Beat Slayer review: 'Beat' 'em up

The roguelite has become a popular concept in gaming over the past several years. An increasing number of developers and studios have picked up the basic idea and run with it, some combining it with other types of games. Beat Slayer is one of the newest roguelites to hit the gaming scene, one that combines action with rhythmic beats. This latest effort from ByteRockers Games blends the two ideas together capably, even if the story doesn't really offer anything memorable.

Just Beat It

Beat Slayer takes place in a dystopian future version of Berlin, which has been taken over by a suited fiend named Dietrich. Beyond being a freedom fighter, main character Mia has a personal stake in this battle. Dietrich has kidnapped her brother, so Mia is fighting to save the world and her only family. To win the day, she has to run through Dietrich's army of robots and maintain her rhythm in order to survive.

It's a basic story, one in which Mia gets a full supporting cast. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot about the outside world, the underground bunker, or Mia's crew that feels particularly imaginative. None of the characters feel interesting, and by my fifth run, I had become far less interested in what any of them had to say. Mia's dialogue isn't much better, as she shoehorns in classic music references frequently enough that it starts to sound forced after a while.

Fortunately, the moment-to-moment gameplay loop makes up for any narrative shortcomings.

Jukebox Hero

Dietrich maintains his hold over Berlin through a powerful musical signal, which requires Mia to put on special noise-canceling headphones to drown it out. Those headphones send out toe-tapping club music, which drives Beat Slayer's main mechanic. It's totally possible to mindlessly hack and slash with Mia's various weapons and fare well, but at the end of the day, it only gets players so far. The true key to success is striking and dashing to the beat and building up Mia's combo meter.

Rhythmic beats mixed with Hades-style combat is a strong combination. This proves especially true as Mia unlocks new weapons and new attacks, like a kick that can stun enemies. Players who can stick with Beat Slayer's rhythm will get the most out of the TanzenReich mechanic, which is basically Mia's offensive output going into overdrive. The issue here is that the enemies don't exactly play by the same rules the way they do in a game like Crypt of the NecroDancer. While Mia has to do her best to stick to the beat, the enemy robots are all doing their own thing. That means trying to dodge their attacks can frequently lead to broken combos, which happens a lot in later stages and boss battles. It almost gets to a point where players trying to stick to the beat are at a disadvantage when fighting against foes that march to the beat of their own drum. It's made worse when players nod their head to the beat, then look over on the corner of the screen to see that their health is almost entirely gone because of poor feedback from enemy hits.

Of course, combat isn't the only thing Beat Slayer shares in common with Hades. Over the course of any run, players will encounter diverging paths that offer upgrades, healing items, and additional XP that can be put towards permanent upgrades. Despite overall character progression sometimes feeling slow, this is a formula that still works well. Beat Slayer's branching paths are designed to hit all the right notes and allow players to craft certain builds for specific runs, allowing for slightly more variety than I expected. It does make up for the repetitive feeling that the early stages of any run start to give off after a few hours.

Dropping That Beat

Beat Slayer is a game that falls short in some areas. I don't think it goes far enough in establishing its unique setting and the characters are just people you want to tune out after a while. With that said, I enjoyed the game on the whole. It's not a game that's good for long sessions, especially if you get particularly far in a run and have that adrenaline balloon get popped to send you back to the very beginning. For short sessions, however, it's got solid enough combat and a strong enough soundtrack to make it worth touring this robot-filled dystopia.

This review is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Beat Slayer is available now on PC for $19.99 USD. The game is not rated by the ESRB.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?