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Rise from your grave... and get down on the dance floor!
"My pulse is beating like a drum, but my blood is running cold... I'm not sure what's going on, but I came here with a question.

And I'm gonna find the answer if it kills me."
Cadence

Cadence is digging up a grave when suddenly the ground opens up. She falls deep into the catacombs and lands back first on a rock. Unbeknownst to her, a mysterious and sinister figure known as the NecroDancer rises from the earth and steals her heart. Unsure as to what happened, as she feels an unwavering beat, she sets out to find the answers.

Crypt of the NecroDancer is a Roguelike/Rhythm Game developed and published by Canadian independent studio Brace Yourself Games that has music-player game options, to create a rather unique combination. The game was released as an early-access on June 30th, 2014 and saw a full release on April 23rd, 2015. The music was composed by Danny Baranowsky, who also worked on the soundtracks of Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac.

In Crypt of the NecroDancer, your character can only move and fight to the beat of the music. The goal is to fight and dance your way through a procedurally-generated dungeon, slaying monsters as you go along. You're encouraged to maintain the rhythm to obtain a coin multiplier, and missing a beat or taking damage resets it. Though enemies travel in predictable patterns, the fast pace of the game makes it very challenging.

A DLC prequel dubbed Crypt of the NecroDancer: Amplified was released into Steam Early Access on January 24, 2017, with the full release on July 12, 2017. Amplified adds a fifth zone, new items, and new characters. A second DLC dubbed Crypt of the NecroDancer: Synchrony was released into Early Access on August 4th, 2022, adding three new characters, online multiplayer, full modding support, and new items and features.

The game is also notable and praised for its soundtrack, which comes in a variety of genres remixed and composed by various artists. The list of albums follows as below:

  • Crypt of the NecroDancer: The original soundtrack for all remixes, composed by Danny Baranosky (Base game) (Amplified).
  • The Melody Mixes: An Electro House remix by A_Rival, set as Melody's default soundtrack (Base game) (Amplified).
  • Aria's Ascent: A Heavy Metal remix by FamilyJules, currently set as Aria's default soundtrack. Another soundtrack called "Aria Amplified" was released with the "Amplified" DLC update, alongside a remastered version of the full soundtrack (Ascent and Amplified) called "Aria Awakened" (Aria's Ascent) (Aria Amplified) (Aria Awakened).
  • Freestyle Retro: A Chiptune remix by Jake Kaufman aka "Virt", currently set as Uncle Eli's default soundtrack. Was originally a PlayStation 4 and Play Station Vita exclusive until it was added on Steam in a later update (Base game only, although the DLC tracks are available in the game files).
  • The Synthwave Cuts: A Synthwave remix by Girlfriend Records, currently set as the Bard's default soundtrack. Was also originally a PS4 and Vita exclusive until it was added on Steam (Base game) (Amplified) (ULTIMATE EDITION).
  • OverClocked: A Genre Roulette compilation remix by various artists of the OC Remix community, added in the Amplified DLC update, and serves as Nocturna's default soundtrack (Full album).
  • Chipped Of The NecroDancer: Another Chiptune remix by Chipzel, with an EDM spin, and currently set as Dorian's default soundtrack. Was originally an Xbox One exclusive until it was added on Steam in a later update (Base Game) (Amplified).
  • Danganronpa: A special set of music based on the Danganronpa series to celebrate NecroDancer's Japanese release, as the game is published by Spike Chunsoft there. Needs to be manually set in the options menu but was released alongside a new "Skins" options that lets players replace the default appearances with those of Danganronpa characters.

A spin-off sequel, titled Cadence of Hyrulenote  was released on June 13, 2019. A crossover with Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series, the game has Hyrule under the spell of a mysterious court musician named Octavo. With Link and Zelda under a deep slumber, the Triforce summons Cadence (who had recently managed to escape the crypt), to awaken the heroes and help the duo to stop Octavo's army of monsters and the pulsing rhythm that controls them.

A third installment in the series titled Rift of the NecroDancer is currently in development and is scheduled for a 2024 release. Rift sees the signature gameplay overhauled to function as a traditional rhythm game as opposed to a roguelike hybrid, and follows Cadence in the modern world, where she seeks to rescue her friends and close the titular Rifts that have been causing chaos in her life.

Meanwhile, a pinball table known as Crypt of the NecroDancer Pinball was released on Pinball FX on April 13th, 2023, which combines the rhythm based action of Crypt with pinball action.


