Dead as Disco is a tale as old as time. Band has drummer, drummer is killed, drummer is revived ten years later and has to beat the piss out of his old band mates to reform the band. Ya know, all the makings of a revenge story, with some early seeds planted in the unfolding narrative to make you think your band mates know more than what they’re telling you. Our friend Charlie Disco returns from beyond that dance floor in the sky to find out what happened to him. Yeah, the narrative is there but it’s not that great since the game is in early access.
The story really only serves as a fodder to get you to keep working your way through each of the band members individual stages looking for hidden items that will unlock new dialogue/memories. From my playtime, only the bassist Hemlock appears to have a somewhat complete storyline, but it could easily keep going once Dead as Disco releases in 1.0.
In the build we played, Charlie’s band consists four other members: A giant punk rock skull dude named Hemlock who’s super juvenile and loves to make poo jokes and swear, Arora who’s an AI powered vocaloid robot, Dex who’s a cyberpunk emo kid that’s more machine than man, and lastly a rapper named Prophet. Each of the band members have unique quirks and personalities, but they aren’t fully fleshed out yet, and there appear to be three more coming in the future.
Each of the band members serve as a playable boss stage, and each stage has its own gimmick which makes the experience enjoyable. Throughout Hemlock’s stage you’ll fight in a graffiti bombed night club and at one point you’ll transition onto a subway train, that’s straight out of Final Fight.
There’s a lot of creativity here and a lot of replayability to find all the hidden items. Prophet’s stage has you dodging dashing cars, while Arora’s stage has you dealing with a giant astral version of her launching projectiles at you, and Dex’s stage has you fighting enemies in a small hallway, eventually ending up staving off endless hordes of enemies at the top of a cybernetic ziggurat.
The gameplay is tight and flashy, as you’ll be rewarded with more points if you attack “on beat”. It’s like Crypt of the Necrodancer meets The Bouncer. Personally, I’d like to think it’s the spirtual successor to Kickbeat, and I love that it blantantly steals some of the look from No More Heroes. Charlie Disco is Travis Touchdown from Temu, and that’s alright with me.
While you’re juggling your combos, you’ll sway, dodge, and use your parry attacks to take on incoming attacks from all directions. It’s very influenced by the Arkham Asylum combat and when it works, it works very well.
I found a few hitches where things don’t quite work as they should, but it’s early access so there’s plenty of time to address (or for me to figure out it’s a skill issue.) Running around and quickly reversing direction while performing an action usually works but occassionally feels like the input doesn’t register and you’ll often catch some damage when it does.
The soundtrack is a very strong part of Dead as Disco, though I’m not sure it understands its identity. Every member of the band represents a different genre of music, which is pretty cool, but not every song feels like it fits.
While songs like Mission fit Prophet perfectly, Hemlock’s stage has you fighting to a cover of Michael Sembello’s Maniac (most famous from the Flashdance soundtrack) which is confusing since Hemlock is basically screaming to be a member of The Clash. I was flabbergasted that he doesn’t play a cover of London Calling, though his other song Authority is a way better fit. Dex has a cool tune called Echolokators which is a super emo/industrial metalcore track. Arora’s music is exactly what you’d expect it to be and it’s fine.
However, I was pretty disappointed to see something called Mensch Machine on the setlist only to find that it’s a Rammstein knock off. I’m old, so I was expecting Die Mensch Machine by Kraftwerk, not Sonne. In fact, while I actually like most of the songs in Dead as Disco, there’s a noticable lack of anything Disco inspired aside from Just Dance by Bad Computer.
There’s one song in particular that’s absolutely awful, Big and Rich by Novul. It’s a rap song with some fake country sounds, but the hook of this song features the singer implying that people can have unprotected sex with her if they have a big penis and are rich. It’s an astoudingly bad song choice for an otherwise solid soundtrack.
Dead as Disco’s best feature comes from the challenge mode. There’s a bevvy of trials you can complete to unlock new items to purchase and progress the story as well as rebuild the run down bar that serves as your hideout – The Encore. While going through each of the songs already on the soundtrack is pretty fun, Dead as Disco allows you to import your own MP3s into the game, which makes this experience way more fun.
The first song I knew I had to test this game with was Neverender by Justice f. Tame Impala. It fits like a glove. As you can imagine, more Disco infused electropop works as well, but surprisingly, so did Static-X. Otsego Undead is a blast to play (you didn’t think I’d miss a chance to fit some Evil Disco in, did you?). In fact, I threw a bunch of different types of electronic tracks at it – Boards of Canada, Deadmau5, Astral Projection, Juno Reactor, and more. I think Psytrance tracks were probably my favorite out of the 15 or so songs I imported.
Overall, Dead as Disco is a solid rhymthic brawler that’s as much fun to play as it is to experiment in with your own songs and challenges. The cutscenes in the boss stages are cool and I’d like to see more of those added to tell the stories instead of just bland storyboards that don’t have voice lines yet, and hopefully we’ll see some soundtrack updates in the future.
Disco is Dead is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), via early access.
