Biggest criticism is that the main mode actually has the inverse of a difficulty curve; the game starts out challenging and intense, but you soon get so many power ups and potions and buffs that by the end of the game you can pretty much just tank through everything without much thought. It's sad that early on I felt encouraged to learn enemy patterns, whilst by the end of the game putting in any effort to learn new patterns felt unnecessary.

In general it was pretty fun and charming, though, and this re-envisioned Hyrule was a lot of fun to explore. Worse than Crypt from a gameplay perspective, but the added flavour makes the experience worthwhile regardless.

Cadence of Hyrule has a lot to love. The gameplay is unique, the art direction is gorgeous, the remixed music is excellent, and this is one of the few games where you can play as Zelda. Not to mention this is an extraordianry case of Nintendo entrusting one of their flagship IPs to an indie developer. It’s a miracle this game even exists! But before I gush further, I must address its prominent flaw: difficulty balancing.

If you’re like me and never played Crypt of the NecroDancer before, the combat will feel alien and you’ll probably die several times before getting into the groove. I got used to it after about half an hour, but I also got a broadsword that could simultaneously attack all enemies in the horizontal row in front of me. The broadsword is perhaps too useful, as I ended up using it for almost the entirety of my playthrough. I still died here and there, but halfway through I became so powerful I didn’t have to think much to defeat groups of enemies. That really sucks since the enemy variety is actually quite decent. The bosses, however, desperately needed a health buff. Apart from the last two fights, they all died in less than a minute. Not every game should be crushingly difficult, but it’s unfortunate enemies don’t scale with you. I’ll explain why later.

Being a Zelda crossover, it would be natural to expect some puzzle-solving and exploration. Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is block pushing puzzles are the order of the day. You’ll use them to reach high ledges and that’s it. This is extremely standard for Zelda and it doesn’t get more complex than that. I have a sneaking suspicion why that is and it’s actually tied to the good news.

Cadence of Hyrule has very engaging exploration. In a surprise strength over most Zelda games, you have a TON of freedom in tackling dungeons and acquiring items. There’s very little gatekeeping and many items are completely optional. Furthermore, the dungeons are focused around combat instead of puzzles, which actually solves an issue A Link Between Worlds had. In that game, almost every dungeon required a specific item to enter and since you could tackle dungeons out of order, every dungeon could only be built with that one item in mind, limiting the puzzle complexity. It was a necessary sacrifice for the freedom of exploration, but Cadence of Hyrule offers a better idea. Rather than a necessary key to open an elaborate lock, items mainly exist to help you out in combat. As a result, they became geunine rewards for exploring.

That is why I think enemy scaling would work very well. If stronger enemies appeared over time, item usage would be heavily encouraged. They wouldn’t be required to kill enemies, but they could help during battle and be used to uncover optional secrets. This would avoid ALBW’s pitfall while still preserving the freedom to explore. It also avoids Breath of the Wild’s method of giving you all your abilities at the start, which removed that feeling of finding cool new items throughout the game. The only downside to all of this is that puzzles would have to be very simple or confined to optional areas. Cadence of Hyrule knows this, as there are a lot of bombable walls and hookshot targets for optional goodies. The block puzzles can also be solved faster if you have items like the Power Glove and Rito’s Feather.

It certainly isn’t perfect, but Cadence of Hyrule is intriguing. It has all the ingredients for making an open-world Zelda while preserving the fun of acquiring items in the older games. I will always have a soft spot for the puzzles in past Zelda dungeons, but it’s clear that some kind of sacrifice has to be made if they are to play a prominent role. How much that affects you will depend on your preferences, so if you haven’t already, I recommend checking out Cadence of Hyrule to see for yourself. Don’t worry about the combat being gimmicky. It’s really fun and there’s even an option to make enemies move only when you do, which is perfect for those who struggle with musical rhythm.

I’m not a rhythm game guy, but I’ll never pass up some free Zelda. And this was a great experience! It wasn’t too difficult to keep the beat, and fighting enemies in tune to it was immensely satisfying. Despite not having puzzles in the same way Zelda games do, this game still offered some room for experimentation and problem solving, since there are multiple ways to access certain areas or fight!

