Beat Slayer

[h1] PROS: [/h1] [list] [*] Stunning, interesting art style. [*] Awesome music. [*] Good story. [*] Unique game play concept. [*] 3 different weapons. [*] Multiple upgrades, items and trails. [*] Interesting story. [*] Nice voice acting. [/list] [h1] CONS: [/h1] [list] [*] Game gets boring after 1/2 run. Nothing really changes. [*] After the first 1/2 run the enemies have more hp and you do little damage. [*] Later on the upgrades are useless and have 0 impact. [*] Having to fight 4/5+ mins with a boss it's not fun. [*] The run can spawn useless upgrades -> even less damage. [*] Later in the game the enemies can clone and you doing almost no damage take's a lot of time to clear them. [*] There wasn't a moment when I felt overpowered/ having an advantage on the enemies. [/list] [h1] OVERALL: [/h1] The game is fun, and interesting for the first run, but if the developers doesn't adjust the numbers/increase something, don't waste your time and money! Spending 30+ mins per run not worth it.

I got this game for $13 during the Steam Rhythm Game sale. Overall, I enjoyed my time with the game. It took me just under 8 hours to complete the story (5 loops total). If I had to compare this to another game, I would call it Rhythm Hades. The gameplay is very responsive and feels good, the music is great (but limited), and the story is enough to get you by. The upgrade choices during a run and outside of a run aren't super deep, but they were enough to keep me interested. I don't know how long the devs plan on supporting this game, but if they make any updates, I would love to see more stages, more songs, and deeper upgrade paths. I'm definitely going to keep an eye on them in case they make a sequel to this game. This game has great bones and has a lot of potential to grow into a spectacular game.

[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 the corrupt regime to rescue her brother from the government, who seems to have gone there for an audition (?). I like how it weaves the aspect of music into this - the point in the music is to block out the harmful sounds of the regime. In general, pretty advanced stuff from a roguelite. [h1][b] Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [3/10] [/b] [/h1] The mechanics consist of basic combat - a dodge, basic attack (builder), ultimate attack (spender), and a kick/stun. That’s it, the entire time you have those 4 buttons, and the kick is barely used, especially once you progress to get weapons. The gimmick here is the music component which offers some slight bonuses for staying on beat consecutively. Speaking of, the weapons seem imbalanced, almost like there’s not a choice, you shouldn’t go back to using older weapons once you unlock a newer one. You have three choices - a wrench, sledgehammer, and a ranged saw blade. The gameplay loop consists of going through paths, collecting upgrades, and trying to make it to the end all while staying on beat in combat. The upgrades are generally boring and do nothing to either create builds or alter the already established basic combat rotation of dodging and builder/spender. Upgrades typically look like - add 5% crit chance to all things, or add a DoT to an attack, or basic/ultimate attack increase by 10%. The game does noticably shortchange you when it comes to defensives, which add to the difficulty. The game can be quite difficult. I think I did about 10 runs and only made it to the final boss once. The game doesn’t help you fix mistakes. Restoring health is rare and the health pickups in the level only often restore ~2 or 3 HP when you have around ~60 and are getting hit for 20. The primary defensives seem to be simply dodging which sort of turns the game into a bullet hell. This is especially evident after the 2nd boss with the step-up in difficulty makes nearly all weapons but the ranged options, obsolete. Being a roguelite, there are upgrades you can purchase after failed runs through EXP, but most of the upgrades are the same as the kind you get during a run - just general boring stat upgrades that don’t shake up the formula in any meaningful way or help assist defensively. [h1] [b] Graphics (Quality/Technical) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] Good graphics, I’d say around PS3-era fidelity. Character art is good, but world/level art is disappointing. I’d love to have seen the music have more of an effect on the world as a whole. The game does recommend playing with a controller, so I spent my time using my XBOX controller. The game has a habit of “Auto-charging” your character a short distance towards enemies as perhaps a sort of convenience, and this is nice about 80% of the time, but later on can make you rush into bad things and make you take damage, so the aiming can be spotty. The technical side - game ran fine with small hiccups, nothing big, I couldn’t tell whether it was a performance issue or bugs, but it looked like in act 3 when there are tons of enemies that sometimes enemies would disappear. 1440p @ 240hz | installed on SSD [h1] [b] Audio – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] For a music-based game, you’d expect this to be good, right? Wrong. Acts 1 and 2’s music is just simply boring, traditional, electro dance music that just sounds like lifeless junk. It isn’t until Act 3 when the music finally gets good with certain notes of orchestra pieces. Really, this should have been the baseline score and then only get more lively from there. There is ample voice acting, and it sounds fine. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Longevity) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] Normally, I’d say roguelites have good replay value, but with the boring levels and upgrades, this is tough to want to replay over and over. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] BeatSlayer is a roguelite with a music focus. By staying on beat during combat, you are rewarded by having slightly improved combat abilities and effects that you may or may not experience due to upgrades being random. If this sounds disappointing, well, it kind of is. Being a game focused on music and beats, BeatSlayer doesn’t do a great job of either letting the player hear or see the effects of music to enter a zen-like combat flow state. In fact, if this game were named anything else, I’d have assumed that the beat component would be an afterthought, not a core mechanic crucial to the gameplay. As if the music being average wasn’t bad enough, the combat is shallow and basic. The game doesn’t even incorporate the beats into the combat in a cool way other than an upgrade you can get that’s like “Fire off a laser after x beats”. Due to BeatSlayer’s often unforgiving difficulty, I’d have loved if it was something like sacrificing beats for health regen or maybe using up beats for an [i]actual[/i] ultimate attack, not just a spender called an ultimate attack. I struggle to think of a positive about BeatSlayer. It’s not that the entire game is awful, it’s more that everything is generically average and the parts that should be better due to the supposed focus of the game, are disappointing. Overall, I cannot recommend BeatSlayer. [h1] [b] Recommend? (Price) [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1]No[/h1] $20 base price? NO. Historical low of $12 is too much. I wouldn’t pay over $5 for this. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

