Evaluate: ROBOBEAT (Nintendo Swap) – Pure Nintendo

Is ROBOBEAT the primary rhythm-based first-person shooter obtainable for the Nintendo Swap? It’s actually the primary one I’ve performed, and that perhaps explains my confusion. The sport’s actually distinctive, however is it needed? Let’s determine that out.

At its coronary heart, ROBOBEAT performs like your typical first-person shooter. It doesn’t, nevertheless, come together with your typical story. You’re a bounty hunter named Ace, and also you’re chasing down a robotic named Frazzer. This robotic is a little bit of a showman, it appears, and he’s created this maze of rave warehouses stuffed with enemies attempting to finish your pursuit. You’ll have to grasp quite a few strikes and make the most of assorted weapons with the intention to make it via, and also you’ll have to look good doing it.

The sport’s stream is fairly easy. You select a cassette to pop into your Walkman, figuring out the music to which you’ll be combating. You choose up your selection of weapons, figuring out the way you’ll be eliminating the enemies. You’ll get one for every hand, and mixing them up is fairly entertaining. I couldn’t start to depend the variety of first-person shooters I’ve performed in my lifetime, however I can say with certainty that that is the primary time I’ve been armed with a pistol in a single hand and a ping pong paddle within the different.

ROBOBEAT begins with some fast (and infrequently cryptic) coaching directions, then it’s straight into fight. While you enter a battle space, quite a few enemies spawn with intent to kill. You’ll have to preserve shifting, dodging their assaults whereas aiming your personal. And you may’t simply hit them; you need to hit them to the beat of the music. Completely timed pictures do extra injury, whereas off-beat assaults will be ineffective. Placing all of this collectively actually does really feel such as you’re studying a dance, so your preliminary runs are certain to be terribly clumsy. The gameplay isn’t plenty of enjoyable at first.

Fortunately, the rogue-like stream is engaging. ROBOBEAT pushes you into fight and thru the maze with an upbeat perspective that may turn out to be infectious. You push so far as you’ll be able to till you die, unlocking new areas and buying new cassettes and weapons alongside the way in which. Then, you begin one other run. Choosing your subsequent path is completed on the fly, so there’s little to fiddle with between and through runs. Enter a room, clear it out, select your path, transfer forward, purchase upgrades, defeat the boss. Credit score the builders for wanting to maintain you on the dance ground.

I’m not a dancer, nevertheless, and my causes for that carry over to this recreation. First, if I’m going to be blasting enemies to a collection of songs, I’d like for the songs to be catchier. The included music is targeted totally on the beat. That is smart, contemplating the main target of the gameplay, nevertheless it additionally means they’re all pretty generic whomp-whomp-whomp tunes that I’m used to listening to solely as automobiles with neon underbody lights pull up subsequent to me at a stoplight. The music has the fitting power for the second, however no memorability, and it turns into overbearing after some time.

Second, the controls are surprisingly clunky for a recreation that requires such precision. With a purpose to hearth on the beat, I discovered I needed to hearth forward of the beat with the intention to sustain. I can’t think about that was the fault of my Nintendo Swap Professional Controller. (I’d love to do this recreation with the precision of the Wii Distant.)

Lastly, the setting is decidedly drab. I earlier in contrast the battle arenas to rave warehouses, however they’re extra like rave warehouses the subsequent morning after the police cleared everybody out. All the shade comes from the enemies. That’s useful, I suppose, and the straightforward graphics assist efficiency, however the recreation’s motion actually may use a greater venue.

How a lot you get out of ROBOBEAT, then, can be decided solely by how you are feeling about eliminating enemies in rhythm. And as soon as that clicks, yeah, it may be thrilling. The a number of strikes you’ll be able to execute (and be rewarded for) make it simply as enjoyable to keep away from enemies as it’s to eradicate them. It takes fairly some time to get there, nevertheless, the final word reward for which is to simply look sharp. Is that sufficient? For some, I’d think about. However I’m previous, and I choose for my first-person shooters (and music) to have a bit of extra substance.