Just Shapes and Beats is a non-classical rhythm game where it’s more like bullet hell and tells a story! In a fun way I have never experienced before!
It was a game about the world’s end, friendship, robots and way more. But I have to say that “Close to me” was a little bit frustrating with the encounters and placement of the bad things and when “Till It’s Over” started I felt shivers all over my body.
I played Just Shapes and Beats on the LCD Steam Deck. It was perfect for the job and did it flawlessly, with solid 60FPS without any hiccups, even with Steam screen recording on.
Release Date
31 May 2018
Steam Reviews
Extended Thoughts on Just Shapes and Beats
So I just finished the game with 2,7h on the clock. Just the story mode with ‘casual’ turned on, and I’m interested in trying out multiplayer and party mode. The game contains some timeless classics like “Till It’s Over by Tristam“, “Sabrepulse – Close To Me” or “Bossfight – Milky Ways“. It has “48 hand crafted stages with licensed tracks from over 20 chiptune and EDM artists“[1].
While time played may not be big, I spent a lot of real life time on it. Played couple of songs in the beginning, then one or two per day and picked it up after a few weeks. It was a perfect time filler which grabbed me by the guts in the end. I’m kind of a emotional kind of guy so there’s that.
Game is simple and beautifull in it’s pixelated way. The non-classical part is you don’t have to follow or click on the beat but game is synchronized around it! You are playing one song, tick, something is flying from the right, tick, top is getting higlighted but you see there is something bubbling on the bottom, tick, bottom explodes, tick, top gets cut off. You had a beat or two to jump down from the top where you dodged the “flying thing” to the now safe bottom. There is just a lot of stuff happening on the screen but if you listen to the beat you can expect things getting more rough or easing out.
I want to add to that little point about “stuff happening on the screen”. Sometimes there is too much clutter for me, but that’s a gameplay foundation. Some maps you just need to learn to get through or be lucky to dodge that one hammer or falling thing. Things will be flying in all directions, corners are getting constantly shot at and map margins are a no-go zone so you stick to the middle and try your best aiming with dashes.
And here’s that. I don’t have a scoring system but in my eyes if you ever enjoyed Aero, DJ MAX Fever or Patapon (oh Patapon my beloved)[2]– you can grab this one and spend some fun time listening to some nice beats. Just check some titles before you go because you may not be EDM fan.
I will leave this here so you can re-listen to timeless classic!
[1] Quote from paragraph “Music to your ears, and hands” https://store.steampowered.com/app/531510/Just_Shapes__Beats/
[2] I will be replaying Patapons on Steam Deck! Will keep you posted on that!