This game provides examples of:

  • Action Girl: Most of the female characters, like Cadence, Melody, and Aria are able to destroy monsters with their weaponry.
  • Actual Pacifist: Dove, who has no weapons in her item pool. Her only means of self-defense is a flower which confuses enemies. Even her bombs do nothing more than teleport enemies. She even cries out in sympathy if a monster dies from a trap (though tricking them into doing so is a good strategy for the player).
  • The All-Seeing A.I.:
    • Averted/Downplayed. Monsters that haven't seen you (because they're too far away) won't move or attack. However, once a monster has seen you, it will continue to follow you if you move far away. Torches that increase your vision distance also make you more visible to monsters. The Ring of Shadows greatly reduces your vision but also makes it harder for monsters to see you. Some magical items/abilities let you see all monsters on the floor regardless of distance, but they also cause all spirits (and no other enemies) to be able to see you regardless of distance, which makes sense.
    • Inverted outright with the Ring of Phasing, which lets you move through walls. While inside a wall, almost every enemy in the game will immediately stand stock still, as they can't see you.
  • Antagonist Title: To the point where many players simply call the game "NecroDancer" for short.
  • Anti-Frustration Features:
    • During Cadence's final boss battle, you control both Cadence and Dorian at the same time, meaning you'll often be running into walls as you move the two of them. Because of the existence of Obsidian gear, which increases in effectiveness as you get a higher multiplier, you won't lose your multiplier during this fight for digging against a wall you can't break.
    • Several characters have items or even enemies removed from the game for them for this reason, even the two hardest characters in the game. The monk (who dies upon picking up gold) can't get the Ring of Courage (which would cause him to dash forward upon killing an enemy — most likely right into a gold pile) or gold-related items, Aria and Coda will never get useless armor items (since they die in one hit anyway), and several characters start with the Nazar Charm which prevents wraiths from spawning (most of these characters don't have methods to easily deal with the disruption that wraiths cause). Additionally, Aria and Coda will never have to fight red or black bats or ooze golems.
    • Mashing movement keys in the hub will allow you to turn off the beat and move as fast as you can mash.
    • Despite initial appearances, the fact that Aria goes through the game in reverse is actually this for All Zones mode. Since she dies in one hit, this puts the hardest parts of the game first, so you have to repeat less if you die.
    • In All Zones Mode, the Blood Shop is always hidden within the first two levels, which makes finding something to start a run with much more manageable.
    • The 2022 3.0.0 update added No Beat Mode, which removes the beat counter from any character while it's active (similar to Bard). This means that characters who die if you miss a beat (Aria is specifically namedropped in the patch notes) lose one of their most frustrating aspects. It's also completely optional for players who feel it would make the game too easy.
  • Armor Is Useless: Not literally, but partially applies to the Obsidian Armor. Like all obsidian items, it gets strong when the player's combo multiplier is high but weak when the combo multiplier is low. Unlike other obsidian items, this behavior actively works against the item's purpose - taking damage breaks your combo and immediately makes the armor tied for the weakest in the game, but you don't need armor unless you're taking damage! Obviously, armor that loses most of its defensive strength upon use is not a good item.
  • Arrange Mode: The "Extra Modes" staircase in the hub area leads to a series of entraces to arrange modes, most added in the Amplified and Synchrony DLC and some of which can be seeded.
    • "Dance Pad Mode" is an modified, easier version of the game's first zone intended to be played with a dance pad, where enemies are less frequent and most characters get some extra items.
    • "Story Mode" has you play the full game as all story-related characters (First Nocturna if the Amplified DLC is installed, then Cadence, then Melody, and finally Aria) on a single life.
    • "All Chars (Except Coda)" is similar to Story Mode, but with nine runs in a row, one as every character in the base game aside from Coda, who's unlocked by completing this mode. Thankfully, you can pick the characters in any order, letting you get the tougher ones like Aria and Monk out of the way early. Amplified adds "All Chars (Including DLC)", which adds the four new DLC characters while still discluding Coda.
    • "Deathless Mode" is an Endless Game where the player tries to beat full runs as many times in a row as possible without dying.
    • The Amplified extra modes include "No Return" (the player takes damage if they step back onto the tile they were just on), "Hard Mode" (each floor has two minibosses to beat and several sarcophagi that endlessly spawn monsters), "Phasing Mode" (a permanent Ring of Phasing effect that causes the player to ignore walls), "Randomizer Mode" (all enemies have randomized attributes and behaviors), and "Mystery Mode" (all enemies and items are blanked out by question marks).
