Writer’s Note: Before starting this piece, I want to note that this piece does contain some spoilers for the 2025 video game “UNBEATABLE”. I would like to give a review of the game without spoilers, however I feel that this is impossible. I can either avoid or skirt around the major twists and turns in the game, but I can’t avoid minor spoilers.
Four years is a long time to wait for anything, if you really think about it. Four years is typically the amount of years it takes to complete an undergraduate degree at a college. Four years is about five-percent of the lifespan of the average person from the United States, as of 2021. A four year wait, especially for a piece of art, can make it go from must-experience to completely irrelevant.
Four years is how long I waited for the full version of D-CELL GAMES’ “UNBEATABLE”, which finally released on Dec. 9, 2025. I had originally discovered it through the part-spin-off, part-tech-demo “UNBEATABLE [white label]” released back in May of 2021.
In my opinion, “UNBEATABLE” was well-worth the wait, and is probably among my favorite games of all time.
From an aesthetic standpoint, “UNBEATABLE” has the sauce, for lack of a more proper term. The art is very stylized and looks amazing, with each of the main cast having their own unique designs while not feeling out of place with each other or the world around it. The music is also amazing, which makes sense because it’s a rhythm game, but the music is so good that the album that the in-game band released (performed by real band peak divide) finished second in my album of the year rankings for 2025.
The story and writing is also great, even top-tier, in my opinion.
“UNBEATABLE” sees Beat, the player character, form and play with the titular band as they face Harmony and Resource Management (better known as H.A.R.M.), a police state which controls all forms of expression. There’s a lot more to the story, such as Beat’s backstory and the inner-workings of H.A.R.M., however those are extreme spoilers that I want you to experience. The only things you need to know for this piece is that UNBEATABLE (the band) have been thrown into the role of revolutionaries and enemy of the state by a state that wants to control expression by any means necessary, and all because they want to make music.
There are two main ideas that “UNBEATABLE” revolves around.
One of them is to just make art. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t even really have to be good, per se. But as long as you (emphasis on you) make it, you can always make it better and it might even connect with people as-is.
Speaking of connection, “UNBEATABLE” also stresses the importance of community. We see multiple times throughout the game where Beat has to help out the people in the places she visits, whether it be working at a bar, playing baseball or getting people out of situations with the cops. We then see all these characters come back throughout the story to help out the band in their endeavors.
While I don’t know when the story was written exactly (although the range is the 2020s I’d imagine), we see the moral become more and more relevant by the day. In our world, there’s a certain group of people that want to take down both art and community, and are willing to do such by any means. So, helping the people around you and just making things just stands in defiance to those people and what they stand for.
Outside of that, the game also shines in the really well-written-and-voice-acted and overall charming character-to-character moments.
Overall, “UNBEATABLE” is an extremely fun game that has a great aesthetic and an amazing soundtrack with a well-written and impactful story. While it may be slightly buggy at points from a gameplay perspective, it’s a game I’d recommend to anyone.
