Once a skill is activated the character goes into a cool-down period, so you can’t just spam the warrior’s attack or healing spells. Switch characters in the middle of a section and you activate the skill associated with the last-completed stretch of notes, or clear all three to activate whichever skill you slotted into the most powerful slot. The first string of notes has a blue background, which segues into red for the second skill and yellow for the third.

Each ability is activated by hitting a string of notes scrolling down the screen, and the number of sections of song in a row determines both the activated skill plus its power. A fully-voiced cut-scene and brief tutorial later and it’s time to head out to the woods and shut down the first of many out-of-control monster parties through a series of songs and challenges.Īs is typical for an RPG, each character has its own skill set, except instead of calling up a menu of options you can have three possible abilities active per character. They’re a well-rounded group, with a fighter, healer, magic user, and defender all fully trained and ready to bust out their dancing skills on the battlefield. The game starts off with the graduation ceremony of a class of four adventurers as they become ready to take on the world. The Metronomicon fuses two distinct genres into a weird and upbeat whole, and while there are a few logistical issues the presentation can’t fix the music and energy make up for it. A band of dance-warriors fresh from the top of their graduating class is setting off across the land to fight the monster raves that have been causing so much chaos, and successfully pulling off a chain of DDR-style moves brings out attacks, magic, healing and all the other RPG abilities that a good party has to draw from.

Does every encounter need to be so violent and brutal, though? If we can’t talk to the monsters wouldn’t it be better to just dance them away? The Metronomicon tackles this deeply philosophical question and comes up with an emphatic “yes!”, although the results aren’t quite so pacifistic as one would expect. Wherever a monster raises its vicious head, eventually a hero will be along to chop it off.

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