‘Steel Century Groove’ Has A Great Story But Imperfect Gameplay
Steel Century Groove is the debut title from developer and publisher Sloth Gloss Games. In this unique take on the rhythm game genre, you’ll take on the role of a pilot that can own and control various mechs, called Tenzerks. Throughout your journey in this game, you’ll meet a diverse cast of characters that will either help you or try to hinder your progress. There will be rival Tenzerk pilots that will challenge you to friendly dance battles as you’re slowly introduced to the mechanics of the game. Steel Century Groove is currently available on PC through Steam.
As much as I enjoyed my time with Steel Century Groove, when looking hard enough, I started to notice imperfections with the presentation. When you take in all the parts that make up the game, including gameplay, music, characters, and story, there were a couple of things that almost made me want to put it down.
Before I dive into any of the specific parts of the game, my overall thought about Steel Century Groove is that it is good, not great. The wonderful thing about rhythm games is that when a game doesn’t click with my own tastes, it still might be a better fit for other players. So it is my opinion that even though I didn’t love my time with this one, I’m not going to avoid recommending it to other fans of the rhythm game genre.
Steel Century Groove: dance dance Tenzerk
The rhythm-based gameplay in Steel Century Groove doesn’t really do anything that I haven’t seen before, but the delightful visuals and engaging story are what kept me going back to it. The gameplay presentation is incredibly simple. The main gameplay loop is taking your Tenzerks and dancing against other Tenzerk pilots.
If you’ve played a Pokémon game, some elements may seem familiar to you. You may be wondering why I am comparing elements of this game to the Pokémon series, so I’ll explain…
In Steel Century Groove, you take on the role of a teenager whose aspirations are to become a legendary Tenzerk pilot. Through various hijinks, you will be given the choice of selecting one of three Tenzerks by a veteran master pilot. Much like the rest of the Tenzerks you’ll end up gaining throughout the story, the one you pick at the beginning will have specific elements and attacks. Depending on the one you pick here will get you through the first chapter of the game, but the choice you make is no less important than the other two.
Once you’ve become familiar enough with how the Tenzerks work in battle, you’ll trek your way to different locales. The locations you’ll travel to are factories, cities, and everything you can imagine in between. Along the way, you’ll run into other pilots that will get excited and approach you à la Pokémon, including the final battle arenas being reminiscent of gym battles and bosses.
After you’ve won a dance battle, you will then get to choose from one of three photos to submit to this world’s premiere social media platform, Rhymery. In addition to posting a picture with a caption, you will see how many likes and fans you have earned, with the amount of fans being how you gain experience and level up. Each time you level up, you will have access to more dance steps and get closer to being a Tenzerk master.
One of my favorite things about the dance battles is the choreography. Every time you start a battle against another pilot, you and your opponent’s Tenzerks start moving and grooving to the beat. This is especially fun because the mechs will move to the BPM, and if you have additional Tenzerks, who are essentially back-up dancers that can also have mods, it makes for a delightful scene.
Once the actual battle starts, you will then have to press the buttons in accordance with the prompts on the screen, even sometimes having to press and hold. The buttons and moves will be determined by which Tenzerk you’re using and the mods that are currently equipped.
I would describe the gameplay difficulty in Steel Century Groove as unbalanced. I experienced three of the difficult options that are available in the game. Easy is just that and might actually be too easy for my personal tastes, as I found the game to be too repetitive in this setting. I would only recommend Easy if you’re in it for the characters and story.
I tried Hard, and I found my reaction times were inadequate for this particular difficulty. I wound up sticking with Medium for the majority of my time because, while it is not perfectly balanced, it is the setting that I felt wasn’t too easy or too difficult.
When picking the moves of your Tenzerks, you’ll be able to select mods that change how the game plays. Some mods will increase your energy, called Affinity in this game, and others will help you or give your opponents a noticeable disadvantage. You’ll find chests scattered throughout the lands that will offer new mods, simchips to increase your Tenzerk level, and color palettes to customize the look of your mechs. Permanent upgrades can also be earned after specific and challenging battles throughout the game.
Story and style of this rhythm-based game
The biggest standout as to why this game is so good is the world that has been built in Steel Century Groove. I’m going to avoid any major spoilers because the game is full of an entertaining story and exceptionally well-written characters. Every character has a distinct personality and manner of speaking so that no two characters sound alike. Even the NPCs, with their short dialogue moments, feel so entirely different that it feels like no two NPCs are alike.
The story is full of enough surprises and turns to keep any player invested. There are moments of suspense, comedy, and genuine emotion that really drew me in. You’ll start off as a nobody and follow the path of other legendary pilots. But by the end of it all, your character and their Tenzerks will show the whole world that they too can become legendary.
One of my biggest concerns is that while the game has a great story, the art style and the music selection might be off-putting to general audiences.
While Steel Century Groove has a varied selection of over 30 songs to dance to, some of the songs can be a hit or miss. Comprising mostly EDM, R&B, and Pop songs that you can easily dance to, there are many songs that I found unappealing to my own personal tastes.
I have been a fan of electronic music for most of my life, so I was initially excited to listen to the songs that were not included in the short but exciting demo. To my disappointment, I only ended up enjoying about half of the music that was selected for use in this game. I’m not saying that the artists or songs are necessarily bad; it’s actually quite the opposite. I have very specific tastes in music, both old and new, and I honestly wish I felt more connection with the songs my Tenzerk’s battled to.
Final thoughts on Steel Century Groove
Out of all the rhythm games I’ve played, Steel Century Groove just kind of falls in the middle. Don’t get me wrong, I like what the developers have done with this game, but with how unbalanced the difficulty curve can be, it can be frustrating at times. With that being said, I think Sloth Gloss Games has done a fine job with their budget and song selection, even if the songs didn’t completely vibe with my own musical tastes.
My rating for this game: 3/5
I’m recommending this if you’re interested in a game that handles inclusivity and diversity really well. The gameplay can feel a bit too repetitive at times, and some songs will loop from the beginning for some battles. Of course, these issues didn’t have a large enough negative impact on my experience that would prevent me from recommending it.
Come for the rhythm game, but stay for the story and characters. Steel Century Groove is available now for PC and can be purchased directly through the Steam storefront. Don’t miss out on it.
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