Developer: Brace Yourself Games, Tic Toc Games
Publisher: Klei Publishing
Steam Deck Compatibility?: Verified
Rrp: £16.75 (Steam)
Released: 5th February 2025
Available on: Steam
Played Using: A Keyboard
Approximate game length: 6 hours
Nine years ago I reviewed Crypt of the Necrodancer (just realising that makes me feel very old) and now finally, arrives a sequel. The thing is this sequel is a totally different genre from its predecessor, the only thing they have in common, besides some of the characters, is that they are rhythm games. You see, Crypt of the Necrodancer was a roguelite dungeon delver that was also a rhythm game, where you moved and attacked the enemies to the beat. Well this game has done away with the roguelite and dungeon delving elements entirely and focused on the rhythm aspect.
The game takes place immediately after the events of Crypt of the Necrodancer where Cadance is transported to a strange world (which seems to be our one). Strange rifts keep opening with monsters pouring through and Cadance takes it upon herself to defeat them and try to stop the rifts entirely. So, that’s the premise but how does Cadance go about defeating these monsters? With a Guitar Hero style rhythm game of course! Don’t worry though, you don’t need to dust off those old plastic guitars that I know some of you out there still have. This game is played entirely with a keyboard or a control pad, though the game really doesn’t recommend using a control pad and having tried it, I have to agree using a keyboard is a much smoother experience.
As I mentioned (and as you can see above) you fight the monsters off using a Guitar Hero style rhythm game, called a Rhythm Rift. The monsters come down the three lanes and when they reach the bottom of the screen, known as the ‘action zone’, you press the corresponding button to hit them. So far so simple, right? Well, there are some things that complicate matters. For example, some monsters require more than one hit to be defeated, others change lanes when hit, some need to be attacked off the beat etc.
This game doesn’t just have the Rhythm Rifts though, there are mini games and boss battles as well. The mini games remind me very strongly of the ones from Rhythm Heaven, which I always have to state, I’ve never actually played but seen many videos of. As for the boss battles, I found those to be quite challenging, mostly due to the fact that unlike the Rhythm Rifts you can’t lower their difficulty. Meaning that if you’re struggling with them on medium difficulty (which I was) you just have to persevere until you finally beat them or until the game gives you an option to skip them.
As you play through the story mode you’ll earn diamonds, the amount of which you earn depends on how well you do and the difficulty setting. These diamonds are used to unlock songs, mini games and boss battles in the freeplay mode that you haven’t encountered in the story mode yet. I never spent them myself as I just played through the story mode unlocking them all. Once unlocked there are a total of forty two songs available for you to play in the free playmode, not counting the DLC packs.
This was a fun game, I really enjoyed playing it. Sadly because I found it best played on a keyboard I won’t be continuing to play it on my Steam Deck, even if it is verified. If you’re up for a rhythm game with some challenge I think you can’t go too far wrong with this one, plus even if you don’t want to buy those DLC packs the Steam Workshop has got loads of songs people have made that you can import.
