Rift of the NecroDancer

2025-08-23
Rift of the Necrodancer is basically Guitar Hero mixed with Crypt of the Necrodancer. Take the lanes of notes coming at you but turn those notes into monsters from Crypt of the Necrodancer. The simplest enemy, the slime, you hit once and it dies...so it's basically a regular Guitar Hero note. But it gets more and more and more complicated from here. Enemies you hit multiple times, enemies that move diagonally, enemies that move one direction when you hit them to another lane where you have to hit them again, enemies that you hit 3 times in a single beat, enemies you hit 3 times in a single beat except, wait no, this one is red so skip the middle part of the triplet for that SWING, baby. What it does is take the Read The Notes > Press The Buttons process that defines rhythm games and adds a layer of abstraction. Reading the monsters coming down the screen becomes a whole new language you need to teach your brain so you can decode it into the sequence of buttons you'll actually be pressing in time with the music. At first I felt like I was having a stroke, watching Harpie after Harpie fuck my health bar up. Then at some point I got the hang of it and played couple songs with some real swing in 'em like King's Ruse and then I was locked in.

The fill out the package, there's a story mode which adds a fluffy little plot to intersperse the songs you play. I think I genuinely blacked out during every cutscene because it's so devoid of substance or character. The real draw then, as opposed to just ripping songs straight from the main menu, is they add in little one-off mini rhythm games like doing yoga or making burgers that all have a fun little twist on keeping the beat. They're kind of hit or miss but I appreciate the extra variety and the art--which is excellent all around--makes them sing. Sadly, the story mode also comes burdened with boss fights. These are at best mediocre rhythm games and at worst, in the case of the Reaper boss fight, an actual diarrhea fest. On Medium the prompts come up so slow it's impossible to parse what the hell is going on as they layer 5 buttons on top of each other. And on Hard, where they presumably would move at the correct speed, they just remove the prompts entirely. Sick! It's one of the worst difficulty spikes I've seen in a game in a while and I almost threw up my hands and uninstalled the game.

I didn't know I needed "Guitar Hero But Big Brain'd" but I did and Rift of the Necrodancer delivers it. Though I also didn't know I needed to see the tutorial trainer soy-facing but I didn't and Rift of the Necrodancer delivers it. You win some and you lose some I suppose.