God of Riffs by developer Boss Music Games and publisher VYERSOFT Corp.—PC (SteamVR) review written by Pierre-Yves with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Having just released from Early Access, Boss Music Games’ different take on rhythm music simulation is here to slay! Having originally taken a look at God of Riffs back in early to mid August of last year, I was impressed with what I saw. Heavy Metal, check. Guitar styled battle axes to battle the undead instead of hitting notes? Check. Loads of tracks to go through? While only having had four at the time with another added during Early Access, God of Riffs’ full release has granted us a larger setlist to battle the forces of the undead with more still to come!
After my original venture with God of Riffs there were only two items that I had on my list. The first, which has been fixed, was the ability to re-calibrate your guitar shaped battle axes while in game. The menus were fine but once into the groove of battle, mine were upside down. While it was still the case right before full launch, there was at least the ability to adjust them as required. On full launch though this was now fully fixed and I'm thankful the option to calibrate was still there as I needed to undo the previous adjustments as they were no longer required.
The second potential issue that I had on my mind was the amount of tracks available. While starting off with four, the awesome part is that they were Boss Music Game’s own music. That said, the full release would need more than four tracks, five with a recent pre-launch addition within Early Access, if it was going to get anyone to stick around and slay for a while. So it’s with happy news that the full release of God of Riffs not only contains more of Boss Music Games’ own music, but it has also started to contain music from other artists.
What makes God of Riffs different from the others in this vein is that instead of hitting notes, slashing cubes or banging to the beat of drums, you will instead be slaying the above-mentioned hordes of undead to the sounds of heavy metal. While the premise remains the same as it has been from Frequency and Amplitude over to Guitar Hero and Rockband before the likes of Beat Saber and Ragnarock, it’s the execution that’s different.
You’re not just swinging and doding flying cubes or banging on drums. Instead, you’re hacking and slashing hordes of skeletons color coded in blue, red and yellow that are coming at you through multiple lanes. If this wasn’t enough as blue can only be taken care of with your left axe, red with your right axe, and yellow with either. You’ll also have to contend with flying skeletal bats that are simultaneously doing the same thing but from above.
The gameplay works well and what I also appreciated is that raising the difficulty wasn’t an automatic death sentence. Did it get harder? Sure, but at least it was more manageable than a lot of others out there which basically require you to have mastered time and space to be able to keep up. As you go down the track list though it’s not all of the tracks that will give you the same chance as you really do need to work your way up to it! Doubly so for some of the latest ones added as even on normal I found myself getting stumped by new enemy placements designed to trip you up. Well played, it worked.
As for the music though? It sounded amazing within the speakers of Valve’s Index. Actually it sounded so good and was so loud that at a few points I wondered if the neighbors could hear and then forgot all about it as I had undead to fight and they weren’t stopping for anyone! So on a final related note, what’s currently available is only the start as there is more content planned and copied from Boss Music Games’ news post on Steam,
We’ve come a long, long way since we entered Early Access, but just because we’ve hit “1.0” doesn’t mean we’re done.. In fact, it's just the start of the journey for God of Riffs!
Here’s a look at what’s coming soon:
Battle For the Metalverse - God Of Riffs’ Story Mode! Additional tracks including ‘Fly Away’ by GloryHammer, licensed songs from US and Australian Metal bands and collaborations with indie games! More original tracks! Release on Meta Quest App Lab! RiffMapper Beta Public Launch - an exclusive tool for creating and importing your own custom songs (PC Only)
Summary
Overall though, through Early Access and into Full Release, Boss Music Games’ God of Riffs is fun. With more tracks that are now available as of the full launch date and other minor adjustments, there are plenty of reasons to stick around and slay a while to the sounds of heavy metal.
Score: 8 / 10
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