    • Synchrony adds a few more. "No Beat Mode" removes the beat and causes everything to move when the player does and "Double Tempo" makes the beat twice as fast, allowing any character to play like Bard or Bolt respectively. There's also "Low Percent" which kills the player if they pick up any items or upgrades.
    • For co-op mode, "Character Lock" forces all participants to play as the same character, and "Friendly Fire" makes players vulnerable to each other's bombs.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Golden Lute.
  • Attack Reflector: The Reflective Shield in Synchrony deflects any damage it blocks.
  • Ascended Meme: Speedrunners often referred to the Yetis as "Klappas" due to their bothersome clapping attack and their similarity to the Twitch "Kappa" emote. When the full game came out, the credits gave punny nicknames to each enemy, and the Yeti got "Klappa".
    • Similarly, the diagonally-moving demon enemies in Zone 5 were commonly referred to as "deviled eggs" by the community. Skip to the DLC's full release, and that nickname's made it into the credits as well.
    • The updated level editor in the v3.0.0 update seems to establish several fan names, such as "Marv" for Mary's lamb.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Several weapons and items are potentially powerful, but very awkward to use.
    • The whip, for instance, hits a wide range in front of you, making it able to take on a huge range of enemies but also impeding your ability to run around.
    • Onyx weapons, added in the Synchrony DLC, deal more damage on consecutive hits, but reset upon moving. This is great for dealing large amounts of damage, but since most enemies have no more than 6 HP maximum, there are usually better options.
    • The Phasing Dagger goes through absolutely everything when you throw it, allowing you to damage an entire row of baddies at the same time. But since it goes through everything, including walls, you can't recover it. And unless you have the sheath, you're now weaponless.
  • Back from the Dead: Melody, after you beat Cadence's story and Aria, after you beat Melody's. Only Melody is fully restored at the end of the game.
  • Badass Family: On both sides of the tree, no less. Cadence's parents Melody and Dorian, her paternal uncle Eli, and her maternal grandmother Aria are all playable heroes, though the game's story primarily involves the women of the line.
  • Badasses Wear Bandanas: Both Cadence and Melody wear bandanas and are able to kick ass.
  • Bag of Spilling: If you're not playing an All Zones run, completing a zone will cause you to lose any equipment you obtained from that zone. It makes later zones incredibly difficult, since starting at those zones will give you only the starting gear rather than a strong set of equipment that you should have by then.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: The shopkeeper is one of the friendliest shopkeepers in the roguelike genre. You can shoplift and destroy his store and he won't be fazed, and he'll even pity characters who cannot collect gold (Monk, Coda) by offering one free item per level. However, if you attack him directly (with a fireball spell or a bomb), he'll quickly turn from your best friend to the toughest enemy in the game, with nine hearts of health, diagonal movement, being able to move every beat, and having attack power that would make even bosses weep. Killing him grants you the powerful Crown of Greed (doubles gold dropped from all sources, at the price of losing gold every beat), but because there's only one shopkeeper in the dungeon, all of the non-hidden shops will be empty in all subsequent floors.
  • Big Bad: The NecroDancer a.k.a. The Bard, Octavian.
  • Blackout Basement: Using the Shrine of Darkness causes every wall torch in the dungeon to disappear, at the benefits of being given a compass, 3 bombs, and a map. You also lose your torch, and you're given a Ring of Shadows, which will replace and destroy any ring you might currently be carrying. The ring of shadows alone will reduce you to a very small field of vision.
  • Boring, but Practical:
    • Many of the inexpensive items aren't very flashy, but are either far better than being unequipped (for instance, a base torch) or provide subtle help at little cost (such as the base pack).
    • The Strength Charm and Protection Charm aren't anything more than a flat +1 damage and +0.5 defense boost respectively, but the fact that they're Charms mean that they don't take up any gear slots, effectively making them stat boosts with no penalty.
    • The Shopkeeper familiar lacks any offensive capabilities unlike the other familiars, but having him around can be a lifesaver. Every time he moves above a gold pile (25 or more gold), he'll restore half a heart of your health in addition to collecting the gold for you. Since mini-bosses, zone bosses, and wall-gold all qualify for this, you end up getting quite a lot of healing over the course of the game. It's also possible to use the familiar to take gold from water, traps, under enemies, etc.
