It's that time again for a new episode of Chichuki Plays, the show where I go hands-on with upcoming games and show them off. Usually, it's about an hour or so but I don't want to spoil too much of the game for you. This time we're looking at GRIDbeat! on Nintendo Switch. The game is also available on PC but for this video, we're playing the Switch version.
Let me start out by saying that I really like the character designs in the game. You'll get to select your hacker at the start of the game as well as your hacker alias. I was going to go with Mega Ran as my hacker name when I saw it but I didn't think I could a friend of The Stevetendo Show(my Shacknews Livestream show) justice so I went with Moon Dog. Moon Dog still sounds pretty cool! I also like the cute pink helper character that is similar to Navi from Legend of Zelda but not as annoying. The music is really good too and for games that want you to keep the rhythm, you need a great soundtrack!
GRIDBeat is all about keeping the beat/rhythm and exploring locations. You'll be rewarded for keeping the beat and well, punished for not keeping it. I found myself having a tough time keeping the beat during gameplay. There were plenty of times where I thought I was on the beat and then I was getting hurt. I thought I was timing my movements with the beat but clearly that wasn't the case. While exploring, you'll have to do different levels of hacking. The advanced hacking gave me fits trying to figure out how to do it. I eventually got it but the instructions aren't the greatest. I also found the controls in sections like that to not be the tightest as well. Moving to the rhythm and hacking, the main parts of the game, will take a lot of getting used to during gameplay.
You are tasked with hacking into the KNOSS Corporation and steal the data for an unknown party, willing to pay of course. Along the way, you'll have to keep the beat and move to the rhythm so you don't lose data and, you know die. GRIDBeat! is an interesting take on the rhythm genre but exploration and movement will take a lot of getting used to. I like the idea of hacking and having different levels of hacking but how to do it isn't great. I mentioned before that the instructions for hacking aren't great. The music and characters are great and in my opinion, are the best parts of the game. I have to say if you aren't a fan of rhythm/keep the beat type games, you probably aren't going to have a good time.
Make sure you check out the hands-on video below!