Crypt of the Necrodancer Review (PC)

The indie gaming scene is filled with roguelike dungeon crawlers, especially those sporting a pixelated visual style, and Crypt of the Necrodancer, coming from Brace Yourself Games, is no exception.

However, as its name suggests, it's a bit more than just your regular dungeon crawling experience. Instead of slowly maneuvering your way through randomly generated crypts while fighting different enemies, you dance your way through them.

In order to defeat foes and keep earning as much loot and currency as possible, you need to match the beat of the song and keep doing that until you find the exit. As you can imagine, this is easier said than done, but the game manages to remain accessible and keep the soundtrack as varied as possible, while throwing in the option to use your own songs.

Does Crypt of the Necrodancer play a successful tune or should we just stop moving? Let's find out.

Story

Roguelike games are never that fond of complex stories, and Crypt of the Necrodancer isn't an exception. It does open with the narrative involving the main protagonist, a young girl named Cadence, who must travel through various dungeons to complete her escape, after being resurrected by a necromancer.

You meet an opera-singing merchant along the way, as well as various non-playable characters that can help make your randomly generated adventures a bit easier to tackle. There are also plenty of different unlockable protagonists with different side stories, so you'll still have reasons to keep going besides the catchy soundtrack and its remixes.

Battle big enemies in Crypt of the Necrodancer

Gameplay

Without a doubt, the rhythm-based movement and combat system in Necrodancer is one of the most refreshing in years and definitely one of the most outlandish ones. While in theory it sounds interesting, once you begin to think about putting it into practice, you can already see potential problems.

Fortunately, Brace Yourself Games has managed to overcome most of the possible obstacles by implementing an easy to learn yet hard to master beat-matching system. In case you can't really match what you're hearing, you have a heart that's pumping to the beat, so you can always try to follow it instead.

Matching the beat isn't mandatory, but skipping it causes you to lose your coin multiplier and leaves you exposed to enemy attacks. As such, you might want to keep things constant, even though that's easier said than done.

If you really can't match a beat to save your virtual life, you can pick Bard, one of the unlocked characters alongside Cadence, who doesn’t need to stick to the beat. Instead, his movement prompts movement from the enemies on the screen. As such, you're more or less treated to a game of virtual chess, as you have to constantly ensure that you keep your enemies in a vulnerable state or know when to get out of possible converging paths.

Speaking of enemies, they are extremely varied, as befitting of a roguelike experience, starting with slime balls and continuing with bats, skeletons, zombies, dragons, and much more. Some sit still or have simple patrol patterns but others are much more dynamic, and if you aren't careful, they can easily diminish your hearts and cause you to restart.

To make things easier, you wield a shovel and a basic sword in the beginning but can unlock all sorts of new things by either finding them in the levels or by spending the in-game gold or the in-game diamonds. The coins can be spent at the shops scattered throughout the levels, while the diamonds are used in the main hub zone to unlock items that you can then find in chests during the actual stages.

Besides finding weapons and loot, you also uncover new items throughout your adventures. These include consumables like turkey legs or apples that replenish your hearts, but also one-time use scrolls to unleash deadly fire blasts and other such things, not to mention spells.

The main downside is that using them means pressing, as standard, combinations of the arrow keys on the keyboard. This is a bit awkward at first and still means that you have to take your eyes off the action to see what combination is needed. When you're swarmed by foes or unsure where to go, this action can lead to death or at least some lost health.

Death is pretty much a given in roguelike experiences, and while Crypt of the Necrodancer does alleviate some of the frustration with its charm and innovative system, it can still wear on your nerves, especially if you don't really like the specific song in that instance.

The game can be played cooperatively with a friend, but things can get even more hectic as you're trying to stick to the beat and coordinate your attacks or movement.

There are quite a lot of unlockable characters besides Cadence and Bard, including a monk that dies when picking up gold but can get one free item each visit to the store, or Dove, who doesn't kill enemies and can walk through exits without defeating the necessary bosses. They each provide different gameplay paradigm shifts, and it's quite fun to switch them up, at least until you get killed and grow weary.

Die a lot in Crypt of the Necrodancer

Visuals and sound

Crypt of the Necrodancer sports a pretty good pixelated style that manages to feel custom even though it's been used by many other indie games nowadays. The visual effects are good and the character models, even the enemies, look sharp.

Of course, the main aspect is the soundtrack, which comes in three distinct variations, as there's a standard one, a rock-themed remix, as well as an EDM one. Throw in the possibility of playing your own songs and you're in for a varied time.

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The Good

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