Mr. Records has a ridiculously catchy soundtrack, but it's also so much more than that

I love rhythm games. I grew up going on seaside holidays and spending every evening on DDR machines, and then going home and playing Rock Band like my life depended on it. I’m always on the lookout for new games that test the limits of the genre, and I think Mr. Records might end up being my favorite rhythm game in years. 

Mr. Records by Glee-Cheese Studio is a rhythm game meets shop simulator filled with music that’s so good and catchy I’m still humming one of the songs to myself an hour after playing the demo. But it’s not necessarily the music that sets it apart for me. I’ve played a lot of rhythm games, and many of them have excellent soundtracks, but Mr. Records has something else: character. 

This isn't Glee-Cheese's first bizarre venture into rhythm games, which explains how they've hit all the right notes with Mr. Records. I've put a few hours into Headbangers over the years, and it feels like they've taken everything I enjoyed about their previous game and poured it into something even more ambitious.

Meet George

Mr. Records is not the main character of the game, but rather the record store in which the game is set. The honor of being the star of this gorgeous hand-drawn game goes to George, an elderly man who’s taking a chance on opening a store to sell the thing he loves most: records. I love that story; taking a chance on doing something that nobody would expect of you is pretty much my ethos at this point, so I can relate. 

Visually, Mr. Records reminds me a lot of Thank Goodness You’re Here!, with its exaggerated hand-drawn characters and distinctly British charm. The rhythm platforming, meanwhile, feels much closer to Super Crazy Rhythm Castle, with George’s movements becoming part of the music as you jump, slide, kick, and generally cause chaos to the beat. 

George can listen to any music and go off on an adventure, which is where the rhythm aspect of the game comes in. As the music plays, you guide George through his adventures to the beat. Every move has a corresponding button and a recognizable sound that merges seamlessly into whichever song you happen to be listening to. 

If you successfully manage to complete a song on normal mode, you can then go on to sell it in the shop during the day. If you complete it on hard mode, which is a staggering jump in difficulty even for the easiest song, you unlock the special edition record that sells for more. George lives and breathes music, and honestly, that’s something else I can relate to, because there are songs tied to every major event in my life. 

And now meet everyone else

In the demo, George opens up the shop for the first time and greets his first two loyal customers. While they’re there, you have to help George figure out what the customers want from their descriptions. Each customer has a little personality that grows remarkably quickly. 

There’s a boy who desperately wants to impress a girl by buying the records that she likes, which is entirely relatable to pretty much everyone, even if the thing you bought wasn’t a record, and an elderly lady who just wants to listen to the music of her past. As someone who is perpetually stuck in the early 2000s post-hardcore scene, music-wise, I can relate. 

There’s also Buzz, George’s dog and best bud, who spends the days curled up in the corner of the shop and the nights curled up next to the piano in George’s apartment. He is an ever-present character who doesn’t add much to the game but manages to be a huge presence. 

And if you were wondering if George had any human friends, there’s Paul, who lives down the street and calls nightly. He also pops in with a record during the demo, which moves me on to my next point, and I feel it is an important one. 

More than music

Every preview or feature I’ve read on Mr. Records focuses almost entirely on the music and how good it is, and I fear that might be the wrong place to focus. I’ve even seen the soundtrack described as one of the best of 2026 already, despite the full 40-song track listing not being available to hear yet.

Look, I get it. Mr. Records is primarily a music-based game, and almost everything I heard in the demo was fantastic. But there’s something incredibly important to remember when talking about music:

People have different tastes.

There will always be tracks that some people love and others don’t like at all, and that is absolutely okay. For me, I loved all of the music in the demo except for one track: Mya. To me, that track sounds too much like it belongs on a TikTok video, but I’m fully aware that someone else could hear it and immediately declare it their favorite.

I’m incredibly excited to hear the full 40+ song track listing when the game is released, but I already know some songs won’t appeal to me while becoming other players’ favorites. That’s why I think focusing so heavily on the quality of the soundtrack risks overlooking what makes Mr. Records really special. 

There’s so much character surrounding the music that I don’t think every track needs to be incredible for the game itself to be.

Mr. Records doesn’t have a release date yet, but the demo was released on September 22, 2026, letting you play through seven songs. You can complete it in as little as 30 minutes, but if you’re determined to get a perfect score on every song (I will defeat Mya if it’s the last thing I do), you can easily get hours of gameplay out of it.

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