Mixtape Review – Stylish, Emotional, & Full of ’90s Charm

Mixtape is a lovingly crafted homage to the ‘90s that hits far more than it misses. The earnestness of the story and cast, combined with the novel implementation of goofy little mini games, makes for a very unique title that’ll probably surprise you in more ways than one.

Having been born in the mid-90s, most of my conscious experience of the era’s pop culture comes from growing up with hand-me-down toys, VHS tapes, and clothes from my older siblings. As a result, I’ve always had a nostalgic affinity for it and a curiosity about what it was like for older individuals to experience those times. Mixtape answers those questions of mine, and does so with the aesthetic of a John Hughes movie in ways that I found more charming than I had anticipated.

As soon as you start Mixtape, the game throws you into its unorthodox action. You’re skateboarding down a hill as the music-obsessed Stacey with your two closest friends, Slater and Cassandra, on the last day before you head your separate ways post-high school. As you skateboard, you’ve got the ability to steer yourself and do a couple of nifty tricks. It’s a creative way to do the opening credits, and it sets the tone for the narrative perfectly. This sets the stage for the rest of the game, which constantly jumps between funny and moving cutscenes, small exploration segments that deepen the setting and character relationships, and unpredictable, highly varied gameplay tidbits.

There are a plethora of comical mini games throughout the title, from controlling two nasty tongues during a first kiss to headbanging to the beat with the press of a button. It felt like every few minutes, a wacky new minigame presented itself to give me a better feel for how the main characters felt or what they were experiencing, and it always worked. I was always caught off guard by how comedic, enjoyable, and even heavy these segments could be, especially since none of them ever lasted long enough to wear out their welcome.

I found myself incredibly surprised by how earnest Mixtape’s tone is. Typically, I end up put off by teenage characters who talk like hipsters and use outdated slang, as it often feels like an older writer’s attempt to make “cool” modern characters. Here, however, that’s sort of the whole point. These are rebellious teenagers in the 1990s – their slang is supposed to be egregiously outdated and silly, and their “too cool” vibe fits perfectly with who they’re desperately trying to be. They aren’t presented as “badass fellow youths” for you to see your current self in, but rather as characters from a specific time period and subculture that no longer really exists in the same way it once did. Stacey even speaks to the camera in a meta way without it coming off as hokey or ill-fitting, instead evoking the vibes of things like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and its ilk.

Mixtape has an incredibly likable cast of characters.

That being said, a game like Mixtape would be dead in the water if the characters weren’t exceptional, and thankfully, they absolutely are. Although I wasn’t even a teenager until the late 2000s, I could deeply empathize with this motley band of misfits as they came to grips with the end of their pre-college years and the difficulties that lay ahead as they transitioned into adulthood. As the game reached its emotional ending, I found myself feeling rather touched by Stacey, Slater, and Cassandra’s bond, despite having only known them for around three or four hours. I was reminded of how tough it is to become an adult and of the things you lose throughout that journey, which is something that I don’t think another game has evoked so effectively.

The visuals and music are a huge part of Mixtape, as you might expect from the title. Each song fits nicely into the section in which it’s used and certainly evokes the eras from which they come, as well as the emotional weight of the moments being portrayed. With music playing such a large part in the narrative, I was thrilled to see an excellent soundtrack used, and I definitely found a few songs I had no clue about that I’ll be adding to my playlists.

The graphical style is reminiscent of the jittery-frame look that really started popping off with Into the Spider-Verse. It works well here and, when combined with the soft and almost dreamy colors, adds to the sense of rose-tinted nostalgia that permeates the game. There are a couple of little moments when the running animations look a bit strange, as though the characters are sliding around due to goofy motion tracking or something similar, but it’s not frequent or especially noticeable.