recent Role-playing musical “The Wandering God” Launched their first DLC: Orpheus Available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch. The story follows Orpheus, newly resurrected from the dead, as he attempts to find his place in the world with the help of our lovely Hermes.
The game features the same cool art and great voice acting as the original, but lacks emotional depth. One playthrough isn’t enough for Stray Gods, and Orpheus doesn’t keep drawing me in in the same way.
In the end, I think it was just a lack of time with the characters. I think the DLC might work better as a complete sequel to the game rather than a short mini-story.
The quality of the game is still great. If you like the general gameplay of Stray Gods, this is the same. If you’re not familiar, the game is a visual novel musical.
As the song plays, you can choose to take the song in a variety of different directions. My favorite song so far has to be the one in the scene where Orpheus attempts speed dating. It’s easy, fun, and you can go in so many different directions with each new person.
I do like that you can use past saves to influence some dialogue. I really wish there was an option to select these. For example, I don’t have a save file that leaves Orpheus on the throne of Hades, so I’d have to play Stray Gods again to make that happen just to see how things would look in this DLC after making the choice . I wouldn’t mind playing Stray Gods again, but there are only so many save files.
Overall, this game left me feeling unsatisfied. The story was so rushed since it was just a DLC and when I read to the end I felt like I hadn’t really gone anywhere. Literally the first game I played got to the ending and I was blown away, that was it.
To me, Orpheus didn’t really have much of a character journey, and his relationship with Hermes didn’t serve much purpose. As far as Hermes is concerned, they just directed different people to Orpheus to help him, so while they were very supportive and obviously concerned about what would happen to Orpheus, Hermes felt like they were trying to be more hands-off .
I would love to have a scene where Orpheus and Hermes actually do something together, maybe even a song between the two, with Hermes showing Orpheus what the modern world has to offer. I did also think one major character was missing, Persephone. I know they talk about some stuff in the Wandering God song, but I would have loved her being in all of this.
Which brings me to my main thought, which is that this will be a fantastic sequel to Stray Gods, not DLC. Following Orpheus’s journey throughout the game would have alleviated the story issues I had.
At the end of The Wandering God, Persephone mentions that things are changing for Hades, which would provide a great starting point for this new story. Exploring Hades and the modern world with Orpheus would be a lot of fun and could have some very interesting story moments.
Let’s face it, having Orpheus burned to death by the god Hades just to save his kingdom, possibly along with the goddess who killed Hades, is the story Orpheus is looking for in this DLC.
At the end of the day, this game is just as good as Stray Gods. Everything was just right, the story fell a little flat for me.
While I’ll go back and replay Stray Gods many times, this DLC just doesn’t engage me in the same way. Orpheus is a great legend who ultimately deserves an entire game. I’d give it a 7/10 because the quality of the art, voice work, and music help offset some of the other issues I had.
