Review: ROBOBEAT (Nintendo Switch) – Pure Nintendo

Is ROBOBEAT the first rhythm-based first-person shooter available for the Nintendo Switch? It’s certainly the first one I’ve played, and that maybe explains my confusion. The game’s certainly unique, but is it necessary? Let’s figure that out.

At its heart, ROBOBEAT plays like your typical first-person shooter. It doesn’t, however, come with your typical story. You’re a bounty hunter named Ace, and you’re chasing down a robot named Frazzer. This robot is a bit of a showman, it seems, and he’s created this maze of rave warehouses filled with enemies trying to end your pursuit. You’ll need to master numerous moves and utilize varied weapons in order to make it through, and you’ll need to look good doing it.

The game’s flow is pretty simple. You choose a cassette to pop into your Walkman, determining the music to which you’ll be fighting. You pick up your choice of weapons, determining how you’ll be eliminating the enemies. You’ll get one for each hand, and mixing them up is pretty entertaining. I couldn’t begin to count the number of first-person shooters I’ve played in my lifetime, but I can say with certainty that this is the first time I’ve been armed with a pistol in one hand and a ping pong paddle in the other.

ROBOBEAT starts with some quick (and occasionally cryptic) training instructions, then it’s straight into combat. When you enter a battle area, numerous enemies spawn with intent to kill. You’ll need to keep moving, dodging their attacks while aiming your own. And you can’t just hit them; you want to hit them to the beat of the music. Perfectly timed shots do more damage, while off-beat attacks can be useless. Putting all of this together really does feel like you’re learning a dance, so your initial runs are bound to be terribly clumsy. The gameplay is not a lot of fun at first.

Thankfully, the rogue-like flow is enticing. ROBOBEAT pushes you into combat and through the maze with an upbeat attitude that can become infectious. You push as far as you can until you die, unlocking new areas and acquiring new cassettes and weapons along the way. Then, you start another run. Picking your next path is done on the fly, so there’s little to fiddle with between and during runs. Enter a room, clear it out, choose your path, move ahead, acquire upgrades, defeat the boss. Credit the developers for wanting to keep you on the dance floor.

I’m not a dancer, however, and my reasons for that carry over to this game. First, if I’m going to be blasting enemies to a selection of songs, I’d like for the songs to be catchier. The included music is focused entirely on the beat. That makes sense, considering the focus of the gameplay, but it also means they’re all fairly generic whomp-whomp-whomp tunes that I’m used to hearing only as cars with neon underbody lights pull up next to me at a stoplight. The music has the right energy for the moment, but no memorability, and it becomes overbearing after a while.

Second, the controls are surprisingly clunky for a game that requires such precision. In order to fire on the beat, I found I had to fire ahead of the beat in order to keep up. I can’t imagine that was the fault of my Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. (I’d love to try this game with the precision of the Wii Remote.)

Finally, the setting is decidedly drab. I earlier compared the battle arenas to rave warehouses, but they’re more like rave warehouses the next morning after the police cleared everyone out. All of the color comes from the enemies. That’s helpful, I suppose, and the simple graphics help performance, but the game’s action really could use a better venue.

How much you get out of ROBOBEAT, then, will be determined solely by how you feel about eliminating enemies in rhythm. And once that clicks, yeah, it can be thrilling. The multiple moves you can execute (and be rewarded for) make it just as fun to avoid enemies as it is to eliminate them. It takes quite a while to get there, however, the ultimate reward for which is to just look sharp. Is that enough? For some, I’d imagine. But I’m old, and I prefer for my first-person shooters (and music) to have a little more substance.