Like many others, I rarely play games when they first release. I got burned the first few times; bugs, glitches and unfinished content have turned me away from most launch day experiences. “UNBEATABLE” has slowly wormed its way into being my favorite exception.
The first full-length game by developer D-CELL GAMES, ‘UNBEATABLE’ is an anime-inspired rhythm adventure. It was initially released on Dec. 9, 2025 on PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. The pitch? “A game where music is illegal, and you do crimes.”
“UNBEATABLE” shines in its arcade mode and in its soundtrack. Its arcade mode is a sidescrolling, mostly two-input minigame wherein you beat up monsters; it, so I’ve been told, is a lot like “Muse Dash.” The arcade mode is full of tight maps with a wide spread of difficulties.
The game’s aesthetic is strong, with memorable character designs and punchy animations. Beating a chart feels like winning a boxing match. The arcade mode’s ever-shifting leaderboards lend it infinite playtime, and it’s set to get two new songs per month until at least April.
Most of the songs featured in the arcade mode are original songs by Peak Divide; an entire original album was commissioned just for this game, in fact. In addition, the soundtrack is 118 songs showcasing their range across punk, lo-fi, j-rock, EDM and a flavor or two of alternative.
The soundtrack and the album act as a driving force in the plot. We’ll come back to the plot later. For now, I have just a little to say about gameplay during the story.
The story mode itself is excellent. A narrative about grief and the meaning of art is complemented by a breadth of unique rhythm experiences, fully hand-drawn sprites and cinematic scripted setpieces that call back to modern anime.
The gameplay is about evenly split between the arcade mode’s classic sidescrolling, platforming and rhythm setpieces that have you completing a modest variety of tasks. There are concerts, a few rail-grinding sections, some vandalism, fistfights and a lot of baseball.
The dialogue, across most of the game, is fresh, well-written and well-acted. Most. Awkward lines that pop up are not the most notable flaw with this game.
There are purposefully bad minigames, objects that visibly clip through the environment, frame drops, inconsistent animations and just general messes. Few and far between, but still notable. The PlayStation release is waiting on a February patch to make it possible to finish the game.
Yes, for real. On PlayStation, after the last cutscene, the game just freezes on a black screen, never yielding the final story mode achievement or credits. While the next regular support patch aims to address this, it’s not a great look.
Beyond technical problems, the plot is underexplained and paced strangely. But still, after four years waiting, I did not find myself disappointed by any of these flaws.
To put it simply, the thing that makes this story so memorable is its honesty. It’s a game that took seven years to make, and it never really got finished, in a way. And that’s exactly what these characters’ lives are about.
The game’s protagonist and player character, Beat, is a woman whose life has been chronically upended. By grief and by abuse, Beat has found herself without any meaningful relationships or goals in her life.
Beat has lost the band she was once a part of. Beat has lost her family, her job and her home. She has no friends. Music is illegal, and her only possessions are a guitar, a microphone stand and a cassette player. Beat is, herself, once described as “99.9% nothing.”
Over the past seven years, Beat has completely failed to do the one thing she set out to do: release an album. How, exactly, she expected to do that in a world where music is illegal is something you’ll just have to play to find out. The point is that it hasn’t happened.
Beat has had so much trouble because she just can not make music that she thinks is “good.” It’s just what she’s been told. Both about herself and her art. But a game can’t end without some kind of success, and so the moral of this story becomes about bad art.
To be honest, “UNBEATABLE” is honestly kind of a bad game. A kind of bad game about bad music (though, as we’ve established, the tracks they actually use are all certified bangers). It knows that it isn’t always the best, and it’s never afraid to keep you playing.
The game starts with a message: when you try to explain an idea, the idea fundamentally changes. The game starts with beating up cops, and ends somewhere completely baffling. A kind of complete bafflement that made me care about my own art more, even when it’s bad.
It inspired a form of confusion that really stuck with me.
I won’t say this is a good game, but try a bad game. You might just be surprised.
Zien can be reached at [email protected].
