Beat Slayer | PC Review

I’ve loved rhythm games ever since I discovered Amplitude back on my PS2. My many years of piano lessons as a child made games centered on music come very natural to me. If you’ve read any of my work here, you also know that I adore roguelike games. ByteRockers’ Games successfully combined both of these genres into an experience called Beat Slayer, and it’s a great little title. It has a few edges that need to be sanded down (as of this writing), but the developer has promised to continue work on the game up till its April 4th release date.

Melee to the Music

The gameplay novelty here is one of the more unique ideas I’ve seen in a long time. You move your character from an isometric viewpoint as you move through waves of enemies. Your combat is completely melee-focused, but button mashing your way through arenas will get you nowhere. The hook here is smacking enemies in beat with the music in Mia’s head. Each consecutive hit starts a counter in the bottom right hand corner of your screen. The more that number grows, the more powerful your attacks become. Also, if that counter reaches 20, you enter a state the game calls “Tanzrausch”, which is essentially a hyper mode. Not only do your attacks do more damage, but you also activate elemental bonuses like lightning, fire, or virus (poison).

Mia also has other abilities at her disposal. She can dash to quickly evade enemy attacks, kick enemies to do damage and stun them, and also unleash a special attack, provided she’s collected enough energy. Each of these abilities also affect your counter meter, so doing them on beat with the music is equally important.

Working your way through levels can only be described as a dance. I was reminded of the combat in the Arkham games, where each fight has a certain flow to it. Beat Slayer follows somewhat of a similar formula, but with its own musical flavor. It’s easy to get locked into the rhythm, and gameplay starts to feel like a moment of zen. I grew so accustomed to playing on beat with the tunes that I found myself even navigating menus in time with the tunes.

In the Mind’s Ear

The narrative setup for Beat Slayer is a genuinely interesting one. In a dystopian future, an evil corporation led by an antagonist named Dietrich controls the population with music. They constantly blast mind-controlling music across the city, and its listeners obey their every whim. Our hero is Mia, a young redhead with a punk rock attitude. Refusing to be consumed by Dietrich’s music, she dons her own headphones at all times, listening to her own music to drown out what the evil overlords force on everyone. The metaphor of living life by the “beat of your own drum” may be a tad on the nose, but I still found it to be very clever.

Mia as a character is very charming to begin with. She clearly wants to take down Dietrich and rescue her brother, and her no-nonsense sensibilities are very welcome. After a while, however, her cheesy one liners start to lean more on the grating side during combat. They were so distracting, I wound up lowering the dialogue volume almost all the way down so I could focus on just the musical combat.

If you complete a run and actually rescue your brother, the game is far from over. You’ll have to complete at least five more runs with increased difficulty to find a cure for your brother’s ailment. It’s a bit of a “convenient” story reason, but it extends the game further than I thought it would go.

You Said It Was a Rogue?

Yes, Beat Slayer is a game where you’ll start fresh after failed runs. Progression through the city has multiple branching paths, with each way offering different rewards on the way. You can earn XP to put towards permanent upgrades or attack bonuses for your current run. At the early stages, I found myself focusing on XP to make future runs a bit easier. Once I started focusing on current-run upgrades, however, the game started opening up in ways I didn’t expect. Focusing on like abilities is much more of a key to victory than I initially expected. In one run, I took every lightning upgrade that I could. Stacking these elements makes you nearly unstoppable. I’m looking forward to exploiting this strategy on future runs with a different element.

Your home base houses your friends, each of which offer you permanent upgrades, one-time bonuses for the current run, or even a training arena to hone your skills even further. You also get a chance to chat with your fully voice acted companions. There’s not a ton of depth to the characters, but each have their own personality that make them interesting to talk to, especially when they offer tips for your next battles.

There are also multiple weapons added to the mix. You start with an axe that is very simple to use: hit each enemy on any of the beats in a 4/4 measure. The second weapon is a heavier-hitting hammer that works slightly differently. Here, you still hit on one of the four beats, but the real attack takes place on the off-beat. It adds an added element of timing that takes a minute or two to wrap your head around. The benefit is a more powerful weapon that requires a completely different rhythm. It’s a fun way to mix up the gameplay that I didn’t expect. As of this writing, the third weapon was still not available, but I expect it to be in the final release.

Music is obviously a huge factor in this game, and the original score is definitely very catchy. I had hoped for a bit more variety to the music, however. My hope is that I’ll discover more tunes on subsequent runs. It’s never overbearing by any stretch, and they definitely have a hook that make it easy to get into.

Beat Slayer Final Verdict

Beat Slayer has been a very pleasant surprise for me. The rhythm gameplay is a ton of fun to play, and I have yet to tire from starting over. It might be easy to overlook this title with the high number of releases coming out this time of year. But if you’re a fan of rhythm games and rogues, you won’t want to skip this title. It’s pretty special and I could see more of this style of gaming in the future.

To hear me talk more about Beat Slayer, be sure to listen to our April 3rd podcast episode.

This review is based on a PC copy of Beat Slayer provided by NEONHIVE for coverage purposes. It is exclusive to this platform.