As someone who spent countless hours playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band (and even DJ Hero), to the point where I saw the walls moving, I love that virtual reality has brought back the rhythm game genre. We’ve all heard about Beat Saber and other big players, but what about a viking-themed rhythm game that has you playing war drums to encourage your crew to row faster? Welcome to Ragnarock, a VR rhythm game that debuted on other VR headsets, but has since made its way to PSVR 2 in time for launch. With a unique set of tracks and some excellent haptic feedback, does this game send you to Valhalla, or will you find yourself smashing the delete button instead of the virtual drums? Let’s find out! Easy to Pick up, Difficult to Master The best kinds of rhythm games are the ones that offer simple, easy to understand mechanics. Slash the colored blocks, ride the rails, tap the targets, etc. In this regard, Ragnarock welcomes new players with open arms. At a basic level, your hands are mallets and there are four drums in front of you. Beyond them, a crew with their oars at he ready. As the song begins, blue runes begin sliding towards the drums in front of you. Smash them as close to the beat as possible to score points. It’s a tried and true method that doesn’t require anything like strumming a guitar or performing any other action than smashing the drum at the right time. In addition to breaking runes as they pass over your drums, perfect hits will power up your special ability, which again is quite simple to use. When your mallets begin glowing with lightning, you can ring a cymbal behind you on either the right or the left (or in my case I like to do both at the same time). This sends bolts of electricity through your crew, hilariously showing their skeletons for a brief moment as they supercharge their rowing for a short time. This is important because your score is based entirely on how far your crew manages to row, with bronze, silver, or gold awarded based on distance when the song finishes. And that’s about it! Ragnarock is fairly straightforward as far as rhythm games go, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Songs have three difficulties each, but a number attached to each difficulty from 1 to 10 shows how much challenge you can expect at each level. One song’s easy is not the same as another. Interestingly, Ragnarock does not feature a fail state, which means that songs will continue unaffected even if you manage to fail all of the notes. I would have preferred this as an option, if only to keep me on my toes, but for those who get easily frustrated, your journey to Valhalla won’t be cut short if you’re having trouble matching the beat. Speaking of matching the beat, one thing I will say is that getting that … Read More