A rhythm action RPG featuring dance battling robots? Why has no one made Steel Century Groove already?!
Why are giant robots only ever in video games to blow stuff up? Don’t get me wrong, I love a MechWarrior or BattleTech, but why all the fighting? Surely robots deserve a break to enjoy pursuits outside of combat. One of my favourite games in the always amusing Jackbox Party Pack series was Mad Verse City, in which you’d use robots to win rap battles against your friends, but I can’t think of many other games that utilise kaiju sized mecha in a more creative way. Lucky for me, Steel Century Groove has come along with something different and undeniably fun.
Hundreds of years ago, giant robots were built to fight in a great war, but now that the world is at peace, there’s little call for their use. So society decided to repurpose them for dance battles, and thus the world created a new sport! Ignore the fact that a 100 foot tall popping-and-locking death machine would demolish a town, and simply enjoy their sweet moves.
There’s a plot here, with you playing as a silent protagonist finding themself in possession of a loaned Tenzen — the fancy name for giant robots — who travels around the land, battling other Tenzen pilots with the goal of becoming the world champion. It’s a simple plot, involving beating a number of leaders to earn the right to enter the championships, but it serves as a suitable backing for the gameplay.
Before I go any further though, it should be mentioned that Steel Century Groove really feels like it’s leaning on the Pokemon formula. You set off from a small town to defeat what are essentially gym leaders to access the championships. Other pilots run over to you when you cross their path for an impromptu battle. There’s even a professor at the start of the game that allows you to select one of three starter Tenzens. It’s clearly deliberate, but it’s a formula that may be a little over familiar for some.
So you’ll go from town to town, completing tasks to be able to get to the Principle Pilots as these leaders are known, but the real fun part of the game is the dance battles themselves. Whilst they can get a little tiresome early on, as you access more and more gameplay mechanics, things become really enjoyable. At its core, your goal is to fill up a bar with successful notes faster than your opponent does, but the battles are a little more convoluted than simply tapping the A button — assuming you’re using a controller — when the marker crosses the note.
Your Tenzen has multiple abilities that activate depending on which button you press in time to the music. The basic one simply increases your bar, but others will increase it faster, slow your enemy, change how you interact with the rhythm entirely, or potentially shut down your enemy completely. Those enemies also have abilities though, and you’ll be warned about when they’ll activate them ahead of time, meaning you can use your own abilities to counter them if you time it correctly. There’s a lot to keep track of between the music, your own timing, and what your foe is about to do, but once you get into the rhythm of things, you’ll have a great time stringing together effective combos to wipe the floor with anyone that takes you on.
As you continue through the story, you’ll acquire new Tenzens, as well as back-up dancers that give you new abilities too. Different Tenzens have pretty different playstyles too, meaning you’ll need to adapt your approach considerably when trying out something new. It’s a good idea to do so though, as you’ll find some are more effective in specific combats.
It’s certainly fun, and once the mechanics open up, you’ll have a really good time. The presentation leaves a lot to be desired though. Whilst the Tenzens look neat enough, you won’t get to pay much attention to them in battle due to how laser focused you’ll need to be on nailing notes. Other models and the world itself really didn’t do it for me though, looking more like something out of Roblox with flat characters and a comparatively textureless world. I’m not expecting earth shattering visuals, but this really wasn’t my cup of tea.
Thankfully the music is excellent, as you’d hope in a rhythm game. Genres vary considerably, but all of them were enjoyable to play. Whilst I likely won’t be listening to them every day, they’re catchy enough for me to want to replay some of them beyond grinding experience points. There’s an interesting feature where you can drop your own mp3s (remember them?) into a specific directory and have them appear in Steel Century Groove too, with the game generating a dance and rhythm pattern for you to play. I’m sure mileage may vary depending on what you use, but it’s fun and something I haven’t seen since the likes of Audiosurf.
Steel Century Groove is a unique fusion of rhythm-action, Pokemon, and giant stompy robots, which is a sentence that I didn’t think I’d ever write. The visuals will likely put some people off, but the gameplay itself is really quite enjoyable if you give it a couple of hours to open up. If you aren’t sold, there’s a demo and a prologue version in the form of Steel Century Groove: Midnight to try out for free to get a taste for it. If you’re a rhythm-action fan, this is worth a shot.
Steel Century Groove is available now on PC.
