There’s various trends in the world of indie first person shooters. Fast-paced boomer shooter inspirations, roguelite elements, even rhythm game elements aren’t that uncommon nowadays. Robobeat has it all, and after blasting into shooter fans’ libraries last year, it’s finally out on consoles as well. This is the XboxEra review for Robobeat on Xbox Series X!
Shooting to the beat
We could almost start a rhythm-based first person shooter category on the front page of XboxEra at this rate. Indeed, after the stellar BPM: Bullets Per Minute and the exciting Metal: Hellsinger, I am yet again called to review a high-octane boomer shooter where you can only shoot to the beat of the music playing. This means that, depending on the song, the rhythm in which you get to shoot changes drastically – though, in fairness, I wouldn’t say any of the songs are slow, so the variation of BPMs seem to be going from fast to very fast. And, in what is an unusual addition for such games, it is the very player who can pop in whatever song they unlocked, in the form of a cassette into a walkman (if you remember using the walkman, don’t forget to take your ibuprofen). Switching song on the go feels great, as you feel like the start of an early YouTube era anime AMV, where every action beat is tied to the music’s rhythm – usually Linkin Park, though that band’s music is not found in Robobeat, for better or worse that may be.
But I digressed more than enough – what is Robobeat, really? It’s a rather basic but stylish story about a bounty hunter, who needs to overcome increasingly tough challenges in various roguelite dungeons. Each room we enter gets filled with robotic enemies of various kinds in an instant – from slow, zombie-esque crawlers, all the way down to flying creatures and more. When every enemy has been annihilated in a room, we get to pick which direction to go, as new areas open up with different icons, indicating what they may contain: regular enemies, a boss, a shop, loot, and so forth. Each decision has its pros and cons, naturally, but eventually each level’s boss has to be taken down to move on.
Style over substance
Robobeat is the kind of game that may not sound like too much, but it’s legitimately fun. The enemy encounters are very repetitive, each room features various waves of similar foes to beat. Most rooms are large and essentially flat, so all the fast-paced manouvering to avoid enemy attacks and flank them is done in a quite “forced” way, so to speak. You see, as the game progresses, the player gets to use double jumps, a grapple hook, wallruns, parries and more. With various abilities to boot, the mechanical variety is sound, but it feels like most of it is used in way too similar situations. Variety of attacks is rewarded with higher scores, which encourages rotating all your moves, but it feels much less earned than in, say, Doom Eternal. You are perfectly effective by mostly spamming your favourite moves, but the game forces the player’s hand a bit.
Of course, such a fast-paced shooter wouldn’t be worth much without a satisfying selection of pew-pew machines, and I’m happy to confirm that the gun selection is very sound. From relatively classic weaponry like an axe or pistols, all the way down to Ping Pong, a lethal ball that we get to shoot like in table tennis, or Bullethell, a bizarre grenade that has to be charged to use but can be stacked, creating a huge barrage of explosions and shrapnel once activated. Like most players in real life, the playable character features two hands, which allows them to use two different weapons at once. Mixing and matching new combinations is probably the most fun aspect of the builds, even more so than finding the right abilities for your playstyle.
I’m content with the content
The game almost never relies on menus, bar the initial settings which allow to tweak various things – including an easy mode, where the player no longer has to shoot to the rhythm. You see, the player always goes back to the initial hub, where they can unlock new levels, find new cassettes, pick up the weapons for their run and so forth. You don’t have to navigate through various screens to choose which level you wanna go to and with whatever build – this is all done in first person in a snappy and satisfying way. Might as well start blasting that cassette to begin with, right? Speaking of that, the game features a good, if not overly memorable selection of EDM tunes – which, as said, can be changed at any time, including mid-combat. A bummer, though not an unexpected one, is how the PC version allows players to seamlessly import custom music for extra cassettes, but the Xbox version we tested does not. This means that, while Robobeat is still very enjoyable with its own soundtrack, a huge selling point is not available in this version – thus, if you have the chance, play this one on PC.
It took me about a dozen hours to reach the so-called end of the game, though there’s still plenty more. A lot of secrets to find, usually in the form of new music cassettes, and of course trying new builds even beyond the credits rolling is always a fun time. The build and weapon variety keeps the game from becoming too stale, though the aforementioned flatness of the combat encounters does make the repetitive nature of the roguelite aspects stand out more. Still, as a fan of fast-paced boomer shooters, with an inclination for rhythm games, I enjoyed the game enough to shoot and manouver my way to the end credits with pleasure. And with the 120fps mode on Xbox Series X, it just flows really well.
Slightly off-beat
As much as Robobeat’s pace and style hits all the right notes (heh), I feel like it doesn’t truly live up to the high standards of other rhythm-based FPS games on Xbox, such as the aforementioned BPM: Bullets Per Minute and Metal: Hellsinger. While the game’s mechanical depth is sound, with lots of skills, traversal options and weapons, the overlong and battles in flat, unmemorable arenas make these encounters less exciting than they could be. Still, it’s a fun time, and while it doesn’t have the option of importing custom music like on PC, fans of fast-paced boomer shooter should still have a good time with Robobeat.
Robobeat
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Incredibly fast-paced action
- Excellent and well integrated soundtrack
- Good build variety
- Great presentation
CONS
- Lacks the custom music of the PC version
- Flat arenas don't favour the acrobatic gameplay
- Repetition kicks in quite early
