We all know the phenomenon that is Pokémon. It’s been a staple of video games ever since the first games landed in the mid-1990s. Since then developers have tried to meld the popular elements of a Pokémon game into their own, either as a homage to their younger days or in the hope that they will too capture the same magic in their own game. Recent years have seen the likes of Cassette Beasts, Beastieball, and Temtem try to do just that, and the latest to add to the list is Steel Century Groove, a Pokémon-inspired game with rhythmic battles involving your very own mech robot. It’s the mash-up that we didn’t know we needed, but it works, and in some places it rises above its inspirations thanks to some surprising elements thrown at the player throughout its 8-12 hour playtime.
If you are a veteran Pokémon player, you’ll recognise many aspects of the gameplay. You will get to choose a starter mech robot (with more to find and collect); a professor is at hand to help guide you at the start; the world is full of people standing on the spot waiting to battle you, and you even have your own rival that’s out and about to pester you on your travels. There’s even a nod to Pokémon Snap, with a Polaroid camera used as an effective narrative device.
In the game you’ll take control of a nameless protagonist (whose name, appearance and pronouns you get to choose). They gain their first Tenzerk (the game name for a mech robot) through a birthday gift, and this kickstarts a journey with their best friend, Seny, to fulfil their dreams of competing in the World Tenzerk Championships. To do this, they must first meet and defeat the four Principles and gain their favours to be eligible to qualify for the tournament.
As I progressed through the early game, I hoped that the narrative would explore how Tenzark battles had become such a common mainstay in society, and I wasn’t disappointed. It went far and beyond what I was expecting, digging into this subject and so much more. It also delves deeper into supporting characters’ backstories than I was expecting, covering their fears and problems thanks to some punchy, engaging and sometimes witty writing that made this the standout of the game for me, towering over the battles themselves.
Rhymery, the in-game go-to social media, plays an important role throughout the game too and is one you’ll post to every time you win a battle. Doing this gains you followers, which levels you up and earns you new dance moves and upgrades. Rhymery plays such a pivotal role, not just for these upgrades, but in the narrative too and in our own current internet climate too, which is all enclosed in crazy goings-on in the game, but these subjects still stand a mile out.
But what about the dance battles? Well, you will compete in many, many battles with others you meet along interstates (routes), in towns and in other locations. If you’ve ever played the DS game Elite Beat Agents, you’ll get a feel as to how these battles take place and how they look. You follow along and hit the button to the note points that appear on a wavy ribbon, scoring acclaim for successful timing. Fill your acclaim meter to win the battle. Sounds simple, but of course it isn’t, with a wealth of mechanics in place for your opponents to try and put you off and give them an edge, including making your marker disappear, locking your screen so you can’t hit the points on the ribbon, shielding themselves so your attacks can’t damage them, and so on.
Thankfully, you also have a wealth of options to combat this and also have multiple ways of disrupting your opponent too through the individual skills of your Tenzerks. Not only do they have their own skills and power-ups, but each one also mixes up the way you engage in these sections. My favourite, the Dual Drive-E4, makes the battles into a little deck-building game where you have floppy discs that describe what your next move will do, but you can combine them with other discs, swap them out or upgrade them during the fight.
My other favourite was the Voltace-R8, where you have to charge up your attack with electricity and use that with a choice of other attacks that take a certain chunk of that charge. At some point you’ll unlock the chance to have a period of infinite charge if you hit a certain amount of note points on the ribbon in succession. A bold way to approach this part of the game, but it really worked and helped to keep the game feeling fresh. Because of the amount of battles you do, it can start going a little stale, but mixing it up with a different Tenzerk combat does that in a fun and original way.
You can also upgrade the Tenzerks XP, install mods, and change their paint colours, which was most pleasing when I was the proud owner of a bright multi-coloured Tenzerk. All of these options combine to make for some fun, memorable and sometimes intricate clashes. There are some areas where I would have liked to see some improvements, though; a more complex ribbon would be welcome, as its snaking movements became predictable, and I would love a more elegant way to swap Tenzerks when you lose a battle, because as it stands, you have to leave the battle screen and return to the beginning of the section you’re currently in to do that.
For a rhythm-based game the music is imperative, and thankfully the licensed tracks included are mostly foot-tapping beauties. There’s a good mix of instrumental and vocal tracks, and a few that you will find yourself singing too away from the game, but I would have liked to have experienced a little more diversity. There are a few tracks from different genres included, but apart from that, it’s all fast, dancy pop music that occasionally overstimulated me; a little bit of jazz, R&B or indie rock would have been a very welcome change of pace. There is an option to port your own music tracks into the game, which I couldn’t test as I was playing on a Steam Deck, but this is a wonderfully thoughtful addition which can help to really flesh out the music library of the game.
Throughout my time with Steel Century Groove, I was also constantly entertained by the visuals. Though sharing similarities with Pokémon, it had enough of its own individuality to break through. The locations really shine in the games’ graphical style, especially with the amount of imagination that has gone into designing them. New District City in particular stood out to me with its excellent casino-style neon-lit aesthetic and fun goings-on. The dance battles themselves have their own unique style too, with a sharper look and multiple camera angles, which all helped to make them stand out a little more.
