Brace Yourself Games’ Crypt of The Necrodancer centers on “Cadence” a girl who lost her mother to a plague that struck her village when she was young. Cadence’s father, devastated, dived into the depth of a crypt in search for a lost treasure that he believed would bring back the life of his wife and Cadence’s mother. Two years had passed since her father left to find the treasure; CadenceBrace Yourself Games’ Crypt of The Necrodancer centers on “Cadence” a girl who lost her mother to a plague that struck her village when she was young. Cadence’s father, devastated, dived into the depth of a crypt in search for a lost treasure that he believed would bring back the life of his wife and Cadence’s mother. Two years had passed since her father left to find the treasure; Cadence felt it was her duty now to find him. In her quest, she fell into the crypt where an evil Necrodancer took her heart and cursed it to move to the beat of the crypt forever. Cadence must now find her father and defeat the evil Necrodancer in order to lift the curse. This story line, while written well, interesting, and captivating at times, is just the cherry on top of this game’s gameplay, music, and visual effects,
Crypt of the Necrodancer is a rogue-rhythm dungeon crawler that consists of four zones, each with three randomly generated levels and a boss battle. You must complete all of these in order to set a checkpoint in the game and proceed onto the next zone. Each time you die you are reset to the beginning of the first level in the zone. Now, throughout the levels you will find and purchase upgrades like any fantasy dungeon crawler including health, weapons, armor, spells, and enchanted items. Permanent and new upgrades are available for purchase, with diamonds that you have found in the crypt, in the lobby of the game, from characters you save from sick beat prison in zones you have completed. These permanent upgrades include the essentials like better armor, weapons, spells etc. However most of these purchased upgrades come in the form of chests that can be found within the crypt zones, excluding health upgrades which you will automatically have added on in the beginning of each zone. These upgrades can be extremely helpful and can make all the difference in whether you complete a zone or rage out.
The game can become fairly difficult and kind of frustrating, especially when you’re first jumping into it. The rhythm aspect of the game and the way the almost “Zelda-esque” grid-style combat is set up, provides a really fun challenge for players; punishing you by sending you back to the beginning of the randomly generated zone but rewarding you by letting you listen to the music again and again, as you will die a lot. And if you like a bit of an extra challenge you can choose to not pick up weapons or health, and even jump on floor tiles that will either speed up or slow down the tempo of the song. And if you find yourself needing some help, the game supports local co-op play, which makes for a great “couch co-op” experience. Once you get the hang of the movement, and rhythm mechanics, you begin to notice and appreciate the crème-filling of the game, the music and visual effects.
It is hard for me to overstate how much I enjoyed what this game did with music. The soundtrack of the game itself is amazing and something I’ve found myself wanting to listen to outside of the game. However I did find myself getting rather upset playing through it the first time, dying then having to listen to the same song on the soundtrack over and over again. So my recommendation would be to either not die ever, or download some of the other soundtracks that have been released as DLC. If you decide to get the game on the recent port to PS4 these downloadable soundtracks are included with the game. But don’t let that be the deciding factor in whether you get the game on PC or PS4, as the PC version has easily my favorite feature of the game: MP3 Uploads. On the PC version you can upload any of your MP3 files, the game will analyze the tempo and allow you to play with your own music. This feature is not new to games, but feels brand new and refreshing when defeating giant dancing monsters to your favorite song or even playing through the whole game to a favorite album. And I know some of you may have just a laptop with no gaming potential, and may fear that you will never get to play this game. Well you’re wrong. The simplistic 8-bit art style of the game allows for optimal performance on any platform, not to mention it looks great.
Now while the 8-bit art style may look great, it is a style that has been used a lot in the past few years and has somewhat lost its luster of being a “new-retro game”, and the nostalgia factor is just not there anymore. That being said, the use of contrasting color in this 8-bit world creates a beautiful game. The zones are almost exclusively darker toned color palettes to set the scene of being in an underground crypt, but each monster when illuminated by your small torch brings vibrancy and brightness to the world. Not only this but when you kill a monster, your coin multiplier begins, and any time your coin multiplier is active, the crypt floor turns into an ever changing disco dancefloor. So while the art style maybe a bit over played, Crypt of The Necrodancer finds a way to make it fun.
7/10 For PS4… Expand
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