my fingers are sore but my ears are thriving
I love rhythm games. I love em a whole lot. I'm not the best at em, but I'm pretty good. So when I see a friend of mine playing one that has a really nice art style and has monsters? I'm interested For Sure. (then said friend gifts the game to me cause I'm poor and they are a wonderful, Wonderful person).
Rift of the Necrodancer is more of a Guitar Hero like rhythm game; my experience mainly lies in things like Theatrhythm or Taiko, so it's a bit of a learning curve (the last time I played Guitar Hero was with Warriors of Rock during the PS3 days). I also haven't played the original Crypt of the Necrodancer, nor was I SUPER familiar with it? So this was a pretty new experience for me. Let me share my thoughts, as I do.
Very unique. Like I said, it's SUPER Guitar Hero like; but instead of notes, it's monsters that all have different patterns (the activatable point increase still exists). They took their dungeon crawler and turned it into a traditional rhythm game, and I think they absolutely succeeded with that. Food items to heal your health, traps to adjust enemy behavior, it absolutely feels like that transition was clean.
I do have a couple problems with it though. Now, before I go into this; I did actually beat this game a couple weeks ago, but I know how rhythm games go. You HAVE to grind them, get used to the mechanics, and get slowly and slowly better. Hell, I know from writing this post I am going to improve. But at my current point, I feel like the two biggest problems with the game are the 3 lanes, and the visual overload.... which I guess could be combined into one general idea of "overcompression".
With only 3 lanes, especially on the higher difficulties, there's A LOT of enemies, and with the angle you're given, as well as the beat indicators being a shadow, it's really hard to tell who is where, what the patterns are, and also to execute it properly. I only got 3 fangors they can't dance that well. HOWEVER. I do recognize there are fixes to these problems. You can adjust controls. I personally have been trying my best to use two hands, but it's hard to learn. I also think this would benefit from something like a fightstick, unironically?
When it comes to not really being able to figure out what's what, I would say this drawback is one side of a coin, the other side being something I applaud the game for. The trick is to learn the music. I know that feels obvious, like what rhythm game has you NOT learn the music? But like... I feel like the notes are very well linked to the track itself, so once I figure out the melodies, I can rely on my ears, rather than my eyes (I still need my eyes). Something about this game feels like it very much rewards you for feeling the beat and the groove with super fun combos. Although, at least in my personal experience, sometimes things like traps or the stranger enemy movements can still really get in the way of this and create more overload for my fingers and eyes. I acknowledge that's a skill issue though. (I'm reading this paragraph back and I think it's obvious how limited my rhythm game experience is)
There's 2 other bits of gameplay unlocked in the story mode. Minigames and boss battles. I love the minigames so much, they feel just like Rhythm Heaven, which is one of my favorites. The boss battles are a wonderful mix of Punch-Out and Osu, which is amazing, something I would have never thought of but it works really well. Both of these also have hard modes which is awesome; the minigames work really well, but I still to this day do not comprehend the hard boss battles.
One last thing I wanna talk about that I love is the custom music. GIves a bunch of replayability to the game, which is so essential for a rhythm game. I made my own track (self-promotion); while the editor felt kinda clunky at first (It's a holdover from the last editor from what I've heard so I get it), I got the hang of it quickly. That's something I never thought I'd enjoy doing, but honestly I might make more.
This is actually the only section I wrote right after beating the game, so like being pulled out of a rift, it might feel really out of place! (I mainly wanted to do this cause the story would be fresh out of my brain and I know I'm about to go into rhythm hell)
It's fine. It's a vessel to have you play the songs, use the characters in cute ways, and introduce the minigames/boss fight mechanics. It's nothing special, and honestly personally I didn't really understand the "being controlled by the rift" bit, and the villains felt... kinda nothing? But I acknowledge I could just be dumb there. I also think that the NecroDancer being presented as a fry cook but then actually being the big bad was a Bit of a cop out? It felt like it was leading to a new force and "no never mind it's him again". That's me being awfully negative, though. I liked the character interactions, I liked the isekai setting; I think Suzu's arc was the absolute best part of the whole thing, it felt the most solid and like she had a genuine motivation there. Honestly? If they ended it with that and not with "The NecroDancer did it" I'd probably feel a lot better about it. But again! This isn't the focus of the game. It's not the same sin as if like, an RPG did it. We're here for the songs and those do not disappoint.
Speaking of!
Dude. This soundtrack FUCKS. Granted, you really can't have a rhythm game worth playing if you don't have a good soundtrack, but that doesn't take away the fact that it's a banger. A wonderful mix of lo-fi songs, heavy metal, techno, funk, and other genres I'm sure I'm missing, it's got a wide variety that also manages to feel nice and unified.
I ended up making a little tier list of songs for my friends that have been playing this alongside me, so I think something like this is a perfect thing for me to slot in.
This tier list is lucky it only had the main songs because Unglamorous J.O.B. tops everything
What's really cool about this soundtrack is seeing names I recognize. I've been following FamilyJules and Alex Moukala for a while, so it was awesome to see them in this. Definitely listen to it if you have the chance.
Short bit, but I LOOOOOOOOOVE the way this game looks. I love the vibrancy, the simple coloring/shading, the outlining. I subscribe to the theory that every artist must have two styles: big and small. This game has the big "serious" portraits for most of it, but then in the minigames you get the characters looking small and silly and dumb (in a good way), and it brings a lot of joy to my face.
Also, love the character design. Modern Cadence is fucking peak.
I feel like my post might give a sense that the game was a bit of a mixed bag, but I did really enjoy it. I'm still not great with writing about indie games (crazy that that's all I've played so far this year who am I) cause there's simply not as much as a full AAA RPG, but it's been nice. I'm gonna keep grinding this game, and hopefully be able to start taking on hard rifts.
8.5/10. Creative concept with amazing soundtrack, but with a skill floor MUCH higher than I'm used to.