Stray thoughts:
- Very unfortunate that this Bit.Trip Runner knockoff came out only a year before Runner2, a game which iterates on its predecessor in actually good and fun ways.
- The regular levels are hit-or-miss, mostly dependent on which enemies and mechanics they include (some are benign, some are annoying, and some are completely broken). Any level with those fucking bounce pads can go straight to hell.
- I did quite like level 6-3, which sets up a pattern, introduces slight variations on it, and then slowly zooms the camera in to test your memory of the pattern and response times for its variations. Good use of the format! It's unfortunately quite late in the game, but there's barely any game here anyway.
- Most rhythm games have challenging notes that give you some kind of bonus if you hit them. HarmoKnight “innovates” on this design mainstay with notes that instantly end your run if you don't hit them, bypassing the hearts system completely. These notes’ placement is totally arbitrary—that is, except for the boss battles, where they're still placed largely irrespective of the given cue’s difficulty, but at least they correspond with big moments in the QTE cutscene you're playing. Oh, yeah:
- The boss levels are some of the worst I've played in any rhythm game. Maybe any game period. Some of them have fun visuals (I'm a fan of the steam…engine…thing? that you fight on the water), but you're spending more than half the time watching glorified cutscenes instead of playing the damn game! And for some ungodly reason, scoring for these fights is way, way tighter than non-boss levels—as far as I could tell, a single miss will bump you down to a silver medal on every one, and the game's various timing issues mean you'll likely have to replay these boring call-and-response QTE segments multiple times over. (Did I mention the final boss fight is four minutes long?) Meanwhile, you can completely bomb any of the normal levels and still have a decent chance at gold. I don't get it.
- The song selection for the Pokémon bonus stages makes no sense. One songs from gen I, two from gen II, and one from gen V? It was nice to play some levels with good music for a change, though, and I'd love to see a Theatrhythm Final Fantasy-style Pokémon rhythm game some day. You could even get indieszero to do it!
- More than anything, HarmoKnight feels unfinished. Three worlds in, the game has this winking fake-out where a character goes "I guess this is the end of our adventure!" and the joke is that it's really just getting started, but at that point you've already played more than half of the stages in the main game! Add that to the polish issues (you really couldn't think of anything to put on the bottom screen in the overworld?) and the unrefined gameplay, and the result is a game that feels like a demo. Actually, no, because a demo would be a proper vertical slice; this is more like an early-stage proof of concept. And it's not a bad concept! I've been extremely negative in this review, but I can't deny I was charmed by the game's early stages! I was ready for HarmoKnight to become my new fixation. But I can't pretend this game is good.
- When I get a Superb in Rhythm Heaven, or five stars in Guitar Hero, or even when I scrape by with a "U rappin' GOOD!" in Parappa the Rapper, I feel like I've accomplished something. Whenever I got a gold in HarmoKnight, I thought "thank God I never have to play that stage again".
- Very unfortunate that this Bit.Trip Runner knockoff came out only a year before Runner2, a game which iterates on its predecessor in actually good and fun ways.
- The regular levels are hit-or-miss, mostly dependent on which enemies and mechanics they include (some are benign, some are annoying, and some are completely broken). Any level with those fucking bounce pads can go straight to hell.
- I did quite like level 6-3, which sets up a pattern, introduces slight variations on it, and then slowly zooms the camera in to test your memory of the pattern and response times for its variations. Good use of the format! It's unfortunately quite late in the game, but there's barely any game here anyway.
- Most rhythm games have challenging notes that give you some kind of bonus if you hit them. HarmoKnight “innovates” on this design mainstay with notes that instantly end your run if you don't hit them, bypassing the hearts system completely. These notes’ placement is totally arbitrary—that is, except for the boss battles, where they're still placed largely irrespective of the given cue’s difficulty, but at least they correspond with big moments in the QTE cutscene you're playing. Oh, yeah:
- The boss levels are some of the worst I've played in any rhythm game. Maybe any game period. Some of them have fun visuals (I'm a fan of the steam…engine…thing? that you fight on the water), but you're spending more than half the time watching glorified cutscenes instead of playing the damn game! And for some ungodly reason, scoring for these fights is way, way tighter than non-boss levels—as far as I could tell, a single miss will bump you down to a silver medal on every one, and the game's various timing issues mean you'll likely have to replay these boring call-and-response QTE segments multiple times over. (Did I mention the final boss fight is four minutes long?) Meanwhile, you can completely bomb any of the normal levels and still have a decent chance at gold. I don't get it.
- The song selection for the Pokémon bonus stages makes no sense. One songs from gen I, two from gen II, and one from gen V? It was nice to play some levels with good music for a change, though, and I'd love to see a Theatrhythm Final Fantasy-style Pokémon rhythm game some day. You could even get indieszero to do it!
- More than anything, HarmoKnight feels unfinished. Three worlds in, the game has this winking fake-out where a character goes "I guess this is the end of our adventure!" and the joke is that it's really just getting started, but at that point you've already played more than half of the stages in the main game! Add that to the polish issues (you really couldn't think of anything to put on the bottom screen in the overworld?) and the unrefined gameplay, and the result is a game that feels like a demo. Actually, no, because a demo would be a proper vertical slice; this is more like an early-stage proof of concept. And it's not a bad concept! I've been extremely negative in this review, but I can't deny I was charmed by the game's early stages! I was ready for HarmoKnight to become my new fixation. But I can't pretend this game is good.
- When I get a Superb in Rhythm Heaven, or five stars in Guitar Hero, or even when I scrape by with a "U rappin' GOOD!" in Parappa the Rapper, I feel like I've accomplished something. Whenever I got a gold in HarmoKnight, I thought "thank God I never have to play that stage again".