Welcome to the review of the game that makes you shake your body to the flow of the music, Floor Kids.
Originally featured in the Nindies presentation, this is the game called Floor Kids, a crazy new game that will set itself apart with an amazing hand drawn art style and a funky soundtrack. When I first saw the game introduced, I was somewhat expecting a rhythm game, but this game is anything but a typical rhythm game.
For me, a rhythm game is all about tapping to the beat, but this game is all about letting your groove be dictated by the beat. It reminds me of old skool break dance battles I used to watch on TV and it sure brought a bit of nostalgia to the table in that aspect.
The game is all about building your crew by refining your skills. As you play, you will evolve from random button bashing in the first real game you play to actually flipping moves to the beats. This game is no walk in the park but is somewhat challenging as well as being music to my ears. Pun intended, the soundtrack to this game is just awesome. It was made by DJ Kid Koala, be sure to check out his other work if you are a fan of the breakdancing scene.
When I started playing, I picked Scribbles, a bgirl dancer with great overall statistics and she turned out to be my favorite throughout the remainder of my game time with Floor Kids. There are several bboys and bgirls to chose from, each with their own advantages compared to the rest. As you finish levels and gather crowns, you slowly end up getting more and more characters to play with.
Personally I stuck with Scribbles because I seemed to really get the hang of how she moved and the timing was pretty much dead on in the end. When performing Freeze moves, where you basically stop all motion and just “hang/freeze” until your power runs out, just like in real life. I know it is a game, but it all felt rather realistic to me.
As you do your thing on the dance floor, you are rewarded with points based on how original, stylish or befitting to the music they are. When you play the initial tutorial, the fear of this game being too hard did hit. The tutorial looked like this game was going to be very complicated. I honestly thought it was too much that was thrown at me in about 2 minutes worth of tutorial.
As I did start playing, it was clear that the tutorial did not really suffice as it only taught you the moves but nothing about moving from 1 to the other. I did find this a little annoying, it left me feeling like I was going to be playing a very hard game, but that was wrong. The flow of moves was actually quite fluid and the animator, JonJon, is actually an award winning animator, when you play the game, it will become clear just how skilled this man really is!
In conclusion, this game is not for everybody… Those expecting a classic rhythm game, might be disappointed. This game does introduce a brand new approach to a music-led game and I loved it, the new approach to this genre and the hand drawn animation are what makes this game stand out from the crowded marketplace on the Nintendo Switch eShop. While other rhythm games enforce a “follow the lead” style, this is the game that forces you to play and breakdance with your own style.
I loved the originality of this game and I hope you will too, my rating is 80%.
