There are plenty of rhythm games that want you to tap, swipe and press buttons along to a beat, but Mr. Records really wants you to understand the music.
Developed as a rhythm-action game, Mr Records puts you in the shoes of George, an older gentleman with a genuine love for music. George sits down, puts on a record and lets himself get lost in it. Literally. As the music takes hold, we’re transported into George’s imagination, where the record becomes a rhythm-action sequence. It’s a wonderfully simple premise, but it’s immediately charming because of it.
Each song becomes its own little journey, with 49 tracks planned for the full game and new mechanics introduced gradually as you progress. Rather than throwing everything at you immediately, Mr. Records seems to have a nice learning curve, allowing you to get comfortable with its mechanics before introducing something new.
And then there’s the clever part. Once you’ve completed a track, George doesn’t simply tick it off a list. He feels that he has properly understood the record. That knowledge is then used back in his record shop, Mr. Records.
George’s new business is built around his knowledge of music. Customers will walk into the shop looking for something specific, and it’s then up to you to work out which record is going to satisfy their needs. Get it right and George makes some money. That money can then be used to buy more records to sell, but there’s a catch: George needs to listen to and learn each record before he can actually sell it.
It creates a lovely little loop between the two halves of the game. You listen to music, play through it and learn it, before using that knowledge to run your shop. The better your musical knowledge becomes, the more records you can stock and the more customers you can hopefully satisfy.
It’s a genuinely clever way of tying the rhythm gameplay into the shop management, instead of having the two feel like completely separate modes.
There is some serious challenge here, too. The higher difficulty I played was hard. Very hard, in fact. Once the game starts throwing more demanding sequences at you, keeping up with the music becomes considerably more difficult. But that’s always been part of the appeal of the rhythm action genre.
Mr. Records feels like one of those games that doesn’t need to shout to get your attention. There’s no enormous spectacle or complicated premise. Instead, it has a simple idea, a charming protagonist and a gameplay loop that makes perfect sense once you understand what George is trying to achieve. And I really liked it.
There’s something wonderfully wholesome about playing as an older man who simply loves music and wants to share that passion with other people. The idea that George needs to properly understand a record before he can recommend it to someone makes the shop feel like an extension of his love for music rather than just another money-making mechanic.
After spending some time with Mr. Records at Gamescom, I walked away thinking it was one of those little games that could quietly become a favourite. It’s charming, clever and deceptively challenging, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.
