Rift of the NecroDancer

Omega Strikers

why dis game so unoptimized 20 fps btw

Note: TRY THE DEMO FIRST!!! I was so ready to give this a negative review throughout my entire playthrough but I think at some point I developed stockholm syndrome as here I am giving it a positive review at the very end. Don’t get me wrong, even if it was a negative review I would have many praises to give. Unfortunately, even with it’s high of highs the lows are equally lower. So, let’s start with the praises. Great artstyle that balances cool and cute. Wonderful song selection that varies song styles while still feeling cohesive. Interesting take on the rhythm game genre though this is where it starts to get really divisive and why I can’t stress enough why you should try the demo first. There is a story mode which is alright. Character interactions were fun and having the opposing/friendly character react to how well you are doing is a nice touch. Mini-games help change up the gameplay into a simple, cute, and fun rhythm experience. Harder difficulties if you actually manage to feel the flow of the game and a remix mode that changes the type of enemies for each attempt, modifiers to further challenge yourself. There’s tons of DLC from all sorts of properties and artists, even some unique. Not only do DLCs add songs but include characters or character costumes that stand across from your character giving even more interaction to the great crossovers. Most of the added songs I enjoyed with only a couple packs being a personal miss though varying feelings on the actual design of the levels but mostly positive. I was damn sure I was going to love this game between the art style and it being a rhythm game. Yet when I started playing it… it just does not click. This is due to how it actually functions as it really isn’t a “normal” rhythm game. Notes are replaced by enemies. Each enemy has a unique mechanic that you’ll have to remember and there is a fair bit of them. Some are more easily recognizable, most can be hard to remember. It is then further complicated by changing what each enemy does depending on what color they are. Each enemy can be further modified by their shadow, which is by far my most hated, which causes them to move off beat at varying speeds depending on the shape of the shadow. Lastly there are environment modifiers that when passed through can cause effects like moving at increased speeds or moving which lane they are in. It’s… a lot to be honest and if you aren’t playing consistently, hell even if you do play a lot, it’s easy to forget what to do for each enemy especially with everything else coming at you. It almost becomes easier to just memorize the song as it will be easier to understand the specific patterns than it would be to remember the actual notes themselves. Unfortunately this just makes it harder to pick up and play any song. In addition, both a plus and a minus, the game will sometimes use the environment effects as visualizers prioritizing flare over functionality which can become quite distracting especially if it causes obstruction of enemies and even cause them to clip inside each other given some circumstances. DLC is a bit confusingly listed in the store and has even showed owned DLC packs as not owned causing me to purchase one of them twice (KDA). As a more middle of the road aspect the game does reward for being better but the rewards is kinda… eh. You unlock profile glamour for your account which really don’t do anything for me and I wonder how many people are actually looking at another person’s profile for this to be a thing. I suppose you gotta make yourself unique but I think leaderboard status should be sufficient and then give us rewards to outfit and stylize the character, tracks, effects, enemies, etc. Recommend? Honestly I can’t either way, not truly. Though I’m not amazing, I do enjoy rhythm games and this should have been an incredible hit… but I never found the flow, it simply is not for me. I imagine for those that it does hit for will hit HARD and it’ll probably be your favorite thing in the world (or something like that)

This game is fun, but I would caution that once you try to play higher difficulties expect the ability to sight-read anything to go out the window. Wrought memorization is the only way forward and trying to grind the highest difficulty will probably make you want to delete the game. Otherwise a pretty fun rhythm game

if you love DDR/ITG/FNF and Rhythm Heaven, you will love the hell out of this game

Really good story and memorable characters, the calibration is great, so any issues are just room for improvement. I also love the soundtrack, not to mention the vast amount of dlc available (if you wish to buy it). I don't think this game will ever get old to me with how many songs, difficulties, custom levels, and minigames (not to mention remix mode!)

It is addictive at some point :sob: that is why I like it lol