As a big fan of rhythm games, I distinctly remember loading up the original Crypt of the NecroDancer way back when on PC, and quickly realizing I was simply seeing something radically new. There’s no doubt that in order to be successful you were going to have to be on the beat, but then mixing that mechanic with an additional strategic layer, while navigating through dungeons and dispatching enemies, elevated the game into something at an even higher level. Now the folks at Brace Yourself Games have returned with something quite different, and yet still very on-brand for them. While, at a glance, Rift of the NecroDancer may look like a more traditional rhythm game in the style of Guitar Hero and many others, there’s no question that it charts a very distinctive, and often quite challenging, path of its own.

To some degree, the seeds of Rift can be seen in their original NecroDancer title, they’ve just been applied in a new context. Rather than merely trying to keep up with your multiple lines, hitting the proper notes to the beat, you’ll be working to take out a pretty diverse menagerie of monsters, and when they start getting combined in different ways that really amps up the difficulty in a hurry. The multiple tutorials do an excellent job of trying to prepare you for what’s coming, but once the tempo picks up and you see multiple enemy types advancing towards you it can be hard not to panic, especially once you make a mistake. That said, there are multiple skill levels, so you can tone the difficulty down while you get the hang of things, but in general with some repetition and getting to know the patterns better you can persevere. What’s great is that there are multiple mini games to unlock that tend to have more of a Rhythm Heaven vibe to them, making for a nice diversion to break things up as well.

The biggest hump I can see with the game is simply its difficulty level. With many rhythm games, once you get to a certain level you can typically survive an average song pretty quickly, looking to optimize your performance and score from there. With Rift, once you get past the first few snappy tunes you’ll likely hit a wall as the difficulty spikes numerous times, requiring some repetition and investment into getting through tough sections. You can build up your power-up gauge to make yourself immune briefly, and healing tends to be pretty plentiful, but sometimes there are extended sections past a song’s midpoint that will really challenge your dexterity. The controls do work perfectly well, you’ll likely use both the D-Pad and face buttons interchangeably, but for held notes you’ll really want to be comfortable clearing lines with either side, and that can make for a learning curve at times.

In the end, there’s no question that this is a well-conceived and executed rhythm game, but it’s absolutely not for people who get frustrated or are prone to giving up quickly. It’s more the type that will knock you down repeatedly, but if you stick with it you’ll realize it has just been making you stronger and preparing for future challenges. The sheer number of different monster types and colors can make for some wild combinations as they reach the action bar, and that makes this a high-concentration affair, meaning you’ll have to be on the beat and have your eyes glued to figuring out where and when a given monster will hit. If you’re willing to push yourself and endure some pain along the way though, this is a terrific entry into the genre that will surely please challenge hounds in the music and rhythm game space.