Rift of the Necrodancer Review – Review
I missed out on the original Crypt of the Necrodancer and its Zelda-themed sequel Cadence of Hyrule. The series had always interested me, but as I’m not too into dungeon crawlers, I figured I’d hold off on playing until the series would adapt its rhythm gameplay in a different direction. I think that for most folks that Rift of the Necrodancer looked more akin to the ‘traditional’ rhythm game genre may have been a bit of a surprise. Cadence and her friends are back and this time quite literally rocking out against a new opponent. But by adhering more to the conventions of the rhythm game genre, I feel that Rift of the Necrodancer fails in making it stand out.
Rift of the Necrodancer is a rhythm game that plays similarly to games like the Theaterrythm- and Guitar Hero series. “Notes” come scrolling down the screen in rhythm to the beat and its your job to hit them with the correct timing. I say notes in brackets, because the notes in this game are monsters pouring out of the rifts and aiming to attack you. Each note is designed after a specific monster that requires different timing to be defeated. Green slimes require a single hit, but blue bats need two hits and will shift over to different buttons after they are attacked. It makes Rift of the Necrodancer feel quite hectic for newcomers and even veterans of this genre.
The core recognizable elements of a rhythm game are still here, but you’ll need to adapt quite a bit to patterns for all the different monsters. And there’s quite a few of them, from yellow skeletons that run backwards and come back to the front with another monster, to zombies that move diagonally and ‘warp’ from the left-hand side to the right. Thankfully the game is designed to be a bit more forgiven. You can take about 10 hits before your battle ends, but along the notes is also food that can restore your health. Additionally if you hit enemies with a yellow base in a row, you can gain invincibility that increases your score and makes you immune from monster attacks for a short while.
I think I mostly stumbled with the placement of the buttons. You can use the D-pad and the face buttons (corresponding to left, up and right), but it took me a while to get the movement down. Secretly, I think I’d have preferred it if the game supported a touch-screen input, or the ability to use the joysticks instead of the smaller buttons on the Joy-Con. This became apparent when having to deal with tapping multiple buttons in different directions. Combined with monsters that require multiple hits to defeat and I found Rift to be pretty unforgiving.
The game shines with the music however. A large variety of tracks are available and are marked with different levels of intensity. Some are slower and methodical, and other songs require you to hit the buttons like a madman. I wish I had more of a connection to the songs here. While there are a few ‘guest tracks’ from games like Celeste and Super Meat Boy to pick from, I did feel that I was missing some ‘recognizable’ songs. It was always the hook in games like Guitar Hero, Theatherrythm and even Elite Beat Agents since it helps you as a player pick up the beat more easily. Here I found myself struggling with more difficult songs and not clicking (musically) with the beat unless I threw myself over and over again at the problem or would lower the difficulty from medium to easy. It makes Rift of the Necrodancer feel stuck between a rock and a hard place at times. Where it isn’t really that inventive and for those pushing through its fairly steep curve, the tracks aren’t recognizable enough to perhaps stick with the game.
The story mode is pretty cute. It’s a good introduction to Cadence and her friends, although I think that having played Crypt and Cadence of Hyrule would’ve helped quite a bit here. The story mode consists of chapters that can either be dialogue between characters, which are all fully voice acted and wonderfully performed, battling monsters out of the rifts, but also little rhythm challenges like Dove’s Yoga. Those last ones feel like Rift of the Necrodancer stretching itself a bit and looking for inspiration from other rhythm games such as Rhythm Paradise. I secretly found these to be a lot more fun, as they are pretty simple, very playful and add so much character to the cast. There aren’t that many in the game, but I am hoping that the developers continue exploring these as they are more thematically coherent than in a game like Rhythm Paradise.
Overall I found Rift of the Necrodancer to leave me feeling a bit mixed. On the one hand the game’s design is very solid, where battling monsters as a rhythm game feels like a natural continuation of the ideas on Crypt of the Necrodancer. And while the soundtrack is excellent, I did feel like I needed a few more recognizable songs to avoid the feeling of repetition in the core gameplay. Especially paired with the fairly high learning curve that ended up me lowering the difficulty and I just couldn’t get to proper grips with the controls. The story mode is a fun exploration of the characters of the series and in particular the Rhythm minigames that serve as little breaks in between the regular gameplay. But there really wasn’t enough for me here to sink my teeth into and it got repetitive a bit too quickly. If you loved the other Necrodancer games I can’t quite tell if this will satisfy your appetite. In taking a step back and adhering to more classical rhythm games I think that Rift lost a bit of the appeal of what made the original game special for a lot of players. While the cast and characters do retain their appeal and made me more curious about playing the original, I think that my retention with Rift of the Necrodancer will fade quickly. I’m hopeful that future instalments can find a balance between innovation and keeping the appeal of this world and characters and it won’t need a Necrodancer for itself in the future.
