Category: Rhythm

Posted on

Game Ramblings #89 – Cadence of Hyrule: CRYPT OF THE NECRODANCER FEAT. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

More Info from Brace Yourself Games

  • Genre: Rhythm RPG
  • Platform: Switch

This is definitely one of those games that I assumed would work when it was announced, but you can never really be sure. Outside of the obvious rhythm gameplay of Crypt of the Necrodancer, it’s not that far off of Zelda. It’s still basically an action RPG with a bunch of inventory. It still encourages you to romp through effectively dungeons to progress. It’s god a damn good soundtrack. But still, this is Zelda. Somehow this has come out and feels great, feeling like each of their series at the same time without losing anything in the process.

Under normal circumstances, this would be a screenshot of a standard Zelda 2D title, but that little bar at the bottom is where it starts to separate itself.

The screenshot above does a good job of visually laying out how much things are the same, but totally different. On the surface, this looks like a 2D Zelda-series RPG. There’s some familiar looking enemies, a normal item wheel, hearts, rupees, keys, a slightly angled camera viewpoint. However, that little bar at the bottom and the specifics of the grid are where you start getting the Necrodancer gameplay.

Like Necrodancer, any movement or attack is most effective when done on the beat of the music. At the same time, enemies also move and attack on the beat, so you’ve got a play around keeping on eye on what you’re doing and an eye on the enemies to make sure you aren’t getting trapped. While it’s technically a turn-based game as a result, the practical pace is really close to an action RPG and it ends up straddling the line between familiar and new really well.

Combat is also a bit different than expected for a Zelda game, mostly due to a large unexpected variety in ways to attack. Each character that you control has its own specialty, and you can swap between Link, Zelda, or Necrodancer’s Cadence at any time once you reach them. You’ve still got your Link-style broadsword attacks that hit a wide line in front of the player. However, you can also use spears for extended range straight attacks, flails for L-shaped AoE style attacks, or daggers for real close-range combat. Even on defense you have more variety than just Hylian shields, with characters like Zelda able to activate a projectile-reflecting magic shield if timed correctly. You can even add modifiers to your weapons like health drain or poison to add some additional flexibility to your loadout.

The positive outcome of all of this is that I really spent time modifying my gear loadout and character selection based on what I knew would be most beneficial to me at the time. Early on I went more spear-focused in order to keep enemies at a larger range from me. As I gained some hearts and defensive items, I started moving into broadswords in order to take out more than one enemy at a time, even if it allowed them to get closer at range and occasionally hit me. As a whole it ends up in a battle system that has tremendously good flow due to the rhythm focus, but still has a ton of ways to play to your strengths at any time in a way very reminiscent of high end ARPGs.

It definitely helps that there’s a lot of familiar things in the gameplay though despite all the changes. You’ve still got to save up your rupees to buy things in shops. You’ve still got to visit Kakariko Village to move forward. Hell, you’ve still got to get lost in Lost Woods as part of your quest. However, through it all the focus on rhythm gameplay really feels like a fun fresh take on the Zelda formula.

And oh boy that soundtrack. The Zelda soundtracks on their own are really special, and really familiar to a lot of gamers. Living up to that alone is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. However, the need to really hit a music pace that allows for a good gameplay pace added a level of technical need that the team really nailed. The familiar Zelda themes are morphed into new genres – whether it’s jazzier takes on the main theme or Song of Storms, or more dance-based overworld themes, or even rock-focused takes on the Gerudo Valley theme – that really push a fast gameplay pace while still being fantastic takes on familiar themes. This is the rare game where the soundtrack alone is worth the price of purchase, but you still get a great game on top of it.

It also helps that the bosses are punny as hell.

This is definitely a game out of left field. While Necrodancer on its own is a fantastic game, the fact that Nintendo allowed for the Zelda license to run wild in the Necrodancer universe. What ends up coming out of it is something that just works fantastically well – as long as you’re comfortable in the rhythm style. Is this going to be a replacement for the upcoming Link’s Awakening remake? No not really. Is this better than I could have hoped for as a way to get more Necrodancer content? You better believe it.

Posted on

Game Ramblings #6 – Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd

More Info from Sega

  • Genre: Rhythm
  • Platform: Playstation Vita (Also available for PS3)

Progress

  • Full Completion Normal/Hard, all but 2 songs Extreme difficulty
  • Completion of all available song DLC at the time of playthrough

Project Diva is very obviously a game concentrated around the Japanese Vocaloid characters and music.  However, underneath the surface, there’s a really strong music rhythm game to be had.  There’s a large variety of content to run through, a nice range of difficulties, and a lot of side-activities for completionists to run through.  If you’re fine with the very much anime-styled experience to be had with this, it’s one of the better rhythm games I’ve seen on a a portable system of late.

What I Liked

Overall the rhythm gameplay was pretty well put together.  The core actions are all button presses, but there’s a mix of straight symbol/d-pad presses, combination symbol/d-pad at the same time (Ex: X + D-Pad down), as well as hold variants typical of the genre.  On the Vita, there is also screen swipes with the inclusion of the front touchscreen.  By the time I got into the extreme difficulty, I was playing a lot of thumb gymnastics trying to keep up with the pace of symbols coming in.  The nice thing about this is that the presses follow the music very closely, so growing familiarity with the songs increases the effectiveness of play throughs, even on top of simply getting better at recognizing the patterns coming in.

On top of that, there is a lot of flexibility in how the game is played, both cosmetically and functionally.  Song modifiers can be set before a song is played to increase the difficulty (Ex: random direction of symbols moving onto the screen), or to help clear tough songs (Ex: touch screen swipes can now be activated with the shoulder buttons).  This gives another nice layer of modification even on top of the set of difficulties available.  As a cosmetic incentive, the animated characters in each music video can be cosmetically changed, from simple things like hats, to completely different outfits.  This plays into some of the completionist goals, where certain unlockables can only be obtained by playing songs with specific conditions of all of the above.

Indifferent, but Neat

The completionist aspect moves beyond just cosmetic changes.  Each character can be interacted with within a customizable room, where you can give them gifts and interactable objects, growing relationships.  I didn’t see anything to this beyond a handful of trophies, but it adds another layer of something to do for completionists to chase after.

What I Didn’t Like

The touch screen swiping was pretty poor.  However, I chalk this up more to the system than to the game’s implementation.  Over time, the typical touch screen finger grime would build up, and I’d start missing swipe inputs.  Knowing about this to clean the screen before songs is fine, but hitting that tipping point mid-song tended to be frustrating as hell.

Extreme difficulty is also pretty appropriately named.  While most of it was pretty much tuned to the rhythm of the song, some of the later songs were very clearly chosen to be absurd.  Double press 16th notes wrapping around the button mapping felt next to impossible on the long travel, small buttons of the Vita.   I suspect the PS3 controller would have felt better with its easier button presses, but the later songs on Extreme often times felt unfair to try to get through.