Spin Rhythm XD
Summary
This is an amazing Rhythm game. I can’t really stress enough how fun this game is, and how it feels to play to the music. The key word I think that describes this game best is flow. There is an incredible feeling as you move the wheel, hit notes, hit beats, and match the colors. I don’t play very many Rhythm games, but SRXD has gotten me to take a closer look at the genre. It takes some gameplay mechanics from Vertically Scrolling Rhythm games, and makes them its own. As well as introducing entirely new sets of gameplay systems and mechanics, which I will try to explain below.
– Real player with 1922.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Rhythm Music Games.
Finally a fresh concept for a rhythm game, and it’s executed extremely well. Some of the most fun in a rhythm game you can have. Songs and charts are good, community is good, and the dev team actually does a good job to maintain and improve their game. There’s a good amount of in-game customization to suit the player’s needs, it also supports MIDI controllers.
I have a small issue though, my issue is the game is trying to be a hybrid of a casual and competitive game. The reason this is an issue is they’re limiting the skill cap with the hardest songs. In it’s current state, there are a couple people who have a perfect score on every chart. If the game wants to be competitive they should influence players to improve more and more. High level leaderboards is only an accuracy battle of who can get a perfect score on the most songs. Don’t get me wrong, the hardest songs are definitely challenging and very intimidating when you’re new or a casual player of the game. But why hold back players skills when there’s a global leaderboard? This won’t be much of an issue for the average player, but if you spend a lot of time in it you’ll find yourself slowly getting worn out only playing for accuracy.
– Real player with 585.3 hrs in game
Thumper
Disclaimer: This review is considerably lengthy. The abridged version is: buy it. I have been obsessed with this game for the past few days and that train, much like the space beetle you play as, is not stopping anytime soon. If you’re interested in reading about how I believe Thumper applies play conditioning, minimalism and cosmic horror to create a brilliant game filled with gorgeous graphics, an intense score and absurd replay value – go ahead!
This strange game is an incredibly satisfying trifecta of psychedelic art, rhythm-based play and horror tension. Seriously, somehow developers Drool have managed to make a game described as, a space beetle travelling through the void, a uniquely terrifying and intense experience. I want to focus the majority of my review on a concept I think Thumper executes brilliantly. It’s a term known as play conditioning, and it’s not mine – I first heard its use by film and games essayist Hbomberguy. He coined the term vis-à-vis Thumper; so, with this in mind, I believe it to be intellectually honest for me to present his argument given that I will proceed to apply, expand and comment on it.
– Real player with 69.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Rhythm Action Games.
I understand that hearing “rhythm violence” or “rhythm horror” might be a bit concerning or confusing, so I am going to try to explain it. It is incredibly difficult to know what this game means by those things without trying it.
This game has no gore, no jumpscares, no typical horror tropes, no dismemberment, etc. What Thumper does is give you a feeling of tension and sheer adrenaline. Everything builds up to different points and then releases that tension, thus giving you that feeling of “dread” and adrenaline.
– Real player with 63.8 hrs in game
BIT.TRIP RUNNER
BIT.TRIP RUNNER was first released on the Wii as part of a collection of games, digital only as Wiiware. This one stood out in the collection, became sort of a cult classic and led to a couple of sequels. In the meantime the entire BIT.TRIP collection was released on a plethora of different platforms, including Steam.
This game has you controlling a little 8-bit pixel guy called Commander Video throughout a unique pixelly world. All the commander really does is auto run in a linear fashion on a set stage, from left to right. You have to make it all the way from the beginning to the finish line without running into any obstacle, all the while collecting gold bars. A very simple concept, yet this game’s difficulty is absolutely brutal. The aforementioned obstacles present themselves in the form of drop pits, fire, projectiles and the environment as a whole. If you run into a wall, you die. If you fall into a pit, you die. If you get hit by a projectile…dead. You probably kind of see where I’m going with this…
– Real player with 72.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Rhythm Difficult Games.
This game is fun and addictive, but it has some major flaws.
First of all, the difficulty curve in this game is all over the place. Now, I’m not sure if this is because I got used to the game as I progressed, but I felt that some of the later stages (especially from world 2) were incredibly easy when compared to the earlier ones. The difficulty ramps up again towards the end, but you’ll still find that it varies greatly from stage to stage instead of following a steadily rising curve as you would expect.
– Real player with 51.7 hrs in game
BIT.TRIP BEAT
I’ll start off by saying I’m a pretty big fanatic of the “BIT.TRIP” series. I have most of the games and have played all of them to completion, albeit not perfected. “BIT.TRIP BEAT” is up there as one of my favourites of the series along with “BIT.TRIP FLUX” which came later with a more graphical enhancement. This game although very simple in graphical quality offers a great rhythm experience along with some nice 8-bit music to accompany it. You essentially play as a rectangular stick reflecting a variety of different squares called “beats” ping pong style, obviously to the beat of the music that plays. And that’s pretty much the gist of it.
