Thumper is a rhythm game, but is unlike most games in this genre. It’s a game that really tests your reflexes, and it just so happens that there’s a beat, which takes a backseat to serve as an aid to the gameplay, rather than you pressing buttons in time with the music. The game has a dark almost surreal aesthetic, with a twinge of horror inspired visuals, and it works wonderfully well. It soon completely immerses you into the game.
The game is comprised of nine levels, and each level introduces at least one new mechanic. At the start, you learn to control this silver beetle traveling at fast speed on rails. You press X to “thump” onto the blue bars, and use the directional button or analogue stick along with holding down X to hit the red rails in order to make the corners at high speed.
As you progress through the game, you’ll have to manage more and more, but because it introduces a new mechanic and you’ll spend a number of levels using it, these mechanics organically grow over time and never becomes too overwhelming. Eventually, you’ll need to hold notes and use the direction buttons in various ways, but it only ever uses those two inputs.
While there are nine levels, each level has many sub-levels. These sub-levels also act as checkpoints. You can quickly pull up a menu to restart the checkpoint, or any before it, if you are not happy with your result. This is because you get a ranking for each sub-level, and obviously missing any of the thumps or other obstacles will knock down your end result.
The frequent checkpoints are also great because you will die… a lot. The beetle can only take two hits before you have to restart that section. This is generous and plentiful enough in the beginning levels, but once you hit level 5, it lets loose and doesn’t baby you anymore. The difficulty spike from that level and each subsequent level onwards, is crazy. What makes the game hard is that you are moving at such a high speed, that it is impossible to rely on visuals alone.
The game is unique in that if you want to do well in it, you can either do trial and error and memorize the layouts as you slowly progress by dying again and again. Or you can use a combination of visual and sound cues to understand and pre-empt what’s coming up ahead. This is where Thumper is really clever, it subtly uses sound cues to warn the player of the upcoming obstacles. The main purpose of the beat that’s playing in the background is to keep an even tempo for the player, this is extremely impressive.
Yet because you will be dying over and over again, frustration will build. This is more so with the unevenness of even the sub-levels. You’ll have sub-levels that are so easy you’ll pass them in one go but then the next one is not only extremely tough, but also four times longer in length too. For the boss battles, no matter how cool and impressive they are, because you have to perfect the run to defeat them if you don’t want to repeat from the very beginning of the encounter. It’s feels overly cruel at times, but when you succeed, it is a huge rush and achievement.
The first four levels probably will only take you an hour or two. It’s the five levels afterwards that will take the bulk of your time to even just finish. It is good that there is no major penalty for death as you just restart from that section immediately. It’s just painful redoing a section again and again though. Surprisingly enough, once you get over the hump of level 5, the next stages aren’t easy, but they don’t have the same insane difficulty spike. If you could handle the previous levels, then you will be able to handle the rest of the game (provided you aren’t going for S rank on your first go).
You’ll be impressed with yourself at some of the levels, which has you zipping by at crazy high speeds. Once you get into the zone, the game is enjoyable and time zips by. Sure, you’ll still get stuck in a sub-level here or there, or even the mid-level bosses, but you could feel yourself slowly inching closer, so that the goal feels achievable. And once you get pass it, the satisfaction and the adrenaline rush cannot be understated. That said, the lack of checkpoints during boss battles (so that you need to get through all four phases at once) is a huge source of frustration, especially towards the end of the game.
Overall, Thumper is a great game. It is unique and so different from any other rhythm game. It’s got the perfect balance and harmony of gameplay with music. At it’s best, when you are in sync with the levels, it’s ingenious and creative. It does ramp up in difficulty rapidly from the middle though, so that it requires more than its fair share of patience and dedication, sadly too much to ask of most players. If you do manage to persist, you will be fairly rewarded as even just completing the game is a huge accomplishment. Thumper is a great game that’s well worth experiencing.
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