Rhythm Roll

Genre: Music-Rhythm

Players: 1

.

Review:

Rhythm Roll is a Music-Rhythm game released in 2026 on PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, with a PC release due out a little later the same year. This game has players shifting a ball across four lanes to get through gates in time with music.

The presentation here is surprisingly good for a $5 game. While the generic ball doesn’t make for a compelling player character, everything else in the game makes use of retro-futuristic neon wireframe visuals against a black background that evokes a very 80s-style aesthetic, with different stages changing up this aesthetic with different visual themes. these visuals are joined by a pretty good soundtrack with a lot of techno and electronica themes with a bit of instrumental rock, with 13 tracks to play on. Unfortunately, I can’t find samples to link to, but these themes appear to be by a handful of indie artists and are generally pretty good.

When it comes to the gameplay, Rhythm Roll is pretty simple – you’re only shifting your ball left and right into different lanes, trying to be in the correct lane to pass through gates timed with the music. This means the gameplay can get a tad repetitive, but I suppose the argument can be made this lets players focus more on the music.

Unfortunately, that’s not the only problem. The way this game is designed, it appears to be a behind-the-character Auto-Runner, especially at first, with players able to change lanes whenever they want so long as they do so in time. Unfortunately, when the tempo kicks it up a notch, this proves to be a false impression and you really can’t do that, and you really need to make it a point to tap in time with the beat, basically pushing in the direction of the next gate while you pass through the current one.

This is disorienting enough as-is, but what makes it more frustrating is that your ball’s movement lags behind your input, so even if you press to go into the correct lane in time, if you didn’t do so right as you passed through the previous gate, you won’t make it in time, which feels like an unearned penalty to the player. Get three such penalties in quick succession and you’ll be knocked out of the level entirely.

Another problem Rhythm Roll has is that it has some nasty difficulty spikes, including one toward the end of the very first level. I’ll be honest – this difficulty spike was so severe that I was unable to complete this first level, and had to skip ahead, where I found the next two levels to be a cakewalk by comparison. The lack of proper difficulty scaling is a major issue here, and I could see plenty of players getting frustrated at the 70% mark in the first level and giving up without even realizing they can just move on to play later levels without clearing the first. Oh, that’s another more minor complaint – completing a level kicks you out to the top-level menu instead of letting you smoothly select the next song.

It’s frustrating that there are so many things wrong with Rhythm Roll, because there’s a lot of good stuff here. The music and presentation are excellent, and while the core gameplay is repetitive it does functionally work. Unfortunately, the way the game is presented comes across as frustratingly unfair and massive difficulty spikes are sure to exasperate some players. If you’re a more skilled Music-Rhythm fan this game’s $5 price tag may still make this worth your while, but I think most players will find this game’s problems too much to put up with.

tl;dr – Rhythm Roll is a Music-Rhythm game that has players moving a ball across four lanes to get through gates in time with the game’s electronic and rock music, joined by striking retro-futuristic visuals. The presentation here is excellent, but the gameplay suffers from design issues that make it seem frustratingly unfair, and the game has some absolutely massive difficulty spikes that make for wildly uneven difficulty. At $5, expert fans of the genre still may find this worthwhile, but most players probably won’t be able to get past its flaws.

Grade: C+

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, Seth Christenfeld, and Vince Verrinoldi. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}