Let’s be honest, mech battles are pretty damn cool! Giant robotics clashing instantly creates exciting and interesting opportunities, especially in games. Steel Century Groove and its free prequel (you can play right now!) Steel Century Groove: Midnight know this, taking the idea in a new direction. My hands-on with the game already brings in some RPG elements and, more importantly, great rhythm-based mechanics.
The mood, presentation, and overall vibe of Steel Century Groove: Midnight are a delight! It’s colourful and bubbly, has a wide variety of songs, and gives a pretty good sense of what’s to come.
Grooving with Steel Century Groove: Midnight
For the demo, you’ll get things going with a brief character creator and quickly jump into the action. The rocking tunes and huge mechs are duking it out via DANCE.
As with many rhythm-based titles, you’ll be presented with a series of button presses to achieve the highest score. But in the case of Steel Century Groove: Midnight, there is a health-bar-like UI at the top of the screen as you string together dance moves.
The music is not necessarily my vibe, but it works well with this colourful and fun presentation. The strong beats and dance tunes sound great in your headphones as your mech puts together a well-choreographed piece before you.
A long, winding string will pass across the screen and in front of you while the mechs dance it off in the background. These weaving strings will, expected, have moments where you must press one of the face buttons to move to the music in the queue. What Steel Century Groove: Midnight does here is to introduce an energy mechanic and cool power moves that will build up your meter and score.
The demo only allowed me to experience one type of mech: one that uses basic moves when pressing A, recharges energy with B, and has power moves on X and Y. The real-time combinations are really fun to execute, as the music works very well with the mechanics that are thrown at you in each battle.
Dance, Dance
While I didn’t experiment with it, Steel Century Groove: Midnight will also let you import your own music. In the good old days of the original Xbox, I used to love customizing in-game playlists; it looks like a version of this will be possible once again. This is a very exciting prospect in my mind!
Steel Century Groove: Midnight’s presentation is simplistic at times, matched with a “combat” system that feels responsive and fun. The early moments of the story seem interesting as it weaves in social media, a growing fan base, and really cool mech designs. All of this takes place before the Steel Century Groove game, which will be released this year.
I recommend giving the demo or the complete prequel a try. It’s free on Steam.
