God of Rock

Watching your favourite game genres make out sounds exciting, but God of Rock doesn't quite nail it. It leaves a game that feels at odds with itself, sometimes fun to play but mostly frustrating or uninteresting.

While the AI will soon find you too much to handle, even at higher difficulties, the online component is where the specials really shine. The strategy of choosing when to slot your attacks in becomes paramount. It’s easy to lose the rhythm of the song if you get too cocky. As long as the game can nurture and maintain a player base there should be ample reason to keep coming back to God of Rock time and time again.

With a little more polish, God of Rock may prove itself to be a worthwhile rhythm game title yet. Unfortunately, in its current state, it feels like more of a swing and a miss than a headbanging hit.

God of Rock has to be one of the worst attempts at combining rhythm games with other genres. While the game has a solid foundation, it really doesn't have much else as it fails as both a rhythm game and its fighting game aspects feel more like an overcomplication of something that already works well in other versus rhythm games.

God of Rock has a fairly interesting concept, plus cool visuals and character designs, but it still fails to deliver due to a messy gameplay style.

Despite its struggles, I did love God of Rock’s charm. Its roster is a colorful mix of characters like the comic artist Edith or the carefree spirit Lyn, both of which were the two I completed the game with. I enjoyed some of the unique interactions during the arcade intros and the banter between characters before the matches began. The game’s stage designs were pretty to look at, too, at least during the start and end of rounds. I don’t think God of Rock will hold anyone’s attention, which is sad because I feel like something is here. It’s just that the implementation was not executed well. I struggled to want to play when I’m normally itching to repeat songs in a standard rhythm game. It’s clear Modus Games put a lot of love into God of Rock, so it hurts me that I did not enjoy my time with this game. I hope some changes can come down the pipeline to fix some of these issues, specifically the UI button icons.

From mechanics to personality, Modus Studios' genre-mashup runs into major trouble by the first chords.

There's a good idea behind God of Rock. The concept of a rhythm game with the trappings of a fighting game has worked in the past, so we know this combination can work. The execution is flawed enough for both genres that the idea can't shine through. Some more polish and perhaps a rethinking of readability would help this become more desirable, but it's currently difficult to recommend.

God of Rock is an interesting mix of rhythm and fighting styles but it feels quite difficult to handle both styles. Outside of the Arcade Mode and Level Editor, there’s not much left as the online matches feel scarce.

Overall, Modus Games had the recipe for potential greatness and it looked good in the pictures, but it didn’t taste as good as it looked. Hindered by lack of options and accessibility, too much focus on the fighting game presentation, and not enough on rhythm which is the main aspect of the game, their attempt to marry the two genres ended up missing on both. There are other rhythm games that attempts to incorporate a different genre (like JRPG) such as Theatrhythm and does so expertly, sadly, this did not.