Dance and Slay the night away!
The fantasy world of Koras suffers from a very unique sort of plague: nightclubs mysteriously fall out from the sky, crashing in the wilds, the mountains, and abandoned castles, bringing with them strange musics that attract wild monsters who dance the night away, and destroy everything and terrorize anyone unfortunate enough to be around the party by morning.Hoping to put an end to these parties and bring peace and safety back to the land, The Neon Shield Academy for the Rhythmic Combat Arts was created, its students harnessing the power of the music to perform impossible feats of physical prowess, cast powerful spells, and all manner of weird and wild techniques to slay the monsters, put a stop to the music, and ultimately discover and destroy their source.
The Metronomicon is a Rhythm/RPG game like Before the Echo. Its plot follows the adventures of the academy's four most recent graduates, Wade, Gwen, Clark, and Violet, along with four later additions, Sara, Ralf, Pierce, and Gruver. you control a party of four adventurers by switching between four tracks of notes falling from the screen ala Guitar Hero or DanceDanceRevolution. Get a streak of notes correctly up to a certain point, and you can activate one of your characters' skills; continue on this path to activate a different and much more powerful skill, or switch to a different character and cast a new ability altogether.
The game was developed by Puuba and published by Kasedo Games. It was first released for PC on September 1st, 2016, and then has an Updated Re-release subtitled Slay the Dance Floor, which was also ported to PlayStation 4 on August 29th, 2017 and Xbox One on August 30th, 2017.
Tropes that apply to The Metronomicon
- Aborted Declaration of Love: A Running Gag with Clark, who frequently lets slip and promptly (and poorly) covers up any of his confessions of love to Violet. Fortunately for him, she returns his feelings.
- Blood Knight: Violet is heavily implied to have studied at the Neon Shield just for the opportunity to "kersplodinate" (blow up with magic) monsters, fantasizes about the legions of enemies she'll get to "kesplodinate" during her graduation, and when things go From Bad to Worse, the group is getting shot at, and the others are running for their lives, her reaction is throwing her hands up in the air, crying "This is gonna be great!" before gleefully running after the others.
- Sara implies this is Ralf's motivation for joining up with her—she knows where the parties are, he wants to be right in the thick of them. Though, unlike the others, this may be because he really does just want to dance without all the fighting.
- Came from the Sky: The source of all the parties. As you'll later find out, this is because they were being dropped from low orbit via spaceships.
- Casanova Wannabe: Clark. Though his eyes are firmly set on Violet (though he's too much of a coward to properly confess), he does flirt with Sara.
- Crazy Survivalist: Gruver lives alone in Mount Rage, to avoid surveillance by a mysterious group. Though he does not wear one in-game, he does mention that he has enough tinfoil hats for everyone. He's VERY right about everything.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The Grandmaster, head of The Neon Shield Academy, is only ever referred to by his title.
- Fantasy Character Classes:
- Wade the Warrior, who uses brute force, enhances his allies' damage with inspiring battle cries, and can even change his enemies' elemental affinity to better enable him to lay down the smack down the old-fashioned way.
- Gwen the Protector, who takes fire from her teammates, stuns enemies, takes her allies debuffs and places them upon herself, or even heals the party.
- Clark the Medic, who has the most direct healing and purely defensive buffs, along with helpful debuffs and status effects for his foes. At later levels, he can summon some divine retribution in the style of a Kill Sat on his enemies.
- Violet the Exploder, who is your best friend in exploiting non-Physical enemies' weaknesses.
- Sara the Labcoat, who has a mix of support skills, elemental damage, and debuff spells, sacrificing the much more potent effects of Clark and Violet for versatility.
- Ralf the Berserker, who has incredibly powerful attacks at the cost of doing damage to himself or causing all manner of debuffs to the party.
- Pierce the Thief, who can steal items and elemental crystals from enemies, make them bleed, and even intimidate them to get yourself a better chance of obtaining loot.
- Gruver the Druid, who specializes in buffing the party, stripping the enemy of their buffs, and helping everyone cast spells sooner and more often.
- From Bad to Worse: The the yacht the Blue Expanse is on crashes into the neighbouring town, destroying most of it and killing the people there. The group manages to defeat that boss. Then, while investigating the symbol on its chest, it reactivates, steals the Metronomicon, and gives the Big Bad the means to destroy their planet.
- Gut Punch: Just before the boss battle of World 4, "The Blue Expanse," the yacht the nightclub is on rams full speed into a seaside town, destroying the whole village and killing the inhabitants there. The dialog implies this is the first time it's ever happened.
- Insistent Terminology: Pierce was not trapped in a locked chest, he was taking a "bravery nap."
- Living Battery: It turns out, exposing fantasy world creatures and humans to modern music generates a harvestable form of energy.
- Necessary Drawback: All of Ralf's attacks, while incredibly powerful, come at a cost like damaging himself, inflicting negative status effects on himself or the whole party, and generally make things more unpleasant for you.
- Only in It for the Money: Pierce only joined the group to help himself to any treasure the party may come across, whilst avoiding getting overwhelmed and trapped inside a chest once more. He shows this best with his obvious reluctance to travel with the rest of the group through the mysterious teleportation device to who-knows-where, and his mourning the lost treasure of the seaside town that the Blue Expanse yacht crashes into and destroys.
- Planet Looters: The main motivation of the Big Bad.
- Properly Paranoid: Gruver's hiding out in the mountains, building himself tinfoil hats, and warning about aliens? It's all true.
- The Reveal: The Metronomicon is actually an alien race's manual on how to expose living creatures to their music, and make them produce a harvestable energy. Also, The Grandmaster and Gruver know each other, having been the ones to find the book in the first place and study its secrets. Whereas the former founded The Neon Shield to take the fight to the monsters, the latter retreated to the mountains where surveillance was lax and built himself tinfoil hats to keep the aliens from finding out where he is.
- Science Hero: Sara, who uses technology and the power of SCIENCE! to figure out how the nightclubs' technology works, create powerful new equipment for her allies, and shoots monsters with a Ray Gun that fires lightning, fire, high-pressure water, or toxic chemicals depending on her mood. She can also heal the party and have some excellent cures and buffs making her a viable if not complete replacement for Violet, Clark, or both.
- Schizo Tech: Alongside the usual trappings of Medieval Period style architecture and clothing and explicitly magical elements, there is modern music, subwoofers, glowsticks, robots, strobe lights, teleporters, futuristic robots, RayGuns, light-up dance floors. Justified in that a highly advanced alien race left them behind for the people to adapt.
- Ship Tease: After an entire game of Aborted Declarations Of Love, Clark finally gets a break when during the victory party after defeating the aliens trying to destroy their planet to harvest its energy, Violet shyly asks Clark if he would like to dance.
- Wizarding School: The Neon Shield Academy for the Rhythmic Combat Arts. Gameplay-wise, it serves as the hub and base of operations for the heroes.
