Christ, was I Tied to the Beat. A new and upcoming Early Access rogue-like bullet hell. What? Another one! Honestly, I never grow tired of this genre, notably the Survivors-like method, but if you want to stand out, you have to do it with some glitz, wicked features nobody else is using, or some other sort of free subscription to OnlyFans. That’ll guarantee the numbers, at least.
Right, how is this different? The music. Separating this from the crowd means a focus on an eargasm of catchy, earworm-like tunes that are guaranteed to make you smile and want to divulge just for the way the game makes you feel. There’s a handful of songs available to begin with, plus a number to unlock through the coins earned in the game. However, the choice is infinite.
Y’see, a bit like that Double Kick Heroes, you can import your own music library. No, this isn’t where you can listen to your tunes while playing a game – anybody can do that. What’s so amazing about Tied to the Beat is that you can import any MP3 file and then either add manual lyrics or use a beta facility that transcribes them for you. Now, like most people, I no longer have access to MP3s as I use my Spotify account. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to get an MP3 file post-Napster. In the end, I got a Creative Commons track, only to find out it didn’t have lyrics, so it couldn’t be used. Ack! Ok, so 00’s style ripping of MF DOOM was in order.
Following a snazzy jazz track, converting my song with the lyrics, I was ready to start. You might be wondering what Tied to the Beat actually is. Well, it’s a Survivor’s-like with cute lil’ instruments serving as your avatar to defeat enemies, all the while zapping them to the b beat, with your lyrics pasted on screen for bonuses. Whether this is accurate or not, I don’t know, as there’s so much going on, and the music will frequently pause with levelling up. I recommend auto-levelling just to avoid this. However, the issue wasn’t because the game was hectic that I couldn’t verify if the timing was right for the lyrics, but the frame rates were dire.
I often bang on about how my Ryzen 9 laptop runs at 1440p with Epic settings with little slowdown. I couldn’t do that in this. I was getting 3 FPS. This was appalling, and no way to play unless switching to windows mode and shrinking. There are no visual settings to change besides the HUD and objectives, and then it was getting to 60FPS but very janky – especially when levelling up, as you’d pause momentarily before starting again or freeze up. When it worked, it was fun – mostly because the built-in music, plus my 90s hip-hop. In all honesty, my gob was open for a lengthy time due to the game importing the lyrics to the song. Magical.
No rogue-like would be any good without marginal gains, and in this case, it’s from the two sets of upgrades. There are the permanent stat increases, such as range, damage, health and whatnot, then there’s ‘class’ stats that apply specifically to the character you’re playing. These do get a little confusing with all their terms, but in upgrading them, you essentially get a better run. After a handful of runs, I soon found a loophole and literally stood still without taking any damage. After finishing the playlist of songs, you get overtime until you die. This went on so long that I exited it because the game was simply slowing down on a ridiculous scale.
Putting aside the technical side, I absolutely love this concept of playing along to your own music. Granted, who has an MP3 library these days? Tied to the Beat certainly would encourage you to rip your collection or find a way to legally download your Spotify library to play in the game, as it’s so worth it, and easily the biggest selling point. However, I would like to see the game be able to play at full screen even if at a lower FPS. 3 FPS is just unplayable, however.
