‘Dead as Disco’ preview: A promising music brawler

Charlie Disco has returned from the dead. He wants answers from and vengeance on his former bandmates, who’ve become twisted by the power they wield as internationally adored idols. Consumed by narcissism and drunk on power, the idols’ response to their former friend’s rise from his grave is to try and kill him again. Charlie won’t have it, and so engages his one-time bandmates and their assorted goon squads in spectacular, on-beat beatdowns.

Dead as Disco, which launches in early access on Steam on May 5th, is both promising and very much a work in progress. It has style to burn, its soundtrack gives the idols rocking battle music that is as fun to listen to as it is to fight to, and at its best, its combat is satisfying and stylish. Simultaneously, the combat has significant room to grow, and at present works better when the game is functioning as a beat-em-up that pits Charlie against a horde of mooks than when it pits him against the idols in elaborate, extended boss battles.

Indeed, Dead as Disco’s two currently accessible bosses showcase both its immense potential and the significant room for improvement between its current, in progress state and its eventual finished form.

Mechanically, Dead as Disco calls on players to strive for a flow state, one where they both ride the beat of its soundtrack and pay careful mind to when and how Charlie and his foes clash. While Charlie can strike his foes with his fists and drumsticks, his most versatile combat tools are his ability to counter or evade just about any enemy strike.

Successful combat builds up energy that can be used for a rapid-fire chain of attacks and an instant take-down. This not only negates potential damage, but enables players to swiftly and stylishly punish their foes’ whiffed attacks. A perfectly timed counter will instantly defeat a mook or turn a boss’ powerful strike into a key moment of vulnerability. A solid counter will still negate the attack and give Charlie a chance to daze his foe enough to leave them open to a powerful finishing move.

The counter is developer Brain Jar’s most impressive accomplishment with Dead as Disco’s combat so far. It’s a powerful, flexible tool that feels good to use, and feels full-on terrific when executed perfectly, with the reward being an instant defeat for an over-ambitious goon or a stylish, cinematic counter to a boss that does noticeably more damage than the standard. 

Charlie’s dodge, in its current state, is reliable, but not as fun to use as the counter. It would benefit significantly from a follow-up prompt. The tutorial mentions that a successful perfect evasion will enable Charlie to deliver a powerful counterattack, but it does not currently explain the timing or specific executions beyond the fact that it can be done. His regular attack is likewise a solid tool for combo extension and dealing with goons, but would benefit from a buff, especially against bosses. At present, it’s a matter of a thousand cuts that supplement Charlie’s more damaging counters, and it’s one of several elements that make Dead as Disco’s two current boss battles frustrating. 

While Charlie’s brawls with hordes of varying goons are consistently fun and well-balanced, bosses Hemlock; a former punk turned-plain-old-jerk guitarist who’s got a bit of an Atomic Skull vibe going, and Arora; a pop vocalist whose ego has grown to the point that she claims divinity, and whose power is vast enough for that to be a credible claim are as aggravating as they are promising.

From a design standpoint, the fights are impressively distinct: Hemlock requires Charlie to break through his armor in an up-close-and-personal brawl before Charlie can really start tearing into him, while Arora jumps from an invulnerable divine form that can only be harmed by her own attacks and a fast, aggressive ranged combatant who can and will punish players who try to close the distance without paying attention to how she’s moving.

At their best, Dead as Disco’s boss fights are tense and thrilling, pitting a strong but fragile Charlie against ferocious foes who nevertheless have patterns that can be learned and attacks that can be countered. At their worst, the fights are aggravating slug-fests. 

Hemlock and Arora’s fighting styles and battle flows are very different, but both of their fights suffer from tank-induced drag. It takes a significant portion of their fights to drain their shield bar, (or bars, in Hemlock’s case), and even once it’s gone for good, they will still soak up a lot of damage.

This, coupled with their relatively limited attack patterns so far, draws the battles out long enough for the limits of the boss (their currently sparse number of attacks) and the player (the comparatively small amount of damage per second that they’re capable of, even with perfect counters and evasion counters) to become apparent. The fights are long in part because of the mismatch between how much damage Charlie can do to the boss at any one time and how much damage the bosses can take. 

Moreover, both Arora and Hemlock are multi-stage fights, with Arora in particular including an extensive prelude that is mechanically separate from her primary battle. Neither of the fights is checkpointed beyond a split between the level’s opening goon brawl and the start of the boss. Falling to Hemlock means having to break through his shields from the start. Falling to Arora means having to redo the entire prelude. Having to start a long, multi-stage fight over from scratch, especially one that came down to the last blow, quickly gets frustrating and tedious, especially since, at present, Dead as Disco’s boss battles take up the majority of their levels. 

As development continues, I hope the team at Brain Jar rebalances the boss combat, whether by buffing Charlie’s damage, nerfing the bosses’ tankiness, integrating some manner of checkpointing, or some combination thereof. Given how thrilling Arora and Hemlock’s fights can be in their later stages, where they go pound for pound with Charlie and the loop of the fight becomes high risk/high reward, they have the potential to be excellent, enjoyably challenging fights throughout. At present, they need more work.

I dig Dead as Disco’s look and feel, and when its combat clicks, as it does in the goon brawls and the late stages of its two current boss battles, it is a lot of fun. There’s work to be done still, work I’m excited and optimistic to follow.