[h1]I'm playing and rating all "[u]Hades-like[/u]" games; simple list to help you, from 1. best to N. good[/h1] [olist] [*]Hades II [*]Realm of Ink [*]Hades [*]Splintered Fate [*]BeatSlayer [*]Reignbreaker [*]The Eternal Die [*]SWORN [*]Curse of The Dead Gods [*]FELLCHASER [/olist] [list]Will update above list when played: [*]Cinderia [*]Life Core [*]Grim Trials [*]Aksun [*]Rise Again [*]Lone Soul [*]Lethal Honor [*]Heretical [*]Shape of Dreams [*]Warm Snow [/list] [i] If I'm missing any, please tell me! And sorry for the claim "Hades-like", but we need something for a mutual understanding. [/i]

The rhythm hack 'n slay I always needed in my life! Fight your way through a dystopian Berlin and upgrade your loadout in an roguelike attire. Quests and upgrades after every loop keep you busy for a while. Cool characters, smooth gameplay and an absolutely BOMBASTIC german synchronization. Joe's Berlin slang alone is peak! This game deserves way more attention. I hope the devs continue developing on this gem or make a sequel. More weapons, more music and more cool characters. I'll be here for it!

Nice game. Gameplay works well. I didn't finish the game yet, so maybe it is possible later in the game but, I just wish we can select different musics to refresh the background music atmosphear during the new runs.

Love the beat. I am terrible at roguelike games. I always miss the beat. (But I still enjoy it. and will keep playing it.) The story is simple & so are the characters but since the gameplay loop is pretty memorable and nice and the music gets me carried away I absolutely recommend it. What I particularly like is the game's attention to detail. There are LOTS of construction sites, graffitis, trash, kebab shops and late night kiosks (all things that can be seen very often in Berlin) and I immediately felt at home :D

Rating : 9 / 10 🥁

Good game, like hades but rhythm

Great game, the rhythm and the voice acting are top notch. Only negative point is that it's too short, and would benefit majorly from some more content.