14 DAY TRIAL // The song starts off easy, with just a few notes to capture, offering me a few good initial attacks against my opponent. The tempo and complexity steadily ramp up and I start missing more of the prompts, which means I take damage of my own.
I manage to get into a good rhythm, flawlessly parrying enemy attacks and landing more hits of my own. I then check the move list for my character and use some specials to deal more health damage, before launching into my super.
By now the song is so complex that I keep missing notes right and left. But I focus on just the two busiest tracks for a while and win the match by the skin of my teeth. And all this was with the computer opponent set to Easy.
God of Rock is both developed and published by Modus. I played a preview version on the PC using Steam, with the title also set to arrive on consoles in April. This is a fighting game that uses rhythm game mechanics to power its combat.
The setup involves a mysterious higher power that revives superstar musicians and then asks them to fight each other to establish who is the greatest. The characters are varied and have visual flair, drawing obvious inspiration from real-world figures.
God of Rock uses rhythm game mechanics to drive combat, which makes it both easier and more complex than a classic fighting game. Players have to catch the stream of notes flowing on their side of the screen by pressing buttons.
This means there’s no need to worry about character movement, learn a deep array of combos, or decide when it's the best moment to parry. The songs start off easy but, as the fight progresses, the speed and number of notes steadily rise, making it harder to keep up.
The system works well. Characters also have special attacks and supers to deploy. Fights only have one round. The game has a good variety of stages and each of them offers a variety of songs to choose from.
God of Rock asks players to be patient and focused on the notes rather than on the spectacle of the fight. Even when battling an Easy computer, I basically developed tunnel vision, focusing on the notes while often ignoring the other elements of the user interface.
The game’s multiplayer includes local, split-screen matches, which is a great idea for a new entry in the fighting game space. There are also classic over-the-Internet matches, with the developers saying that the experience is designed for cross-platform play.
God of Rock has a good mix of style and great music. The various fighters are easy to distinguish, designed to drip personality, and associated with some decently drawn special moves. The interface tries to make the note matching as easy to perform as possible. But the highlight is the music that actually powers all the fights, with more than 40 tracks included. They are good as music and offer a lot of variety but also work well with the style of the game.
Conclusion
When the 1.0 version arrives, the title will deliver a story-driven mode for the characters, with the roster set to expand to 12. God of Rock has an interesting mix of ideas and I really want to play it with some other human players when it launches.
A preview code was provided by the publisher.
