Another month, another rogue-like to come out! I love them when done right, and we’ve had some absolute bangers. Hades is a masterpiece (despite some grind), Moonlighter was pretty neat, and while I wouldn’t say I liked it upon its original release, replaying it again has made me love Neon Abyss. Roguelikes can be fantastic if they have the right hook and a good sense of flow and progression. So when I came across Beat Slayer, a game mixing rogue-like elements and rhythmic gameplay, I was truly intrigued.
What is Beat Slayer? 
Beat Slayer is a rhythmic hack n’ slash Roguelike centred around the funky, disco-tec-filled land of Berlin in a parallel universe. Players will take on the role of Mia, a fearless and awesome music lover and fighter, pushing her way through a robot-infested dystopian Berlin, where a crazed musician has taken over. It also doesn’t help her brother has been kidnapped by said madman and is locked away in a heavily fortified Berliner Fernsehturm.
Mia must keep with the beat to attack, kick a**, and survive. So as many would have pointed out and made the comparison like “Hades meets Hi-Fi Rush (Fingerguns). And that’s quite true, as the focus on rhythmic gameplay, music as a core aesthetic both visually and narratively, and the rogue-like elements woven into the gameplay and story, bring about quite a compelling concept for a game.
Narrative beats that tug on the heartstrings 
Now the major comparison for Beat Slayer would be Hades, due to the roguelike nature of gameplay, but also the story somewhat. Beat Slayer is a tragic tale about heroism and family, as Mia is trying to conquer dystopian Berlin to save her brother. At her base of operations are fellow like-minded people who want to end the tyranny of the bad guy, Dietrich. Together they train and support Mia, and with each run, she comes back to chat with them, train, learn more about them, and develop as a character.
The setting and vibe are quite cool, as Berlin, and Germany (along with Austria) are interesting places, with fascinating histories, groovy architecture, and a rather legendary music scene. And having Berlin filled with killer robots makes it even better. I felt this was the perfect setting, and I love the idea that music is used to control the masses, with Mia having to listen to music to avoid the mind-control radio waves. Thus, this is why we have the rhythmic elements in the first place.
While I generally like the cast of characters along with Mia, they’re not all that interesting, and their exchanges tend to be generic. With each trip back to the bunker, there isn’t much new happening, and after a dozen attempts, the exchanges became not much more than “Hey, gotta fight more robots” and “Okay, do that”.
There are some nice character moments, good dramatic reveals, and a decent laugh here and there. But nothing compared to Hades, which took its time to develop characters, had riveting conversations, and some of the greatest moments of gravitas in gaming. Even not comparing it to Hades, Beat Slayer’s exchanges between the action feel a little underwhelming, with few major events happening throughout the story, and no compelling relationship developments between characters
It also doesn’t help that the ending feels massively rushed, and the total length of the story/game is not very long for a Roguelike.
Heat on beat, and beat on heat 
While the narrative might be lacking somewhat, as for the rhythmic gameplay, it’s solid, and even dare I say, brilliant at times. But sadly I did have some gripes with it.
Beat Slayer keeps it minimal, like another rhythmic game “BPM”, where we have a simple beat which you work with. Now you can attack and dodge without matching the beat, but hitting those buttons in time with the beat will grant you more strength. Keep up with the beat over a prolonged time, and the stronger you will become, dealing more damage and having an even more powerful devastating epic. Of course, keeping to beat can land you in an instance where you’re left open for an attack, so deciding to keep the beat or lose it to retain health is an interesting dilemma.
What makes it even more so, is that enemies tend to hit very hard, and if not careful, you can lose a bit of health quickly. This can lead to some sudden deaths, which feels a little unfair. But in general, the forgiveness of Beat Slayer is very welcomed, where if you miss an input or two, you won’t lose your streak, unless you mess up the timing itself. You can even adjust the accessibility making it even more difficult to mess up your timing, and is super helpful for someone like me, who tends to panic and loose track of the beat.
While I highly respect it, I wasn’t a fan of Metal Singer as I felt it a little overwhelming at times, considering all the different layers and how they have woven into each other. Beat Slayer is simple, and for many, it might not provide much substance for the long haul. But anyone can approach it, play it, and never have to cram in too much attention and practice. You can pick up, play, put down, and come back to it, without having to learn a load of different rhythmic-based mechanics. I immensely appreciate the flexibility of Beat Slayer, being the reason I sunk multiple 4-hour sessions into it at a time. But what made the combat and rhythmic gameplay even more enjoyable, was the spectacle and the combination of effects.
