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Once upon a rhyme there were no story-songs in Norwyn. Mythics appeared from Aurora Kor. These mythics are Sogvar who delights in the glory of great heroes, Fars & Dram who are the masters of laughter and tears, Mar The Queen of Terror, and Koda the voice of inspiration. Mar seized control of the dreams of Norwyn, and it’s up to you, Skaii, a ski-strapped adventurer, to subdue her and enjoy story-songs written in your honor!

Skaii is not alone; Koda will guide her through the snowcapped mountains and tell stories about the mythics along the way. To save Norwyn, Skaii will have to win over all of the mythics with her bravery and conquer their challenges. Once they are on your side, you’ll get to hear different perspectives of the story-songs. The story telling is fascinating and a bit dark at times as the murder of children is described.

As Skaii is being told stories, she’ll be skiing and dodging various obstacles by jumping over them, switching lanes, or leaning to stay out of harm's way. Sometimes skeletal foes or trees will need to be hacked away with Skaii’s sword. In a nutshell, Skaii will be skiing, slashing, avoiding obstacles, all while being told stories.

Fresh Tracks is a rhythm roguelike, so each trip will be unique. Before embarking on your journey you can check your equipment and select which mythic you want to accompany you. Not only do mythics provide different story telling perspectives, they also offer different gameplay boosts like adding or subtracting health hearts or enabling you to retry a song if you fail (encore). If Koda is your guide, boss battles will be easier.

As you complete acts in the game, you’ll unlock different weapons and skiis for Skaii. The skiis and weapons also have different gameplay perks, so you’ll have to make tough decisions on which ones to equip. I like the ability of the default sword, Vygor, to heal you once charged.

You can play songs during a rouguelike-style journey or you can do tracks individually. In order for songs to be available in quick play mode you’ll have to experience them first during your journey and then unlock them with Ekkos. As you’re skiing you’ll get to collect Whyspers which is temporary currency that is only valid at merchants during your journey. When you die, you’ll lose all of your Whyspers. Ekkos are earned the same way, but are less frequent, and stay with you until spent on new gear or spent to buy unlockable songs.

The journey typically consists of a couple of songs and then an option to visit a merchant to spend Whyspers on temporary boosts, do a couple more songs and then complete a boss challenge, and then repeat until you die or save Norwyn. When choosing songs, you’ll have to factor in the difficulty level and perks they provide. Some will fully heal you, give you Whyspers or Ekkos, or add a heart fragment to your health bar. The song difficulties are Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert In the game options you can filter out Easy and Expert level songs if desired. Upon completing a song, your highest score will be recorded and you’ll get a ranking of Legendary, Epic, Fabled, Heroic, Brave, or Unsung.

In total there are twenty-eight songs to unlock, and I love the variety of them. During my stream I wasn’t too impressed with the pop-like songs, but once I heard the rock songs after the first boss battle I was hooked and bought the two-hour long soundtrack on Steam for $8.99. There are hip-hop songs as well, but my favorite ones are the rock songs by far.

Fresh Tracks uses professional voice actors for the mythics, and it really gives them life and personality. I found Fars & Dram to be the most entertaining to listen to while Koda is very calm and relaxed. I like how many of the songs have lyrics that fit in with the story being told.

The visuals are neat and I like the art style and variety in levels. The obstacle animations are well timed to the beat, and they ramp up in difficulty as expected with harder songs. The weapons look cool (or hot if using Fyerbrand) too!

Fresh Tracks is Steam Deck verified which is great. However, without the cloud save feature I will likely not install it there. I manually transferred my saves between my desktop and laptop which is a bit of a hassle.

In total there are twenty Steam achievements available, and in order to get most of them you’ll have to play through multiple journeys using each of the mythics. Given how fun this game is and how good the music is, it shouldn’t be too much of a chore. I just gotta get better at playing the harder songs.