Headbangers: Rhythm Royale

Genre: Music-Rhythm

Players: 30 Competitive (Online)

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Review:

Those who are familiar with eShopperReviews know that the games reviewed here often aren’t new releases. This can have it benefits – not being shackled to a release schedule means more potential to discover hidden gems that got lost in the shuffle, giving a second chance to games that were lackluster at launch but improved with post-launch patches, and getting the benefit of hindsight for games that take on a different meaning with the context of time.

However, reviewing games after their initial launch window isn’t always to their benefit. Some games age poorly, some games thrive on living in a cultural moment and just don’t have the same impact once that moment has passed, and some games live or die by an online community that often tapers off after the initial launch period. Unfortunately, the last of these seems to have been the case for Headbangers: Rhythm Royale.

Released in 2023 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, Headbangers is a Music-Rhythm game that combines the simple gameplay of the Rhythm Heaven franchise with a “battle royale” multiplayer competition that seems vaguely akin to Fall Guys. Each round, players and their 29 opponents are given a simple Music-Rhythm-based task: repeat a series of beats Simon-style, use audio clues to determine the correct time to press the button, correctly react to a call-response series of cues, that sorta’ thing. After each round, a portion of the group is eliminated, with the last of these minigames having only five competitors.

The simple gameplay works well, and although there’s only a few dozen minigames, there’s enough variety that things don’t get stale too quickly. That said, only 23 minigames isn’t many, and players will start seeing repeats before too long. And even minigames that are different can seem pretty similar to each other due to their simplicity.

The presentation here makes use of simple, cartoony 3D visuals with player characters represented by goofy-looking pigeons with rubbery necks, voiced with pitched-up sped-up voices reminiscent of publisher Team17’s other long-running franchise, Worms. This is backed by energetic music that never quite reaches memorable status, but works well enough for the gameplay.

Unfortunately, a “battle royale”-style game is one of those games that absolutely needs to have a thriving online community, and two years after this game’s launch, I’m sorry to say that its online lobbies are a ghost town, and the only competitors players are likely to find now are bots. And unfortunately, the game’s requirement of an online connection, and forcing players to wait for other online players when there are no other players, mean this isn’t even a game you can fully enjoy solo.

I cannot say whether Headbangers was a great game back when it first released, but I can safely say that it was a better game. As it exists now, it’s still enjoyable as long as you can be patient through the vestiges of its online multiplayer focus that no longer have any place or meaning. And players looking for a single-player experience like Rhythm Heaven on Nintendo Switch do have some excellent options, such as Melatonin, as well as the upcoming Rhythm Heaven Groove. As such, I can’t see much reason for players to play Headbangers.

tl;dr – Headbangers is a Music-Rhythm game that combines the simple gameplay of Rhythm Heaven with the “battle royale” structure of games like Fall Guys. Unfortunately, the multiplayer focus really hurts this game now that its online lobbies are deserted. With this being the case, players are better off getting their Music-Rhythm fix elsewhere.

Grade: C

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