Most importantly for a rhythm game, the music slapped. Excellent covers to some iconic songs. I’ll definitely be listening to some of these again.

This was a very pleasant bite-sized Zelda experience and I’m happy I checked it out.

Note: Not writing my usual thorough reviews because I abandoned the game.

Status: Abandoned
Played: 3.5 hrs
Platform: Switch

I played about 3 hours of this game and what I saw as fine and interesting. I loved the music and the mechanic of moving to the beat which i never saw anywhere else. Initially the combat has a bit of learning curve you are severely limited in what you do and will die all the time. In addition you need to reprogram your hack and slash habits to study and understand enemy patterns and move. This was really cool and slowly an hour in and some tips from veteran players i started clearing levels. It felt great because I got visibly better at something.

I cleared about 15 screens or so, and then everytime i died everything respawned. I understand its rouge-lite so they will come back and I can avoid them. Ultimately I don't know what the goal of this game is, maybe you are suppose to find the goal as you go on? I heard something about defeating 4 bosses, and then you taken on the final boss? Or is it to clear all the levels, if so they respawn so it seems pointless. Anyway because I had no clear goal or aim setup front, I did not have the motivation to tackle the harder stages even if i figured out the combat.

I have too many games in backlog and in general have very little patience for games that don't make some basic goals clear. For example in death's door, Yoku island, there are subtle goals but the goals are still clear. Here I am not exactly sure when this game will end and what I have to do to get it to end. This maybe a me problem.

Overall its worth trying, and if you enjoy finding a path in uncertainty through exploration you will have no issues. I personally need a little bit more goal setting.

Cadence of Hyrule is an unique experience, never did we expected nintendo to collaborate with a indie dev in one of it's biggest ips, and yet here it is.

The gameplay fits like a charm here, finding new places, new itens, making your arsenal greater and marking the map while you go all while listening to an amazing soundtrack with remixes off classical zelda themes is so unique that even if the roguelike aspect was not of my liking i kept on playing untill the end.

I'm so glad this game exists, it may not be mine or yours kinda of game (roguelike , dungeon crawler) but the fact is that it executes that premise greatly. One can only hope for a Mario from the Celeste team, or a earthbound from Toby fox, even tough i don't think those'll ever happen at least this one did.

An interesting experiment, not just in Nintendo licensing their big boy IPs to indie teams, but also in turning the simple short runs of Necrodancer into what is a 4-6 hour adventure. And the initial playthrough is fantastic, if a little easy.

The pixel art and DannyB soundtrack do the heavy lifting, and kept me from tiring out on the simple combat. If there's one huge improvement over Necrodancer, it's the graphics. A ton of care was put into this version of Hyrule, and you see it in every sprite. The developers probably knew fucking this up would mean Nintendo never does this again for anyone.

I wasn't expecting it to be as similar to the original Necrodancer than it was, though. There's no puzzles in the game that I recall, and shielding attacks is more or less here out of it being necessary in a Zelda game. But dungeons are basically 6 Necrodancer levels and a boss. The key difference being that this game is VERY forgiving. The roguelike elements have no real reason to exist because all dying does it make you lose your rupees, shovel and torch. And my lord, do you get showered in all them within a minute of respawning.

I think story mode is there for Zelda fans who might be terrible at rhythm games or roguelikes, but it leads to my key "problem that's not a problem" with the game. It's too long for a roguelike run. After beating it once at 4:30 hours, I'm sure I could do it in 2 next time, but that's too long for my taste, so I probably won't replay this game and stick to the original Necrodancer.

The only other comment I had while playing was; why not make the rhythm the challenge? It being 4/4 quarter notes the whole game means that you could just turn the sound off and still win. Why not add more complex time signatures?

But those are only little things. Cadence of Hyrule is still a fun passion project that combines the two IPs in the best way they could without alienating anyone. (It's also the closest thing Nintendo will do to making a new classic Zelda game on Switch.)

