Steel Century Groove Review

Have you ever wanted to assemble a group of mechs to perform in a dance battle? Steel Century Groove, a rhythm RPG developed and published by Sloth Gloss Games, will let you experience this. It sounds incredibly crazy, but it is so satisfying to see them dancing in sync to the music and busting out cool moves. We begin the game by watching the kick-off for the 2515 season of the Tenzerk Championship, which is being televised live from New District City. You jump into the battle to learn how to command the mech yourself.

The team leader selects a song, and you have to hit the bottom face button when the moving circle lines up with one of the numbered circles. Once you successfully time it and understand how it works, you see that any of the face buttons can be used to attack, all with different moves. Each mech has its own kit and special mechanics that can be customised based on your opponent and what works best against them.

Once you've learned everything you can from the quick tutorial, we're given control of mech megafan Jules. It’s her birthday, and her parents got her a second-hand Aegis-12 Tenzerk, since that's all they could afford. Jules doesn’t care if it isn’t brand new; she’s just excited that she has her own mech that she can use to work her way up the ranks to compete in the Tenzerk Championship herself.

Unfortunately, her dream is delayed and put on the back burner. Upon booting it up and trying to get it functioning, there is something seriously wrong, as it collapses, falling to the ground and its head falls off. Fortunately for Jules, her friend Seny is here and wants to help. He offers to help her get the mech up and running, but there are some mission parts that they will need to find first. This sends them on a scavenger hunt to acquire the needed items (one of which we steal from a scientist living in the town).

After getting the mech to work, Jules battles against her eternal rival Gigi (and promptly loses). Even with the parts replaced, there is still a lot of work to be done on this machine. As the battle ends, that same scientist you stole from stops you: Professor Varma. 

However, instead of telling Jules' parents, he gives us a job to call it even, which is to deliver a package for him to Nor Sentryville, a neighbouring town. Since your Tenzerk isn’t exactly reliable, to complete this request, he gives us a choice from three options of Tenzerks to use: Voltace-R8, which has low complexity and Thunderstorm, Jolt, Electrobolt, and Recharge moves; Aedonix-L9, which is medium complexity with Solo, Impact, Show Off, and Flourish moves; and finally Sentilon-I1 (the cutest by far, with a smiley face), which is high complexity with Mastermind, Mobility, and Endurance AI moves. I picked Voltace, and he warned us to bring it back by tomorrow night, or he would come looking for us.

We start the journey to the city. As you walk along the path, a pilot runs up to challenge you, much like in a Pokémon game. When you win, it tells you how long the battle took and your accuracy. This Tenzerk has two moves you can use with the bottom and right face buttons until you level up and learn more. There are four locations with a Primary Pilot for you to defeat. These battles play out very similarly to Pokémon gym battles: you fight several lower-level opponents before taking on the leader. You will need to defeat all the Primary Pilot’s while you work your way up to getting a chance to battle in the big Tenzerk Championship. 

What makes this game trickier than most rhythm games is that the notes you have to hit are placed on a curling, wavy line that is drawn as the song progresses and curves around, especially if you are trying to play on the Steam Deck, like I was. I found it much easier to play on a larger screen, but if you still find it tricky, you can change the difficulty to Easy. The cool thing is that while the music is playing and you are hitting notes, your Tenzerk and your opponent’s mech are busy dancing to the high-tempo, upbeat music. This was super entertaining, especially since they are actually quite good dancers too.

As you progress, you need to build a following on Rhymery if you want to be a successful pilot. Seny acts as your social media manager while you are busy battling, taking pictures for posts. After the first battle, he asks which of the three options you want to post to Rhymery. Once you’ve made your choice and it’s posted, you can see how many fans you gained. I got four fans from posting about my first battle. The number of followers you gain fills up a meter, and once it’s full, you move up to Pilot Level Two. Reaching this milestone also unlocks a new dance move called Thunderstorm.

The look of Steel Century Groove, especially the character models, felt very dated. However, the Tenzerks themselves looked much better, with their smooth dance moves making them stand out in comparison. Fortunately, the music in the game is ideal for an upbeat rhythm experience. There is also an option to add your own music. Any songs you add will be analysed, and unique choreography and beat maps will be created for them. If the results don’t feel quite right, you can select Fine Tune to adjust them. I was honestly shocked at how well this worked. Dancing to the Neon Genesis Evangelion theme song felt very fitting.

This game definitely has a gameplay loop: battle, post on Rhymery, level up, repeat. If you don’t manage to defeat your opponent before the song ends, your streak continues, but the music restarts. One song played four times in a row for me because I made the mistake of adding the Sailor Moon anime theme as custom music. Since it’s a short song, it looped constantly during a particularly tough battle that took a long time.

My favourite parts of Steel Century Groove were the dance battles themselves, especially when hearing your own music playing. It was impressive how the game choreographed dances for the mechs regardless of what music was used. However, walking around doing fetch quests and dealing with the drama between Jules and Gigi became pretty annoying. If you are a fan of rhythm games, this is a unique twist on the genre. I’ve never seen one full of dancing mechs before. Just be aware that the game isn’t all dancing and can feel pretty boring until you reach the next music battle. There is a freestyle mode you can unlock where you can dance to music as much as you want, which I found a lot more fun to play.