Kill The Music

An unpolished gem. Extremely rough around the edges, but so stylish and full of heart it’s impossible not to recommend. I eagerly look forward to the studio’s next game.

Kill the Music is a rather lackluster roguelite that can be fun at times, but it has a lot of core flaws that make it really unenjoyable. Gameplay is simple. One map, enemies spawn, you attack automatically. Pressing the attack button to the beat increases the effectiveness of your attacks, same with dodging. Some enemies shoot projectiles, some charge, some are rotating beam turrets. There's almost no real variety in terms of enemy appearance, attack patterns, health, or anything. The game also spams enemies at you, but it's just enough to where it doesn't feel meticulous but also not enough to where it feels like a real horde. Somehow they hit the sweet spot where both of those things are true and it makes killing enemies feel really lackluster. The ways you can kill them aren't really that exciting either. Weapons have a few categories and they barely change between them. In fact they're so similar that if you keep one after restarting a run it will say you kept Guitar 3, or Drums 2, etc. The map doesn't change, the soundtrack (while it sounds great) has far too few songs for this type of game, higher difficulties hardly change the gameplay, it's all so lacking in variety. You can upgrade yourself by choosing a harder stage, but the stage difficulty is usually just killing a larger number of enemies rather than actual difficulty. They won't even spawn in faster at higher levels. You can upgrade your weapons/instruments after completing a level, but half the time the upgrades are useless to you. You might see three upgrades that all require you to be at max health for them to function, meanwhile you cannot for the life of you find an upgrade that lets you [i] heal. [/i] Sometimes the upgrades it gives you to choose from LITERALLY cannot even be used. It will say in the upgrade description that you need another upgrade to make this one work, and that upgrade is not guaranteed to spawn before the one that requires it. Not to mention that upgrades given to you can be duplicates. Imagine if you played Slay the Spire 2, won a fight, and the three card choices you got at the end of the fight were all the exact same card. That can happen in this game. Did I mention the visual noise? It is a massive struggle to be able to tell what is happening on screen at any given time. Your attacks, enemies, enemy attacks, and the multicolored environment make it hard to tell what you're hitting and why you're getting hit. The video on this Steam Store page does not do this point justice, it gets EXTREMELY hard to see things, and honestly it gives me a genuine headache. I had to take breaks in between runs to just rest my eyes. The story is nice enough, but all you get is a short visual novel cutscene after beating a new "absurdity" difficulty. Hardly a fitting reward for slogging through 15+ waves. I tried to like the game, I did. But it not only doesn't impress, it actively prevents itself from being great through some really bizarre design choices. Sadly, I don't recommend this.

This rhythm roguelite really catches the eye. Stylish graphics, UI elements and animations, cool characters that you unlock as you go, and a story that encourages you to discover more add a lot to the game. I don't find the gameplay to be that clean, at times feels a bit rough with so many elements on screen, too much hell in that bullet makes hard to dodge the damage, but that chaos is also part of what makes it so satisfying, thanks to its art. I had a few crashes, but nothing serious. Take advantage of the demo if you're unsure. [quote] [i] Follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44959158-Critiques-Sans-Frontiers/] our curator page [/url] to discover more underrated indie games like this one. [/i] [/quote]

OMIGOSH YESSS YESSSSSS I LOVE DIS SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's SOOOO GOOD!!!!!!!!!! i love da art and music and characters aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA IT'S SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got the platinum in this game, just so I could hate on it more... While I agree that it's an unpolished gem, I think that, in its current state, it is not a great experience... After 12h I have nothing else to do, and I struggled to stay interested for that period of time. As many other reviews have mentioned, the rhythm aspect is actually fantastic, but the overall gameplay is repetitive and boring. The art is really good, but you can't see it while playing the game. Everything is visually cluttered and, from time to time, you can only wonder what hit you or why your run just ended. You keep playing on the same map, listening to the same songs, rolling mostly the same upgrades, running similar builds, and the story... The story felt as if a 10-year-old had written it after watching the final battle in "Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny"... So you have a really good feeling rhythm mechanic and fantastic art, which are wasted on mediocre gameplay. A lack of replayability in a roguelike is something

