Of Bird and Cage Reviews
Despite its intriguing, creative premise, playing Of Bird and Cage is a depressing experience. Its humorless, bleak story is coupled with subpar gameplay mechanics and low-quality production values. Whatever thematic chances the game wants to take are undercut by its lackluster presentation. The music alone might be a decent album’s worth of tunes, but it can’t save the pretty terrible game it has to support. It would be hard to recommend Of Bird and Cage to anyone, especially fans of music-based games. Just go listen to your favorite metal band, and make up a story in your head.
Of Bird and Cage is probably one of the most experimental video games to release in recent memory, but just because a game is unique doesn't necessarily mean that it's worth playing. Heavy metal fans are better off picking up an album from their favorite band, and those who love interactive story games should stick to the best of the Telltale games and their ilk. Of Bird and Cage struggles at nearly everything it sets out to do, and its few interesting songs can't save an ultimately disjointed and unremarkable experience.
Of Bird and Cage has a couple concepts to respect in isolation, but that doesn't disregard its head-banging assault on good taste.
While the characters and the story might be good enough for a music video, it's not good enough for a video game. It is clear these are music video characters, sometimes in great emotional scenes, but often feeling two dimensional. The gameplay is sometimes nice, but often lacking in a discernable thread of logic, and is undercut when you see how little influence you have on what is clearly a prescribed set of events.
Of Bird and Cage is a narrative-driven game mixing first-person shooter, environmental puzzle, walking-simulator, driving, platformer, and boxing mechanics - all hammered into the shape of a roughly two-hour-long metal album. A valiant effort by a fledgeling studio with some serious star-power providing tunes to match. But, how does it all fit together?
Bird and Cage appears immediately loose compared to other narrative-driven first-person titles. The story of the game seems to be more suitable for a short music video than a game with a high interactive rate and fun.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Of Bird and Cage is not a good game and I can only think of a small subset of people who might enjoy it: fans of progressive rock with a love of soapy narrative drive titles and an ability to ignore presentation issues. Anyone else should avoid playing the game, even if it is relatively short at around two hours.
Of Bird and Cage presents a very interesting premise that mixes a movie, a metal concert and a game. Unfortunately, it fails to execute this idea, with poorly polished graphics and gameplay and a poor story. The soundtrack is neat and there is a great effort by the developer in this aspect, but it is not enough to sustain the title. It's worth a conceptual experience, but as entertainment, it leaves something to be desired.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
There’s still a lot to appreciate about Of Bird and Cage, such as the music, the tone, the desire to do something like what we almost saw. Hopefully, this isn’t the last from the developers as I respect the drive, but slow down, pull it back, work with the good ideas, and don’t let the music go flat again.
Of Bird And Cage is a great concept for a videogame; real care and attention has been taken to produce a quality metal album that tells a story that provokes an emotional response. With a two hour run time and multiple endings, there is scope for replayability, but as the focus has been squarely put against the soundtrack, other areas suffer. Visually Of Bird And Cage does the job, but the gameplay elements felt rushed, and the lack of direction severely hampered my enjoyment.
As a fan of emotive music and story-driven games like the Life Is Strange series and Tell Me Why, I was excited to see a title like Of Bird and Cage appear on the market. It seemed to promise a blend of deep narrative and powerful music. After watching the trailer, my interest had well and truly been piqued. Check out my rapid review below to find out if this musical endeavour delivered on its promises.
Streamlining it to be more of an immersive walking sim with various morality choices would have fit the flow of the game better. I appreciate what they were going for, I really do. I adore this concept. However, sometimes a great idea doesn’t translate well to a video game.
Of Bird And Cage is a different proposal in which it is the game that revolves around its soundtrack, and not the other way around. Despite its graphical shortcomings, the story it wants to convey and its musical proposal in the form of heavy metal are at a great height. Recommended if you like this musical genre, and also master English.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
This dark depiction of Beauty and the Beast works, but only if you recognize what you’re getting into: a musical experience focusing on an abused psyche desperately trying to break free from known shackles, only to fly right into a cage that represents both prison and freedom.
Making a video game to be the vessel of a music album is a nice new idea in an industry that by each passing day is becoming saturated by same-y products. The problem is that it all ends up being a tired interactive movie with morally questionable parts in its narrative.
Review in Persian | Read full review