Thank  you Klei Entertainment for sending us  a review code for this game and DLC soundtracks!

Having lost her father at a young age, Cadence sets out to find him, despite her uncle's wishes.  She wants to know what had attracted him to the dangerous dungeons and what became of him.  The dungeons in Crypt of the Necrodancer are like none other.  Every step and move taken in them must be to the beat of the music playing.  You can move to the built in trance music, or use songs from your own mp3 collection.     

There are four zones with four levels with in each one of them.  The final level of each zone is a musically themed boss.  There is a Rock N' Roll boss, a Death metal boss, and a Conga style boss.  The final boss, the Necrodancer, grooves to trance style music.  The music in this game is phenomenal and the original sound track and remixes are worth buying.   

There is a wide variety of enemies and they each have a unique (and avoidable) attack pattern.  You'll be slaying various slimes, bats, skeletons, minotaurs, golems, dragons and more.  Each attack you make has to be done in rhythm to the music playing.  If you miss a beat you'll lose the coin multiplier bonus.  

If you're having trouble learning how to defeat a boss or an enemy, there are unlockable training rooms to help you get your groove on.  At first you start off with three health hearts.  You can permanently double that amount by buying permanent upgrades in the lobby.   Item drop and permanent upgrades can be purchased with diamonds.  You can mine for diamonds in the dungeons and sometimes they are just laying on the ground for you to pick up.  Any diamonds you get can be brought up to the lobby, but they will not accumulate and transfer into other zones.  Gold found in the levels is used for score keeping and does not transfer over either.

Each of the zones is randomly generated, so it will be unique each time you go in.  There is a daily challenge that is fixed  and you can compete against your Steam friends or  compare your score to players across the globe.    If you're feeling creative you can create your dungeons with the level editor.

The Steam workshop has over one-thousand downloadable items and mods.  You can change the main character sprites to notable game characters including Kirby, Link, and various Pokemon.  There is a game conversion mod to put a MegaMan spin on the game.  Like many Steam games, there are trading cards and twenty-eight achievements available.  

Besides the daily challenges and playing user created modifications, the main game's story is designed to be re-played multiple times to get the entire back story.  Completing the main story is no easy task as the enemies get tougher in each zone.  The bosses are no pushovers either.  In zones 1-3 the bosses are random, but the bosses in zone four are story driven.  

The bosses are nicely detailed and animated in 8-bit goodness.  The retro look works well with this game and the style, challenges, and fun it offers more than compensates for the old school look and feel.  Despite the 8-bit graphics, the music is not chiptunes and sounds amazing.  The composer, Danny Baranowsky, outdid himself here.  He also composed the music for Super Meat Boy.

Morally speaking, Crypt of the Necrodancer is pretty family friendly as long as you don't mind some undead monsters including dancing skeletons and zombies.   My kids enjoyed watching me play and liked the soundtrack too.  

The asking price is a reasonable $14.99 and between the replayable story, daily challenges, and user contributions, Crypt of the Necrodancer has a lot to offer.  While this game looks simple, it packs quite a challenge.  Even though I'm not good at the game, I still had fun getting my butt kicked.  I kept coming back for more which is a testament of how good this game truly is.