A novel twist on rhythm action games that throws in combos, stacking, and even a little Rhythm Heaven
Rift of the NecroDancer, Brace Yourself Games’ upcoming successor to the popular “Crypt” games, takes the nuanced rhythm fighting of the series and plops it onto what initially feels like a traditional rhythm game highway — but there’s so much more than just that.
The latest build at PAX East focuses on the game’s battle mechanism: three lanes on the note highway, filled with enemies that run down each one. To “battle” the enemies keys need to be hit in the correct order, with Left, Up, and Right corresponding to individual lanes and Down hitting all three at once. It seems easy enough, but the layers built on that offer up what feels like an endless battle system.
The demo shows us four different enemies, each with a unique hook. As enemies are hit, they gain or lose power levels, displayed as different colors. The default is blue, for instance, and after a certain number of hits it advances to green and then gold, with some variation depending on the enemy. The higher the level, the more hits it takes to knock one out.
Each enemy has a unique attack pattern, too. The first time we hit a bat, it moves one lane in the direction that it’s facing. Hit it again and it skips two lanes. Then it doubles back. Then it crosses over with a bat going the other way at a different level all its own. Then there are slimes that can get hit three times in a row but never leave their lane, or skeletons that fly backwards when hit.
Our first time through our brain doesn’t know how to keep up. The second time through it’s still not keeping up, but we can start to imagine a world in which it could. And when it finally does and we’ve managed to understand patterns and speeds, the game all of a sudden drops us into a calm yoga room in which we have to match our instructor’s movesets, a la Rhythm Heaven.
It’s a wild twist, but within the concept of the game it feels like it’s completely in place.
Rift of the NecroDancer is planned for release soon, and we can’t wait to jump in further.
The game earned a Team Choice Award as one of SideQuesting’s favorite, must-see projects of PAX East 2023.
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