storia lineare,ma ricca di personaggi che rimarranno nel cuore di molti,musiche Fantastiche.. Grazie grazie grazie!
  19. Samwisethesmall
    Apr 13, 2023
    7
    Great game but I feel like it has a lot less randomisation than the trailer suggests. Go in expecting a tight story driven game where you become multiple faceless protagonists and get to know multiple characters through the eyes of each protagonist.

Awards & Rankings

53
#53 Most Discussed Switch Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. PLAY! Zine
    Nov 16, 2021
    70
    In order to enjoy this game to the fullest, you’d have to be a teenager, still trying to find yourself while having a clear political view. Sounds terribly specific? No sweat. Loving adventures and rogue lite games should also prove useful when it comes to liking Road 96. It’s a good game, just not for everyone.
    Read full review
  2. Nintendo Force Magazine
    Nov 8, 2021
    75
    Even if the writing and characters were somewhat weak at times, Road 96 was still a heart-pounding emotional road trip that doesn't pull any punches. You might win freedom, but what will you end up losing in the end? [Issue #56 – November/December 2021, p. 24]
  3. GameCritics
    Oct 8, 2021
    80
    It’s bizarre, to say the least, and I can only assume it works better on PC (I played on Switch). I also experienced a few framerate dips, though they never detracted from the overall experience. However, those issues don’t get in the way of telling a simple, effective story of survival in a harsh country. Its politics might be a bit too idealistic and simplified for my taste, but I have yet to see another interactive experience tackle these themes more directly than this. It may be based on hitchhiking, but this is definitely a trip worth taking.
    Read full review
See all critic reviews »