You have a basic attack, kick, and epic attack. Each of these by themselves is fine, but you have various effects to add, such as Fire, Virus, and Electricity. These offer some great effects, and there are perks to combine the effects for even more devastating attacks. Such as hitting virus-affected enemies with fire will cause them to explode. Truly awesome spectacles, and the combat overall flowed beautifully well.
Even better is the variety of enemies, and while limited in number, Beat Slayer does have some cool boss encounters, with one being a giant flying robot snake, which you fight on top of two moving trains. This is all very cool.
Roguelike repetition ... not done so right 
However, aside from the fun combat and approachable rhythmic gameplay, the Roguelike elements are quite lacking elsewhere. My biggest gripe is there is little variety through multiple runs, and even basic features such as difficulty modifiers, bonus rooms, and random events are absent.
I understand not every Roguelike needs to be the same, but like any other genre, there are staples, and elements which work to flesh out the core gameplay loop. Beat Slayer has multiple paths to take, allowing you to freely choose your route and what combat upgrades, or gear to get. But there are no secret rooms, arenas that reward you for doing something unique, trap rooms, or even difficulty modifiers that change up each run drastically. Everything on every run stays pretty much the same, with very little changing. What does is minimal, such as when you unlock a new weapon, you’ll see a few more enemies in each run. There is nothing substantial to vastly enhance the runs going forward, so your runs 1 hour in, with definitely be the same as any on hour 10. Even a simple gimmick room, new characters to meet, or just changing up the boss battles (which on repeat plays do become very tedious) to spice things up (like again Hades does).
You do get a decent progression system, challenges which reward XP for killing a certain enemy type multiple times, and so forth … but that’s about it. There are only 3 weapons, and while all are effective, you can’t level up, or unlock different variants for them. Even being able to customise Mia, or do something significant for her followers at the bunker are massive, missed opportunity.
It all feels very safe, and after 20 runs, things do become quite tedious. It’s a shame as the core combat loop, the highly approachable rhythmic gameplay, and neat enemy designs do stand out. But the lack of variety, modifiers and even the essentials in any great Roguelike game, such as secret rooms, and special encounters, make the multiple runs feel a little dry after a while.
Another Roguelike, Neon Abyss, which when I first reviewed, I didn’t like due to the grind, implemented updates due to feedback. Thus we got new treasure rooms, bonuses, new characters and so forth, making it a vastly better experience, and even more important, one of the best of the genre in my eyes. It has a ton of variety, and while it has a bit of grind still, it doesn’t matter as there is so much to see and do on each run, which feels different overall.
Beat Slayer at least didn’t waste my time with Grind, which I’m grateful for and is a massive plus compared to other Roguelikes. But I rather have ground and lots of fun things to do, than good pacing but facing tedium after a few hours. However, I will say the combat is a ton of fun, I love the mixture of effects which paid off in some epic spells of visual beauty and destruction. And above all, the music is phenomenal. I love the soundtrack! It truly is stellar and makes the rhythmic elements even stronger.
So, to be honest, it’s two opposing sides in this argument, and if you plan to play this for 10 hours and be done with it, then you’ll be fine. But if you’re looking to play for 20, 30 or 40 hours as you do with most Roguelikes …. Then Beat Slayer won’t do the job.
Overall? Beat Slayer is a nice game, one where its rhythmic gameplay is highly approachable, the setting and art style are neat, the combat pretty stellar at times, and the music fantastic. But as a Roguelike game, it misses the mark on even some of the simplest staples of the genre. It lacks any compelling dynamics which invigorate each run over the many hours you’ll play. And while taking notes from Hades, its narrative lacks the emotional depth or wit of the Greek counterpart. It becomes quite repetitive around the halfway mark, and for a Roguelike that’s not a good stance to have.
I can recommend Beat Slayer still, as I had fun, but after 10 hours, I felt it outlasted its welcome and I had seen everything twice over. Compared to Hades and Neon Abyss, in which I spent hundreds of hours playing, it’s a shame as Beat Slayer has some great elements, but lacks the fun variety, story depth, and meaningful Roguelike basics.
++ Highly approachable rhythmic gameplay.
++ Great-looking and sounding combat.
+ Some cool visuals, enemy designs and the music is awesome.
-- Lacks some core Roguelike concepts, such as reward/trap rooms, meaningful progression and variety over multiple runs.
- Short-lived, and not much replay value after finishing.
- The setting is interesting, the story is lacking, however.
A Steam key of Beat Slayer was kindly provided by the publisher for this review.
