There comes a time in every gacha game where, for whatever reason, the developer decides adding a rhythm game is a good idea. It’s not.
Welcome to Critical Hit (formerly known as Soundtrack Sunday), where I celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle.
They’re often introduced as part of limited-time events, which means there’s about as much effort put into them as a rhythm game only intended to exist for six or so days deserves. They’re clunky, barely responsive, badly charted. The idea of what a rhythm game might be, rather than an earnest attempt at making something good.
I recently bore witness to the Wuthering Waves rhythm minigame—a sickening cacophony of terrible, barely-readable charts with low-quality note designs, which made it all the more upsetting that they’d actually included three Muse Dash tracks. And don’t even get me started on whatever the hell the Genshin Impact rhythm minigame was.
Okay, I may be a bit of a rhythm game snob. I can’t help myself! They’re one of my greatest loves in life, and I continue to spend entirely too much time and money deep in the rhythm arcade scene. Which makes me far more critical of how shoddily assembled they often are when utilised as a secondary component, or a temporary minigame.
But it also makes me far more appreciative when it feels like a developer has actually tried to make something good. Something playable.
I’ve been off the Nikke wagon for a hot sec now. That’s the gacha game developed by Stellar Blade studio Shift Up. The one with, er, a lot of jiggle physics. I promise it has a good story—think Nier: Automata’s “come for the thighs, stay for the cries” mantra.
But I had to come back to it when my fellow rhythm sicko friend told me something: the latest event has a rhythm game, but wait! It’s actually good!
This was a big statement for two reasons. One: we have frequently lamented to each other about how terrible gacha rhythm games are. Two: Nikke actually had a rhythm minigame in an event earlier this year, and it was absolute dogwater.
But this one? After playing it, I can confirm: It’s actually good! Nikke is a game that already has the benefit of a handful of rhythm game composers churning out its soundtrack: Cosmograph has been running the music game circuit for a hot minute and is the studio’s in-house composer, plus other folks like NieN and Feryquitious regularly contributing.
But good music doesn’t mean crap if the gameplay itself is bad—I once again refer you back to the last time the game tried a rhythm game—and while Nikke’s newest minigame isn’t exactly reinventing the wheel, it doesn’t have to. It’s a surprising amount of fun just the way it is.
It is, ultimately, a very bog standard four-lane vertically scrolling rhythm game (VSRG). But the charting feels like actual care and attention was put into it, notes are responsive, and there’s a decent spread of difficulties to account for all skill levels.
I am so out of the gacha loop at this point that I was ashamed to only recognise a few of the songs available, but cycling through some of the newer tracks and it’s clear that the sound team is as on top of their game as they’ve ever been. Yu-dachi’s We Begin is a poppy electronic bop, while Feryquitous’s Archemy contains her signature use of classical strings that pleasantly crash against harder, more modern beats.
Is it enough to get me back on the gacha train permanently? Probably not, but it’s probably going to keep Nikke as a backup game for me for a hot sec. The mode will be permanent after the event concludes (which explains why some modicum of effort has been put into it), so I’ll more than likely be dipping back in when I’m in dire need of a Nikke-themed rhythm fix.
