It’s a roguelike. It’s a rhythm game. It’s the acquired and applied knowledge of the former against the demanding drive of the latter, and yet Crypt of the NecroDancer escapes the gaze of a simple curiosity and leaps to an ideal hybrid of two disparate genres.
With the music turned off, Crypt of the NecroDancer appears to operate a fairly simple system. You’re in a randomly-generated dungeon, and you’re only impetus is the need to escape. This (usually) involves progressing through three floors loaded with monsters before ultimately squaring off against a boss on the fourth floor. On the way there you’ll have the opportunity to slay monsters, make some money, and hopefully buy better weapons or items through a shopkeeper on each floor. It’s certainly possible to make it through an entire dungeon without making it easier for yourself, but taking the time to collect coins or locate and pop open treasure chests is usually met with worthwhile benefits.
The music, however, is always on and—at least as the default character, Cadence—you must obey its pulsing beat with each step you take. This feels like madness until you realize that everything else in the dungeon is playing by the same rules. While traditional roguelikes only allow the opposition to move when the player does, NecroDancer operates each of its pieces under the same rhythm. You can deny this impulse, of course, but falling out of step results in the instant demolition of your coin multiplier. With coins as your only in-dungeon currency for a shopkeeper’s increasingly pricey stock, letting your multiplier fall comes with catastrophic consequences.
Your brain has a full time job here, but fortunately NecroDancer isn’t looking to overcomplicate basic input. The arrow keys are charged with movement, combat, and item usage. That’s three distinct mechanics assigned to four keys, which seems insane, but it’s perfectly in line with NecroDancer’s stated objectives. Keep moving and keep fighting, and for god’s sake don’t take your eye off the ball or you’re liable to get hit in the face.
Enemy movement is tied to music, but that doesn’t imply they’re afforded an equal pace. Some monsters, like Skeletons, only move every second beat. Others, like the Orange Slime, move in easily recognizable patterns. Certain monsters reveal a player-initiated flourish, like Ghosts that follow you around or Armadillos that roll into a ball and charge at the player. Minibosses, typically patrolling around the traditional exit of each dungeon, usually exhibit greater health and more lethal tactics.
Against every enemy, combat prowess is measured by your ability to recognize patterns and act accordingly. All you need to do is stay out of their anticipated path and run into them when they remain either stationary or facing an opposite direction. Early on this just means running into them from the side. Later it becomes more complicated, with enemies casting spells confusing your direction or moving you closer. On their own enemies aren’t exactly complicated, it’s just that NecroDancer likes to dump a bunch of them in the same room. The easy-to-kill Monkey that presumably did no damage, for example, adopts another purpose when it’s revealed he’s only meant to hold you in the same place. When there’s a fire-breathing red dragon heading your way, this presents a significant problem. You’re intended to slowly build a mental inventory of every monster’s patterns (this can be further facilitated from lobby-accessible tutorials) and apply that knowledge on successive runs.
Dealing with the adversity presented by enemies’ combined tactics is the core of NecroDancer’s challenge. It does, however, present a myriad of advantages exclusive to the player. You can around the dirt-colored walls lining the dungeons, exposing caches of hidden treasure—or a truck load of monsters. Several makeshift shrines are frequently available, offering tradeoffs like trading health for a more powerful weapon, or providing a more detailed map and exit location in exchange for the amount of dungeon viewable by the player. There’s also a litany of weapons to find or buy from shopkeepers, including a broadsword (wider range), spear (longer range), and a risky assortment of projectiles. You can technically make it through to the end with just the starting dagger, but even the slightest advantage, to either range or damage potential, is usually worth the time it takes to achieve.
NecroDancer is also subject to perilous amount spontaneity inherent to its genre. Being a roguelike, you’re intended to start over, from scratch, every time out. Dungeon layouts are randomized, with only the exact type of enemy and miniboss guaranteed inside NecroDancer’s four distinct zones. End-of-zone bosses are also randomized, and even switch up their tactics depending on which zone they’re placed in. NecroDancer makes a few concessions, allowing the player to spend any found diamonds on a handful of permanent upgrades and few in-game item unlocks. You also get the chance to start at the furthest zone you’ve reached, but only with the specific character you used to get there.
The real start of NecroDancer’s show is Danny Baranowsky eclectic soundtracks. Not since Luftrausers has a game’s score been so symbiotically attached to its intention and experience, and NecroDancer does Luftrausers one better by forging a tangible relationship with player interaction. Baranowsky’s score spans from frenzied chip-tune disco meltdowns, cools down into jazzy subterranean grooves, and picks right back up into faux-electro breakbeats healthy enough to wipe the floor with the other garbage purporting to subscribe to its elusive genre. I actually thought I was over this style of music, especially in a game where I would be repeatedly hearing the same tracks, but Baranowsky’s so damn good at his job I’ve actually added his soundtrack (included in the game files!) to my running playlist. NecroDancer also includes a remixed soundtrack and the option for you to play your own music, but nothing felt as fundamentally authentic as the default score.
NecroDancer’s relative freshness, or at least the ways it interacts with typical gaming sensibilities, merits appreciation. After an hour or two of playing I folded my cards and retreated to a pallet-cleansing session of web browsing. I found myself reading forums and constantly pushing the Page Down button in rhythm with the (NecroDancer’s) music in my head. Later that night I had trouble sleeping because I couldn’t disconnect my brain from finding ways to solve NecroDancer’s frantic call to action. This is wildly anecdotal and likely not the norm for everyone, but as someone who plays a lot of games, for NecroDancer to push my tendencies outside normal boundaries and force my subconscious into solving its greater enigma is kind of a hell of a thing.
Eventually, however, I found myself slightly disenfranchised with what NecroDancer had to offer. Or maybe I realized the limitations of my abilities and resigned from any sort of long-term commitment with it. I couldn’t, for the life of me, make it out of the second zone, roughly six levels into the game. I could abandon the default character, Cadence, and take on the Bard instead. Different unlockable characters have different bonuses, and the Bard’s is to drop the rhythm angle from NecroDancer and render it a typical “you move and the enemies move” roguelike. It worked, and I performed much better in a much shorter amount of time. It was basically and easy mode, but I quickly dropped it because it honestly felt like I was cheating at NecroDancer. For whatever reason I wasn’t good enough to handle what it was throwing at me (a weird admission given I blazed through Bloodborne with relative ease), but I didn’t want to strip NecroDancer of the merit it spent so much time earning.
With NecroDancer comes an exacting call for patience and fearless resolve, but also the preparation to reward a measured attention span and vigorous dedication. Think of its basic feedback as a microcosm if it’s greater rewards. You’re doing well, timing enemy movement perfectly and boosting your multiplayer. The floor swaps pallats to a flashy disco glow while you hear the nearby shopkeeper singing with the thrashing soundtrack. You’re feeling it and nothing can stop you until oh damn it that chest was actually a Mimic and there’s a Wraith sneaking up behind you and oh god you’re dead. Learn, do better, get further and, with NecroDancer’s novelty and tested competence, returning isn’t a difficult proposition.
