Rift of the NecroDancer

I am, what you might call, a self-proclaimed Rock Band addict. While others will use first-person shooters and fighting games to relieve stress and unwind, I prefer playing along to some of my favorite music. It’s relaxing and there’s just something about hearing an audience cheer for me that brings a smile to my face. So, as you can imagine, I was sad when Harmonix ended their support of Rock Band 4 after eight years. What are the fans to do? Well, if you love rhythm games and are into adventuring, then let me recommend Rift of the NecroDancer, the brand-new release from Brace Yourself Games. With great music, ghoulish enemies and a beat so infectious that it will raise the dead, this will certainly scratch that Rock Band itch. So grab your dancing shoes and get ready to kick some undead ass, because this is my review of Rift of the NecroDancer.

When Crypt of the NecroDancer was released back in 2014, critics fell in love with the game’s unique take on the role-playing genre. By mixing rhythm gameplay with dungeon crawling, the game sat somewhere between Guitar Hero and The Legend of Zelda. Perhaps fitting then that the game proved to be so successful that the developers teamed up with Nintendo to create a version based on Link’s many adventures in Hyrule.

Now, a full decade later, Brace Yourself Games is back with a vastly different sequel that picks up where the story left off. In what may be a divisive decision, the music-driven dungeons have been replaced with a more traditional rhythm game format, skewing this sequel a lot closer to Guitar Hero than The Legend of Zelda. This is a faster and more exciting game that isn’t afraid to shake up the formula in some radical ways, and a lot of your enjoyment is going to come from how much you like battling ghouls and ghosts on a note highway.

There is a story that tries to explain what’s happening. We pick up with Cadence in a different dimension, doing her best to figure out where she is and how to get back home. Thankfully, some of her friends have also found rifts into this strange new dimension, but there’s a catch. In order for her to solve her problem, Cadence will need to help her friends and maybe even do the unthinkable – team up with the NecroDancer. The horror!

As a rhythm game, Rift of the NecroDancer takes a lot of inspiration from games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band. We get a note highway with three lanes, each triggered by a different button. Instead of hitting the equivalent of a note, we’re fighting off blobs, skeletons, gargoyles, zombies, dragons and all kinds of other scary creatures. Equipped with ten hit points, Cadence battles the hordes of enemies until she either succumbs to the monster invasion or has killed every last one of them.

What makes the game challenging is that every enemy has something unique that factors into defeating them. For example, the blobs are basically just your typical note, though you’ll need to watch out for blue and orange blobs, because you’ll need to hit them multiple times before they die. The bat, on the other hand, will fly either left or right when you hit them, while a dragon will require you to hold the button down throughout the entire duration of its tail. Other enemies might include skeletons, which can lose their head and stumble backwards, or even monsters that will rush at the player at the last second. Individually, all of these enemies are easy to take out, but the game becomes challenging when you’re batting away a whole bunch of these creatures all at once.

You could argue that Rift of the NecroDancer is just Guitar Hero with more types of notes to memorize, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Compared to the rhythm games we’re used to; there’s a lot going on in this game. I’m not going to lie; this game humbled me. I went in cocky and feeling like I could rock any note highway, but I was wrong. I couldn’t just crank it up to the hardest difficulty and expect to full-combo every song. I had to learn and memorize not only how every monster acted, but also how to deal with different colored bad guys. That forced me to be more engaged with the action on screen, and sometimes even changing the way I think about rhythm games. This game does a lot to shake up the genre.

While there’s no dungeon crawling like the original, this sequel does come with a more streamlined story mode that explains who the characters are and why these monsters are busting through the rifts. This is a great example of the developers having a lot of fun and taking the concept in some absurd directions. This story mode is where you’ll run into the various mini-games, which will have you doing everything from working at a fast-food restaurant to taking fashion photographs in the park. There are also a number of boss battles, which once again shakes up the gameplay. It isn’t much, but it does break up the rift levels and adds a lot of humor to the game. There’s really a lot to like about Cadence, as well as the entire cast of colorful characters.

Of course, reason this game works so well is because the music is good. That is always the most important part of a rhythm game, and this type of smaller release is always at a disadvantage due to largely relying on music we’ve never heard before. While that’s certainly the case with Rift of the NecroDancer, I didn’t find it to be a problem. The thirty or so tracks populating the soundtrack are both catchy and wonderfully varied. It’s a lot of music that is inspired by other adventure games, and there are a few of the tracks I couldn’t get out of my head after just the first or second listen.

And even if you do grow tired of hearing the same songs over and over, Rift of the NecroDancer has you covered. This is a rhythm game that allows players to create their own rift levels, giving us all kinds of tracks to download and play, free of charge. And there’s more than just user-created tracks, as the game also has its own downloadable content. While playing through Rift of the NecroDancer for review, the developers dropped a free three-pack full of music from Super Meat Boy. If they can continue to update the game with familiar tunes from other popular games, then this sequel could really be on to something big. Between the DLC and the user-created content, I can’t wait to see where this game is in a year or two.

From a visual perspective, I like this game a lot more than the original. Yes, the pixel graphics and rudimentary dungeons were charming, but I love how much personality they’ve given each of these characters. Cadence’s enthusiasm while bopping to the music is infectious, and I love how expressive the enemies are, especially when you have to smack them around multiple times. This is a good-looking game.

Maybe it’s because I’m already a big fan of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but this sequel appeals to me a lot more than the original Crypt of the NecroDancer. That said, I can imagine there being a chunk of the audience that prefers the originality and uniqueness of that first game. But even if you’re disappointed by how close the game sticks to rhythm game conventions, it still does a whole lot to mix up the genre. Having so many different monsters to deal with and memorize really does add a new component to the action and makes the game considerably more challenging. Don’t think that just because you’re a hero on a fake plastic guitar that you’re going to shred your way through Rift of the NecroDancer, because there’s a lot to learn and memorize, even on the medium and hard difficulties.

After so many years of playing games rhythm games, it takes a lot to impress me, and Rift of the NecroDancer wowed me the whole way through. It’s in the catchy music, the hilarious visuals, the compelling story, the silly mini-games and the action-packed gameplay. Although it looks like a lot of other music games, this adventure-themed sequel brings a lot of fresh and fun ideas to the genre. This is a strong follow-up that I’m going to be rocking out to for a long time to come.