God of Rock is one of those games that are pretty straightforward with the formula they push. What if you combine a rhythm game's frenetic pacing and a fighting game's stylish visuals? You get a game that focuses on multiplayer action with some awful flaws regarding the execution.
Much like how it presents itself, I won't mince words in this review. While the game does a lot of things well, they are heavily skewed by how it is executed, causing it to be one of the worst multiplayer games I could play in recent days. I firmly believe that God of Rock needs a complete overhaul because of the way it tries to present itself. But what causes me to have such a lurid impression of the game? Well, let's dive in and find out.
Let's start with the presentation of the game itself since it's the first thing you'll face. God of Rock has some great visuals, and each of the character designs stands out from most other characters of traditional fighting games. Of course, everyone will point out the Elvis Presley lookalike, but characters like Tophat, Rosetta, Lyn, and others will make a good impression on you and give you a good idea of what their kits will look like.
Topping this is the game's soundtrack, which includes over 40 original songs that vary in difficulty. Each song is charted according to its difficulty rather well, with charts becoming harder as the track goes on to prevent stalemates between players. The graphics and visual design of each locale you fight in also stand out pretty well, with some of the backgrounds offering visual candy that reminds me of games like Persona 4 Arena.
The game will definitely not drag your graphics card around, so you will have nearly no issue running it, even on a low-spec system. If you want an additional bit of gameplay, you also have access to a Story Mode and a Track Editor if you want to make your own versions of the charts provided by the game. However, that is probably also where my praises for the game end and my issues begin to run in.
Here's the problem, the issues with God of Rock stem from a fundamental level. While the idea does lend itself well to a combination of genres (after all, we saw Hi-Fi Rush excellently combine combat with rhythm mechanics), it is executed rather poorly for many different players. This isn't a game you'll be able to pick up and play easily, and its idea of execution is rather sloppy since it tries to pay respects to both genres but fails in both areas. To make things easy, let's address the issues one by one.
I mentioned in various reviews of rhythm games that the Offset setup is one of the most important aspects of a successful one. Many players tend to believe they suck at rhythm games because they never set the offset to the delay provided by their monitors. God of Rock's offset wizard is just a blinking icon that you must eyeball to guess whether or not the game is adequately following the rhythm. If your guess is wrong, prepare to miss or get harsher judgments on a lot of your inputs.
God of Rock has an issue with the way charts are done too. I mentioned that the charts are well done, but the inputs are not. More often than not, in the case of controller inputs, you'll be faced with opposite-direction button presses (up/down, left/right) which are often hard to hit. Not only that, but the game also uses a horizontal lane setup so the visuals of the "fighting" can happen on the upper side of the screen.
Not only does the horizontal lane not work, but the reduced size also causes problems reading notes. There's a reason why games like Unbeatable, Muse Dash, and others opt to use 2 types of notes instead of God of Rock's 4, and that is because they are easier to read and see coming while also being easier to manage when it comes to hitting the notes to the beat. When trying to counter enemy supers, you will find yourself overwhelmed pretty quickly.
As a fighting game, God of Rock brings motion inputs that are downright unintuitive to use. You may notice during the gameplay that while my partner has an easier time hitting the horizontal lane inputs (since he's using a fighting stick instead of a controller), he is limited to using one super. The reason is that motion inputs are mapped to the right stick rather than the left stick. This is downright FATAL for fighting games since no game in the genre uses the right stick for movement outside of a few special cases.
The motion inputs themselves are easy to execute (half circles, full circles, quarter circles, the usual). But more often than not just feel like a way to overcomplicate what used to be one of the fun features of versus rhythm games, the ability to inconvenience your opponents. While the supers are... Somewhat effective in God of Rock, they won't really be game changers as not only can they be blocked by simply hitting the right inputs, but they also won't take much HP away from your opponent as opposed to just playing the game like you normally would.
Even worse is that the game also breaks several fighting game HUD rules in the name of style. One of the major rules of fighting games is always having information such as HP accessible to you at all times. While this game understands that with things such as the ULTRA bar and the Special Bars, it fails miserably on the most important aspect, the HP bar.
God of Rock even makes the mistake that Shaq Fu made where HP bars drain away from each other, making things harder to read for both sides of the fight (How do you even do that?). People are bound to have their eyes super glued to their side of the screen and lane, so they will not be able to see how much HP they have at any given moment or realize they are about to lose until the round's over. A simple UI customization feature would fix this, but the game doesn't allow the players to do so.
Overall, God of Rock has severe flaws with its execution that will drive away fans of both rhythm and fighting games. While the game is certainly fun for players who want to mess around, more hardcore players from both genres will feel a bit alienated by the choices the game has made. It certainly seems like the "limitless skill ceiling" claim that the game makes is also a bit of a lie, as the game has no UI customizations that allow players who prefer various gameplay styles other than Keyboard and Horizontal lane to shine.
While the mode variety is certainly justifiable for a budget title, it still is reduced to a semi-basic story mode with branching pathways and nothing else in terms of gameplay variety outside of online or local Vs. modes. There are a lot of ways to expand this kind of game, and I am disappointed to see that there's not much variety to be found.
God of Rock feels like a jack of all trades and a master of none. While it has some nice eye candy for visuals and a solid soundtrack that I will be jamming to in future playthroughs of other games and RPGs, it fails at the most vital aspects. What makes me boil more than anything else is that this game has incredible potential, but it's squandered by the development team's confusing choices. I recommend approaching this game with caution.
Reviewed on PC (code provided by the publisher).
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