Thumper Reviews

Thumper is a great rhythm action game, with strong visuals, fantastic design, and more speed than Keanu Reeves on a bus rigged to explode.

Thumper blasts onto the Nintendo Switch with sumptuous, foreboding visuals, a pulsating soundtrack and its own unique brand of "rhythm violence." Intense as it was on the PC and PS4, the Nintendo Switch version of Thumper seeks to maintain the pressure through the intense visual and aural connection of Nintendo's handheld platform, but does it deliver?

Thumper is a terrifyingly difficult game, but don’t let that deter you from experiencing its rhythm violence firsthand. The Switch port takes advantage of the system’s features quite well, and its speedy performance and killer sound design will rock your world.

Thumper is a fantastic video game, an extravagant rhythm experience that's also a brutal assault on the senses. It's extremely difficult, painfully so at times, yet we feel the need to persevere, retrying tough stages over and over again. Even when that's done the drive for better ranks remains, simply because the game compels us to play on. The level of challenge, though, shouldn't be underestimated - even for strong players short sessions may become necessary in the latter third of the game, in particular. The only real flaw of Thumper, in actual fact, is that it offers so little respite and no 'easy' mode for players. Some may scoff at that, saying it's a game designed to be tough, but the downside is that without that optional concession the game will be inaccessible and impenetrable for some players. That's a pity, as for those up for the challenge it's a wonderful - albeit gruelling - gaming experience.

Thumper looks great and has some interesting ideas, but it's bogged down by strange decisions, obstacles that blend in with the environment, and a soundtrack that doesn't have much to do with the on-screen action.

In the end, you might struggle to play Thumper for hours, especially in VR. While the PSVR version of the game is fantastic in terms of immersion, sound and colour, it isn’t necessarily a betterment. Simply playing with headphones can capture much of the same feeling. That said however, while there is rhythm to the game, the music in the game is a bit “off”. The sound is fantastic but you never really feel enveloped by the music, which I was hoping for in a rhythm game. Also, the game never changes, it just gets much, much faster. In VR, it can get a little disorienting, and that definitely limits play time. Still, Thumper will leave an impression on everyone who tries it, good or bad. It does what it tries to do extremely well, and nothing more. And that, honestly, isn’t a bad thing.

However, no matter how punishing it might be on every single front, I found myself returning to earlier levels in order to improve my run, and just as crucially, thinking about playing it even when I wasn’t. Every section is graded, with a final mark for the entire level based on these, and extra points are gained for hitting obstacles with perfect timing, enabling you to fight for position on both worldwide and friends leaderboards. It’s certainly worth returning.

Great art and a distinct approach to rhythm action makes this a brilliantly horrible twitch experience.

It's a great game overall. It doesn't pull any punches, and is relentless in its 'rhythm violence' and that makes it one of the most satisfying games out there. Now to try and S rank these songs.

No summary available

The best new rhythm action game for years, with a perfect blend of gameplay, music, and a frighteningly oppressive atmosphere.

A journey to hell on bad amphetamines.

THUMPER, with its minimum of menus and explanation and guidance is absolutely pure, to the point that those who do not enjoy its light-from-darkness aesthetic will think it too small, to samey, too one-note, too much about the same sound playing forever. Perhaps it really can offer nothing to those people, or perhaps accepting that is it very fucking sincerely intended to be the same state of mind held for an eternity will let it seep into their veins after all. For the rest of us, let it take its place alongside Devil Daggers, reigning in hell.

Thumper’s brutal, breakneck speed and precision-based musical action kept me entranced for all nine of its bizarre, nightmarish stages, which contained enough nuanced high score-chasing tricks to demand several replays already. To really master Thumper’s many layers of rhythm-based mechanisms would take much more time than the 10 or so hours it takes to complete the first time – and that’s a challenge that I eagerly accept. Menacing boss fights that manage to stay interesting despite a relatively linear structure and a strange, chrome-plated brand of cosmic horror that’s as fascinating as it is frightening make repeat trips easy and exciting. But it’s the music and sounds of Thumper that will stick with me the most, beckoning me back to that terrifying abyss for several more hours to come.

Thumper is the last thing a beetle imagines when it smacks into a windshield. Thumper is what it’s like to peer into the subconscious of the guitar-playing Doof Warrior from Mad Max: Fury Road. Thumper is a rhythm game stripped down to the rims – a primal, uncomfortable nightmare by design. Though it shares a few DNA strands with other games out there, Thumper is its own unique beast – a mean, unrelenting animal that I wanted to put down after a few hours.