Thank you Kwalee for providing us with a review code!

A robot that goes by Frazzer has gone rogue and it’s up to you, a bounty hunter named Ace to take it down. Frazzer has holed itself up in an evolving mansion that changes its configuration with every playthrough. Like other roguelikes before it, unlocked weapons and other upgrades will be available for future playthroughs. In-game money will not carry over and will have to be re-earned.

Upon launching ROBOBEAT, you’ll be dropped into Frazzer’s lair and be guided through a tutorial to teach you the basics. You’ll be taught how to jump, double jump, dash, slide, ground slam, pick up items, shoot your weapons on the beat and select your music. The tempo of the music you select determines how fast the enemies move. You can change out your music anytime you want.

When starting a run, your first order of business is to select your music. Afterwards, you’ll then be taken to a lobby where you’ll have a couple of weapons (you can dual wield!) and a power-up waiting for you. The beginning weapons are “meh”, but you can unlock better ones by collecting blueprints and researching them at a workbench. My least favorite weapon is the ping-pong paddle. If you begin the game with an underwhelming load out, you can opt to terminate yourself and hope for a better weapon set next time. Alternately you can continue on regardless and likely upgrade your weapon in a treasure room at some point in your run.

There are a few sections (Communications, Armory, Study, Frazzer’s room) in Frazzer’s mansion and you have to unlock them by completing the previous one and beating its boss. As you enter a room, enemies will spawn in waves and once cleared, doors to progress will become available. The doors will have symbols on them indicating what is behind them. If the icon is a gift, you’ll find weapons or power-ups ahead. Skulls indicate monsters are awaiting you but they may drop money/blips for upgrades upon their demise. A heart indicates that you’ll restore some health after conquering the enemies within. You can research and unlock new room types to appear like weapon shops and decks of cards.

When entering a card room, you’ll get to select a card from three choices. The cards are offensive and defensive themed. My favorite card is the one that lets you shoot both of your weapons simultaneously. Taking 15% less damage is a handy one too.

Many of the rooms have environmental threats like spikes, saws, and turrets along with enemies shooting and running towards you. Shooting them on beat is ideal and does more damage. I like the casual difficulty mode that does not penalize you for shooting off rhythm. When I’m in fight or flight mode I’m not taking rhythm into consideration!

To get my rhythm on target, I found that it helps me to play the game on the same music track multiple times to get familiar with it. You unlock more songs as you progress in the mansion. In total, there thirty-eight song tracks and they’re all quite good. I bought the soundtrack on Steam for $3.99. PC users can import their own music and that’s a feature that console players are not able to take advantage of.

The graphics are a little washed out but they get the job done. This is primarily a rhythm game after all. There’s a decent amount of variety of enemies and bosses.

The first person shooter action is solid and I like how you can run along walls and perform air attacks and ground slams to further injure your foes. Since the enemies are digitized there is no bloodshed involved. Much of the storytelling is done by reading messages left behind. There is some language like sh*t.

When it comes to achievements the PlayStation version of the game has thirty-seven and the Steam version supports thirty-eight. Since the PC edition of the game supports the ability to import your own music, I would say that it’s the definitive version to get. I’m still glad I got the opportunity to check it for the first time on PlayStation. I have added ROBOBEAT to my Steam Wishlist to pick it up on sale someday. It’s a fun game that I would like to customize more and play more time permitting. So far, ROBOBEAT has been one of my favorite games I’ve played in 2025. Even if I’m not that good at it!