Robobeat

Genre: First-Person Shooter / Roguelike / Music-Rhythm

Players: 1

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Review:

Robobeat, released on PC in 2024 and ported to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch in 2025, is a game that combines First-Person Shooter, Roguelike, and Music-Rhythm elements, with players controlling a robot blasting through enemies in time with a beat in a series of randomized rooms.

When it comes to visuals, this game goes for a high-contrast look with its otherwise simple 3D visuals – enemies and other objects of interest are brightly-colored, while the backgrounds and non-interactive level elements tend to be dark or subdued. While this isn’t very impressive to look at from a technical standpoint, it does give the game a distinctive look, and it works quite well for the gameplay, where you’re often running and jumping around the room at high speeds and it can be extremely helpful to be able to tell in an instant where you need to focus your gunfire.

The soundtrack in Robobeat is interesting, and not just because of the Music-Rhythm elements worked into the gameplay, but because the songs also act as a difficulty selector – you can choose any song you’ve collected over the course of the game to use as your background music, and songs with a faster BMP will allow for speedier gunplay, but also make you contend with faster enemies. Still, if you find a song you like, you might opt to overlook the added challenge, and this game has some excellent techno and rock-style tracks to fight alongside, with tunes like The Passage, Disco Fever, Outlaw Override, Infected Concept, Peripatetic, and Devil’s Disco. Unfortunately, the Nintendo Switch version naturally lacks the PC version’s ability to play the game with your own tunes, but what’s here is still great.

When it comes to the gameplay, Robobeat is a game of extremes, because it’s very fast-paced, but it also requires precision, with players rewarded for shooting in time with the beat by having their damage increased and getting other bonuses. It’s hectic with lots of enemies, but the rooms where you fight them are relatively small. And you need to keep track of multiple abilities like a parry move, slide, and double-jump, all while trying to keep your distance from enemies by constantly staying in motion. It’s a lot to keep track of, and for less-experienced players or those who prefer slower and more methodical First-Person Shooters, it may get to be a bit much as new elements pile up.

That’s not to say it’s not a blast to play though – getting into a groove and pumping bullets into enemies in time with the beat can be great fun when things are going well, it’s just when you’re getting swarmed by enemies and trying to juggle all these elements at once that it can feel overwhelming.

I do think the Roguelike elements could have been done a bit better here too. The bland-looking rooms don’t do enough to distinguish themselves from each other, and it doesn’t feel like you get the game’s randomized power-ups often enough to really make this a great element of the game. Though I will say that some of the weapons and upgrades here are quite original, like a ping pong paddle that does zero damage on every first beat you fire it, but does explosive damage on every fourth consecutive beat it’s fired.

Overall, I think there’s room for improvement if this game’s developers ever came back for a sequel, but overall the gameplay here is strong, and a good blend of its three genres (even if the Roguelike elements could be more pronounced). But for First-Person Shooter fans who might enjoy something more unique and stylized, this is going to be well worth a look.

tl;dr – Robobeat combines First-Person Shooter, Roguelike, and Music-Rhythm elements in gameplay that has to blasting away enemies in time with the beat. The gameplay can get a bit too hectic with a lot going on at once, and the Roguelike elements could stand to be more pronounced, but despite these issues the core gameplay remains enjoyable, and a nice change of pace for all of this game’s individual genres.

Grade: B

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