[b] Kill the Music [/b] is a survivors-type game mixed with the rhythm gameplay from [b] Crypt of the Necrodancer [/b]. It draws heavy inspiration from punk rock imagery and music. This is my first survivors-type game I’ve ever played, and it was a pretty good experience. I haven’t played other games of the genre like [b] Megabonk [/b] or [b] Vampire Survivors [/b], but I feel as though [b] Kill the Music [/b] barely scratches the surface of the genre’s capabilities. [h1] The Story [/h1] The story is light in this game. You play as musical prodigy and enthusiast, Roxie. Roxie has been trapped in Hell to fight Death and his minions countless times using various musical instruments. As you complete higher difficulties, you will learn more about Roxie’s life and how she ended up in her position. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] As mentioned above, [b] Kill the Music [/b] is a survivors-type game, a bullet heaven if you will. The main gameplay loop revolves around clearing rounds of selectable difficulty, receiving an appropriate reward (typically in the form of a stat upgrade), and selecting a new gameplay upgrade to help in the next round. As you obtain more upgrades, Roxie will become stronger. Make the right build, and you won’t even have to worry about taking damage. The main gimmick in this game is its rhythm mechanic. Like [b] Crypt of the Necrodancer [/b], you will have to play along to the beat of the music in this game. While movement is not tied to this mechanic, attacks and dodges are. On each beat hit, the player has the option to attack or dodge. Time this correctly to increase your combo meter and activate some upgrades. If you’re too early and miss... well, you still perform the action, but it decreases your combo meter. When starting a run, you select your starting weapon, which is a musical instrument. There are twelve selectable starting instruments, but all can be classified under Guitars, Basses, Keyboards, or Drums. Guitars are a standard melee weapon, focused on close-range attacks. Basses act as an AoE attack, creating a shockwave around Roxie, which forces enemies back. Keyboards orbit around Roxie; they are uncontrollable by the player and deal damage when they come into contact with an enemy. Drums are projectile based, shooting a projectile on each beat hit. I enjoy all the ideas presented in the game, but I don’t think they’re executed very well. The rhythm mechanic is cool but very basic. I was left wondering what it actually does. I know I have to play along to the beat, but why? My weapons still deal damage if I miss, and I can still dodge when I’m off beat. Is it really just to rack up a combo and activate some upgrades? It isn’t even a guarantee that I will have any of these upgrades in my run. I love the feeling of being incredibly overpowered in games, too, don’t get me wrong, but it was too much in this game. The first few rounds are challenging, having to avoid enemy attacks and carefully select upgrades. But once you have all your weapons and a few decent upgrades, the game becomes too easy. It feels great for the first round or so, but runs can contain up to twenty rounds! I usually ended up being bored out of my mind, melting enemies just trying to rush to the boss stage. [h1] Gamefeel [/h1] Moving forward from gameplay, the artwork and music in this game is great. I grew up in the early 2000’s playing games like [b] Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 [/b]. I love the punk aesthetic and it is done very well in this game. The enemies look like they’re decals straight from a skate shop. The characters look exactly like how I would imagine a stereotypical punk band, complete with spikes, flannels, fishnets, ripped jeans, all the works. Everything is given just the right amount of edge to look like they’re straight from that era. The music fits the game well, too. I don’t think it’s the pinnacle of gaming music, but great backing music for a heavily rhythm-based game. The developers did a great job of having a wide selection of music that plays each round. I was never left getting sick of a certain tune or hearing one too often. [h1] Conclusion [/h1] I have nothing but high praise for the people behind this game. It takes a lot of work to create something like this, and even more work to have it come out as good as it did. For all my complaints, I enjoyed my time with this game. Although, from a personal view, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much if it weren’t designed around punk rock. This game is good for a first-ever experience with a survivors-type game. But I got bored far too quickly when I felt like it should have been engaging me more. If you have played any form of bullet heaven or survivors game before, I wouldn’t recommend this game. But if you haven’t, or you like punk music, play this game! It'll be a good experience.

Kill The Music is charming AF. The highlight for this game is its catchy tunes which is REQUIRED for a Rhythm based game. I really liked how accessible this game was, being able to do more damage if you played with a harder instrument was really rewarding! I was a fan of Nikko Nikko's last game Infinite Guitars and i really liked hearing some of the music from that game remixed into this one. The story was ok! i wish i knew who all these characters were when the main story shows maybe 5 or 6 of them? Maybe i'm dumb and missed something but i specifically wanted to get to know Duncan a lil more he was cute uwu. Kill The Music isnt perfect, yeah theres alot going on the screen at times, yeah sometimes the RNG feels unfair and rude, but if youre looking for a rhythm based survivors-like Kill The Music was a BLAST!

9/10