Beat Slayer

[h1][b] TLDR: A music-focused roguelite where the music is mediocre, the combat is shallow, and staying on beat barely matters, squandering an intriguing premise at every turn. [/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ➕Intriguing story [h1]NEUTRALS: [/h1] 🔹Music gets good….but not until the last 3rd of the game [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖Repetitive levels ➖No real builds/boring upgrades ➖For a music-oriented game, the music isn’t that great ➖Often unkind difficulty ➖Combat is boring [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative) – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] The game world consists of small arenas with various obstacles like crates and (explosive) barrels. Each level takes place in a city-like environment as you progress towards the center of Germany. There is very little variation in the levels, and in fact the levels remain the same for each run, so it gets repetitive super quickly. There are no secrets or deviations from the tri-lane pathing that is brought over from other roguelike games like Slay the Spire. The narrative is kind of neat. It starts after the fall of the Berlin Wall and how the wall was replaced by a sound system that has taken over the minds of the people. You play as Mia who is going against t…

Its not bad but a little barebones. It plays like hades, and when moving and grooving in line with the beat it can be pretty fun, and its a nice touch they including things to help you get in line with the beat. Theres also some cool upgrades to change why kind of build youre running, whether its burn, shield getting, high crit, etc. Theres also 3 weapons that all play differently. But then it wears thin. You unlock those 3 weapons like 30% into the game, and then theres no other guns to get, and no other characters, so you'll play those same 3 the whole time. Every level is the same in a row, fighting the same enemies and the same 3 bosses, so nothing in the run from environments or bosses ever changes. Although the enemies are varied in attacks, they are all just robots so they aren't the most interesting to fight. The 2nd boss is annoying in that he takes forever as you need to wait for him to come around, and you have to destroy parts of him that don't damage him as he drives by and they respawn each repeat wave through, which is lame. The final boss is horribly designed, involving bullet hell tactics, teleport homing attacks, but on top of that he has the lazy tropes of co…

CURRYWURST

A fun take on the linear top-down dungeon-crawler rogue-lite. I enjoy hitting short cooldowns like they're on a beat, so it's always fun when it's part of the game design. also is selin best girl or what

I really want to recommend this but I just can't. On paper, it should be a home run - a combination of Hades and Hi-Fi Rush. But it just feels like a watered down version of both and just makes me want to play either of those instead. It lacks the polish of Hades, power-ups don't feel meaningful or give you a sense that you're getting stronger. The fire one is the only one that ever feels worth it. The rhythm aspect feels skewed against you, you have to attack and dodge on beat in order to maintain the buff you get from keeping tempo, but the enemies aren't bound by this restriction, so you're left with the choice between losing your combo or taking a hit. No matter what you decide, it feels bad. And the final boss, hoo boy. You get a teleporting, area-denying- enemy-summoning bullet hell. With shields. And AOE. And who doesn't attack on beat. It stops being a fun challenge and just feels like they couldn't pick a mechanic and threw all of them in a blender. It has so much potential. I want it to be good. But as it is, I had to ask myself "am I having fun?" and the answer unfortunately is no.

I never really saw the point of games like this, especially non-VR where you're not even dancing to the beat and getting some exercise, but this one is really fun and stylish and makes me want to get better at it. I'm gonna get rhythmic, dammit!