– Real player with 39.8 hrs in game
BIT.TRIP BEAT is a game that will only appeal to a certain kind of person; one who likes a challenge, is accepting of unorthodox game design (i.e. intentionally making the screen difficult to see / misdirecting the player), doesn’t mind playing a small amount of content focussed on the gameplay and likes the music (because it’s essentially a rhythm game, you’ll be hearing the game’s music the whole time). I don’t think it’s fair to criticise a game for being hard or ‘not for everyone’ because the exact same logic can be applied to every single game, some people don’t want to play a game that feels babyproofed. A lot of people don’t like this game, I personally love it.
– Real player with 38.2 hrs in game
BeatShips
Simple, yet fun
– Real player with 35.6 hrs in game
Great game with huge potential! Will probably end up playing this every now and then when I’m looking for something chill.
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
Chiptune DJ
I love chiptunes, and I love rhythm games. This giant turd gives a bad name to both.
There are 13 songs, and they’re all musically mediocre or better, some are quite good, but musically only.
I beat all 13 songs at least once and it didn’t unlock anything new, so I guess that’s it.
The gameplay both in terms of rhythm game, and general fun, is complete garbage, as is the UI. Even if you’re passing all notes perfectly, the off-timed bloops of hitting the notes (successfully) makes the song sound shitty compared to hearing it on its own.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Pretty well done Stepmania/Osu! -like rhytm game with amazing chiptune music (and great UX/graphics to go along with it). Right now the major downside is a lack of an editor/composer for custom tracks, as the “standard” library is pretty limited, and I’m pretty sure the community would do wonders in this regard.
Some other minor nitpicks I noticed:
- The game doesn’t remember the last song played when returning back to the song picker, and jumps back at the beginning of the list. This is not a big deal right now, but might become one when the library grows.
– Real player with 0.2 hrs in game
Laserlife
I beat the main game with all but one achievement in 2 hours (on default/normal difficulty), and I am not at all someone you’d call “good” at rhythm games. It wasn’t until I started going back to try to get the last achievement that I realized you could actually “lose” a level at all. If you like rhythm games then you might enjoy this (the music is sweet) but if you REALLY like rhythm games then I imagine you might find it a bit disappointing. There’s a hard mode, but I’m not screwing with that.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
Important! Laserlife cannot be played without a controller. Its not that it has bad keyboard compatibility, it has none.
If you don’t have a controller, Laserlife is ‘Intel RealSense’ compatible. See website for more details:http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/realsense-overview.html
Like any game on Steam, Laserlife has its ups and downs. Luckily the ups far outnumber the downs.
Laserlife has a story at its heart, as in the description, it is the story of a dead astronaut from childhood to death. And its a good one.
– Real player with 3.9 hrs in game
Melatonin
Melatonin is an unconventional rhythm game about dreams bleeding into reality. Stay on beat as you traverse through a series of minigames that challenge you to interact with rhythm in fun new ways.
Explore the mind of the main character and see how their dreams have been affected by their real-life desires and anxieties. The reverse is true too as the dreams themselves begin to have an impact on the character’s reality.
The game features a vibrant art style with visuals and animations that have been fully hand-drawn in 4K. The music has also been hand-crafted to flow with the gameplay for a holistic musical experience.
Each of the 4 chapters has a different theme with a new set of rhythm-based minigames that take place in their own unique dream world.
Earn stars to unlock more minigames, mashups, and additional chapters. The game relies on following sound and animation cues to beat each minigame, but there’s also a practice mode that guides you through the proper timing using a more traditional interface.
Ongaku
I liked the difficulty curve of the game and how the game is more fun the harder your difficulty is. I also liked that after you finish the game you’re given the choice to get rid of the mechanic where you move your note up and down and can only match the directions. It’s good because some players might not like this mechanic since it’s quite hard to perfectly match it on harder difficulties. Last but not least I think that being able to put in your own songs, videos and images in the game and get levels generated for them is the best part of the game. Overall for this price tag this game provides you with quite a lot of options and content and can be quite fun.
– Real player with 2.4 hrs in game
It’s very very good game!
My first time wasn’t be very good , but about 5 minutes practice and I’ve done first map with max points.
Dont throw this game to the trash , becasue U need practice.
Like I said this is about 5-10 max 15 minutes.
– Real player with 1.0 hrs in game
Rhyme Storm
This game is easy to play but hard to master. Me and my buddy (theskinnymenace) always have a blast playing. It also activates the rhyme center in my brain and i found myself crafting my own raps in my head just for fun. The prompts and subject matter are always hilarious.
– Real player with 24.9 hrs in game
If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to freestyle rap, buy Rhyme Storm right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izJdCRp1Kyk
If you want to watch me embarrass myself playing Rhyme Storm, watch my video above. If you’ve never freestyled before and need to learn how, choose Freeflow Mode to get used to rapping a rhyme within the beat. Stick to the semi-randomly generated lyrics, add to them, embellish them, and learn the art of improvising. Once you’re ready, or if you want a challenge, go into Off the Dome Mode where you’re simply given the rhyme for each line. Sure, you’ll make a fool of yourself, but you’ll pick up the skills a lot quicker than you’d think.
– Real player with 8.3 hrs in game