After 3 playthroughs (Link, Octavo's Ode, Symphony of the Mask), I can safely say that you should just play Crypt of the Necrodancer instead, unless you're a diehard Zelda fan.
The inventory system leads to most items getting neglected, especially weapons due to them being permanent. Your playthroughs won't look drastically different - you'll get different dungeon layouts, and the overworld will be in a different order, but that's basically it. You'll always fight the same bosses, go to the same places (just in different spots), and you'll most likely end up using the same few weapons and items.
Another area it's weaker in is gems - while in Crypt you could purchase permanent upgrades and unlocks with them, here you're limited to a rotation of items every run after you die. Along with that, you're gonna be left with just some bombs to purchase after a death or two, so there's barely any reason to actually spend all the gems you pick up.
The one area it's definitely stronger in than Crypt is presentation - I love the graphics of the game, and the few cutscenes included are nice. The fact that you're forced to hear the fairy's tutorial every time (or at least every save slot) is annoying though, especially the third time around. The bosses are also great - Synthrova, Gohmaracas, and Gleeokenspiel being my favorites.
Overall, Cadence doesn't really do a whole lot better than Crypt of the Necordancer, so unless being in the Zelda universe and hearing remixes of Zelda songs is a strong draw to you, it's probably better to just play that instead.

Completed with 100% of items collected. While I was never much good at Curse of the NecroDancer, I can't resist a new Zelda game, whatever form it comes in - and I'm pleased to say that I didn't regret this purchase. Cadence of Hyrule doesn't have the same punishing difficulty as the original NecroDancer, and the rhythm-based movement/combat mechanic actually works really nicely in a Zelda setting. Now, if taken just as a Zelda game, this probably would be towards the lower end of my ranking of the series (procedurally built dungeons are always going to struggle the hand-crafted offerings of traditional Zelda games), but the whole experience is elevated dramatically by the absolutely fantastic take on Zelda's already iconic soundtrack, with very catchy and diverse remixes/combinations of many classic pieces. Having completed the game once through, I don't feel an immediate compulsion to replay it, but there's excellent support for those who do, with a number of different characters available, a perma-death mode and daily challenge runs.

I love this game so much! The music is a real treat! (which is good for a musical game) So many new arrangements of classic tracks that compile into a greatest hits medley that is a feast for the ears. Zelda is my favorite gaming franchise and it gets a lot of love of course, but since Breath of the Wild I have felt like “old zelda” isn’t the focus. It’s nice to have a Zelda game with the Triforce and Ganon. It’s nice to have Zelda as a playable character. This game is filled with little treats. The things fans have been begging for in the mainline titles. It’s all here.

The puzzles are here but simpler than your traditional Zelda game. The dungeons and caves incorporate more dungeon crawler elements. A fresh concept for Zelda that makes the game as a whole feel unique with the caveat of giving each dungeon less individuality and memorability.

Classic Zelda is here with all its charm. The game blends the styles of Zelda and Crypt beautifully creating a unique experience. The return of Zelda items and a magic meter alongside the elements of Crypt such as the shovel and torch durability work perfectly together. I especially love losing all your personal belongings and rupees upon death only to be brought to a room beyond death in a place to spend your hard earned diamonds. This game simply forces a smile on your face.

I’ve been hoping for a new 2D Zelda for a while and it’s been right here all this time. This is Zelda; a different iteration but Zelda nonetheless.

Cadence of Hyrule is an innovative frantically-paced puzzle game. The Zelda elements, and the visuals in general, are tonally consistent with the franchise. The music in particular is absolutely stellar, both in composition and implementation.

Unfortunately the structure of the game is a bit obtuse, which is made worse by inconsistent tutorializing. It's not clear initially which items are permanent upgrades and which disappear on death, or which levels are set and which will procedurally regenerate. The difficulty curve is more like a series of ledges. First, the default timing-based combat will feel chaotic and unpredictable. Then, for a blissful hour or so, the game lands exactly at it should: challenging but fair, frantic and rewarding. Then, as the player's skill increases and certain weapons are unlocked, it becomes a somewhat tedious exercise as the challenge evaporates without increasing the pace of the material.

Despite these issues I really enjoyed my time with this game. It is truly a breath of fresh air to play something that takes risks and has a consistent vision, even if the result has a bit of jank to it.