This rhythm/dungeon-crawler-rogeulike captured me so effectively that it ended up causing me real physical injury. What an endorsement!
If you’re just joining us, a roguelike means a game in the style of Rogue: a top-down dungeon with randomised content. Your goal is to get through the monsters to the next floor while finding useful items, and if you die you start all over again. The map is laid out on a grid, and when you move a tile your enemies also move a tile or take an action ie. killing you. In this case, these quantised actions are also timed to an ever-present beat; if your inputs are mistimed from the music (the tempo of which changes from floor to floor), you fail to act, which can spell your doom.
Don’t worry, doom happens a lot and it’s ok. Runs are designed to be quick. Between them you can spend the special diamond currency for a few permanent upgrades, unlocks for new items to appear, or a selection of items for your next run only. Then it’s jumping back in and trying to do better. It’s not a massive gauntlet either; after three floors you find a boss and that’s that zone done. There’s four different zones (plus one in the DLC, which is included in the Switch version I played), each a different biome with its own set of quirks and a new cast of enemies with their own particular behaviours to learn.
Mixing up your play further is the vast roster of characters to play as. They’re a diverse bunch with their own modifiers on play. Most are trickier than the default Cadence, with a fundamental change designed to challenge you. Some have a fun bonus ability, like the (Switch-exclusive) Reaper or the DLC’s Nocturna. Only a few of them have “story modes” with their own cutscenes. I appreciated the variety but not many of them made it more fun for me.
Having played the Zelda crossover spinoff Cadence of Hyrule first, this surprised me with its hardcore leaning on roguelike elements. Health is scarce, and it’s about starting from scratch over and over, scrounging what items you can to push through then reset. Adjusting to this rhythm of the game’s cycle, I often became very absorbed to the point that I would have long sessions, occasionally with little overall progress. It was still satisfying though.
That is, until I realised that the recurring pains in my left upper arm came from the repetitive motions needed. Constantly tapping the directional buttons on each tempo beat was evidently putting a strain on my tendons or some such. Frustratingly, I had to commit to shorter sessions and more breaks. I say frustrating because I enjoyed the game so much, even when it felt like I was rhythmically beating my head against a wall. It’s an excellent example of a dungeon crawler, while also innovating with its rhythm mechanics, topped off with lovely chunky pixel art and (importantly) a banging soundtrack from Danny Baranowsky. But I’ll never do an all-characters run, I think it would do me permanent damage.
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