Rift of the NecroDancer

Rhythm games can be difficult in two ways. Mechanical complexity, and chart difficulty. Mechanical complexity is the degree to which the core mechanics of the game are challenging to learn, and become competent with. Chart difficulty is the more straightforward definition of "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that's a lotta notes to hit". The best rhythm games understand that the more satisfying (and far more versatile) of the two is chart difficulty. Guitar Hero. Dance Dance Revolution. Osu!. Stepmania. ADOFAI. These rhythm games couldn't be simpler. "Press the right button at the right time, and here's a visual indicator of when each button needs to be pressed." Guitar Hero is the most complex of these because of HOPOs, taps, open notes, and even then it's dead simple to learn. The catch is that it's bloody impossible to master. And making the game easy as pie to learn at first allows new players to immerse themselves in the game without needing to study it beforehand. Doing this unlocks a genuinely infinitely high skill ceiling. Look at some of the best rhythm game players on the planet. The things they are capable of doing is mindblowing; and anyone can look at their gameplay and understand to a degree how impressive their performance is, because everyone understands how the game works. Rift of the NecroDancer is the other side of the coin. The game is inherently not new-player-friendly, because before you can PLAY Rift, you have to STUDY Rift. You have to learn what each monster does, how it behaves, what is expected of you when each monster appears. You have to understand that NONE of them telegraph their properties ahead of time. It is impossible to get into a flow state when playing Rift because you have to actively engage your brain to fill in the gaps the game itself refuses to. You can't take the notes coming toward you at face value; you have to look at each individual note, and in the span of time between it appearing on screen and it reaching the strikeline, you have to construct a mental model of how the chart SHOULD look, adapting on the fly to repeat notes, double time repeat notes, notes moving to other lanes, notes triggering earlier than others, later than others; and this needs to be done for each note, individually, without pause, for the entire duration of the chart. There's no other way to put this: a rhythm game that shows you one chart but effectively expects you to play another is a bad rhythm game. I do not want to perform mental backflips to solve the ongoing puzzle of "what is the chart I ACTUALLY have to play?" since the game refuses to be straightforward with me. It is not fun to try and unravel unnecessary layers of mechanical complexity to get to the game I actually want to play. Where other, better rhythm games embrace simplicity in design as the foundation allowing for absolute insanity at high levels of play, Rift of the NecroDancer bafflingly forgoes this in favor of making the game too complex to enjoy at any level. P.S. Also they don't have an option to remove DLC tracks I haven't purchased from the songlist. So I have to dodge unplayable advertisements so I can find the tracks I'm actually allowed to play in the game I already paid for.

oh my god i love this game its so good dude I love it so f***ing much PLEASE BUY THIS GAME PLEASE PELASEPLEASPLEEPALSPLAPLALPALPALEPWALEPALPELA

i try to not to leave reviews that are negative, but this was a game i was really excited to play that i unfortunately ended up having to refund. i’m not new to the rhythm genre, and i played a decent chunk of the other necrodancer game on deck. i find this game really difficult to read, honestly. i understand that a lot of its appeal is the fact that there’s different monsters that do different things, but i feel like there’s just *too* much going on. i only played for about an hour and a half but every time i played i was stopping in a mood much worse than when i started. it’s hard to “sight read” like one usually does in a rhythm game, and it honestly felt more like a “memorize the pattern for this song” kind of game? i had a lot of frustration with off-beats, too, since the game is so focused on hitting *on* beat. i’m definitely not locking myself out of buying it again or trying it again in the future, but for now, it’s a game that just left me frustrated trying to have a good time. it has a demo, try it out! i tried the demo and deliberated on it for a while before buying. i can for sure see why people love this game, but it can be frustrating for a lot of people, too.

This game is a game I actually have enjoyed playing and will continue to enjoy playing. The issue I have with it is that the devs have switched from being focused to releasing new songs for the people who bought the game, and are instead focusing on releasing new DLC packs for people to waste more money on. It feels like a slap in the face, since workshop accomplishes everything you could need. For example, every Undertale song is available and charted really well on steam workshop, but the DLC pack for undertale officially only has a handful of songs, and some new portraits. Additionally, some of the DLC packs (celeste is the main one) have charting that just doesn't feel good imo. Idk, just feels like the game is being kept interesting for me purely off of the playerbase creating workshop charts. Either way, I'll keep playing occasionally, but I would really like if there were more songs from Crypt freely added to the game.

this game is literally godsent from above, every aspect of it is perfect and is, in my opinion, the best rhythm game out there right now. it is a bit challenging at first but the flow of each level feels exactly on the beat and makes it feel like you're actually playing the song instead of playing over it. overall, would 100% recommend getting this game.

<3

Just try the demo to see if it's your cup of tea. From a mechanics standpoint, this is really awesome. Ignore people complaining about difficulty, there is plenty to do leading up to the actual madness (I have 20 hours and I can’t even consistently beat intensity 14-15 levels). The game has a rather lacklustre tutorial/intro. I think if you’ve played the predecessor before (that game is so good omg), it makes complete sense, but if this is the first of the two you play, it’s quite confusing. It’s a bit funny they kept the awkward submenu to access the individual monster tutorials in between the games, haha. I recommend just starting on Easy and working your way up, try to play the story on Medium, see where it goes. You can always go up to Hard and see if it kicks your ass. In regards to the story (something I only realised this had 4 hours in), I think that it’s pretty bad. Like, so bad it circles back to being hilarious (is that on purpose?). I was very entertained. Just don’t think about any of the implications. The visuals are nice! I don’t know how I feel about any of the DLC, personally I prefer not making a lot of separate purchases after my initial one, so I doubt I will get any more of the paid DLC unless it’s something special to me.

Too much of the library is DLC. Not personally that into the included music.