    • Titanium weapons don't really have a gimmick compared to other weapon types, as all they do is deal 2 damage instead of 1. While the other weapon materials all have the potential to do more damage, they all come with caveats or drawbacks; Blood requires you to stay at low health, Glass deals massive damage but breaks if you get hit, Gold only increases your damage for one beat after collecting gold, and Obsidian requires you to maintain the beat to make use of it. Titanium, meanwhile, has no such requirements and simply gives you a higher base damage on every attack. However, experienced players may still prefer to use the flashier Glass and Obsidian weapons.
  • Boss-Arena Idiocy: During the "Return of the NecroDancer" fight, the NecroDancer would be undefeatable if not for a conveniently-timed pool of lava.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: The Dead Ringer is eventually revealed to be Dorian, Cadence's Disappeared Dad.
  • Breakable Weapons: The shields in the Synchrony DLC will break after blocking a certain amount of hits. More durable ones will restore durability when travelling between floors if they didn't break completely.
  • Breath Weapon: Red dragons breathe fire; Blue dragons have a cone of freezing breath. Zone 4 features traps in the form of fire-breathing pig statues.
  • Bullfight Boss: A level boss and a zone boss:
    • The Minotaur, naturally. When the player is in an orthogonal line from them, they "charge" straight in that direction, and if the player gets out of the way, they'll eventually hit a wall or another enemy and be stunned for two turns.
    • Dead Ringer will charge you much like a Minotaur in his first phase, and will destroy his own bells if he charges into them. His charge is upgraded to a Flash Step once all the bells are rung or destroyed, and you defeat him by baiting him into slamming into a large gong in the top-center of the arena.
  • By the Lights of Their Eyes: If your character is aware of the presence of monsters, but they're not close enough to a light source, they appear as black silhouettes with glowing eyes. This also happens if they are in darkness or if you're wearing sunglasses.
  • Cartoon Bomb: One of your most useful tools. They destroy almost any wall in a 1 block radius (including diagonally), and hit enemies for 4 hearts of damage. Just be sure to run away after lighting the fuse.
  • Cast from Hit Points: Casting a spell while it's on cooldown will take some of your health instead.
  • Chest Monster: From typical chest mimics that drop loot, to wall mimics and even cauldron mimics. Amplified adds even more. There's even fake shopkeepers!
  • Chiptune:
    • Jake "Virt" Kaufman's soundtrack doesn't simply transpose the songs into Chiptune, but he invents completely new melodies to replace the normal ones.
    • While she remains on the normal melodies, Chipzel's soundtrack still makes it Chiptune and combines it with EDM.
  • Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Black chests contain weapons or armor; Purple chests have magic and magical rings; Red chests cover torches, healing items, and the like. Blue chests always require a key, which is hidden somewhere and the same shade of blue.
  • The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In later stages, you may encounter enemies capable of moving diagonally. Despite the myriad of items available, this is something the player cannot do because diagonal inputs are used for items and special attacks (unless you're playing the DLC character Diamond, who has the ability to move diagonally as his gimmick, but cannot use most items or spells).
  • Contractual Boss Immunity:
    • Standard end-of-zone bosses:
      • Deep Blues, Death Metal and Fortissimole avert this, as they are fully vulnerable to attacks including one-hit kills. Fortissimole stands on top of a wall where most attacks can't reach him and you have to get him off or destroy the wall first, but regular enemies can behave like this too.
      • Coral Riff and King Conga downplay this as they are hard to reach in their phase 1: Coral Riff's head is invincible to everything except the Phasing dagger in phase 1, but attacking the head with anything skips to phase 2 where the head is vulnerable as usual; King Conga is similarly invincible for one hit only when he's angry, which only happens if you screw up his rhythm gimmick before killing the zombie conga line.
    • Non-final story bosses downplay this too.
      • Dead Ringer is invincible to most attacks, and his 2 HP must be depleted by plot-specific means, but this can be bypassed by something that does at least 10 damage, including one-hit kills (which take off 1 of his 2 HP).
      • Frankensteinway is surrounded by a shield that must be disabled or destroyed first, and then uniquely has 4 health bars, allowing it to at least temporarily resist one-hit kill attacks.
    • Final bosses play this straight, however.
      • The NecroDancer is fully invincible to everything except the Golden Lute.
      • Speaking of, the Golden Lute is fully invincible to everything except Aria's dagger.
      • The Conductor is just fully invincible (instead you must destroy her power sources, which take damage unconventionally).
  • Cursed with Awesome: Dorian, one of the playable characters, always wears a piece of cursed armor that he can never take off...which is one of the best defensive items in the game with no downsides that you would almost never want to take off anyway (however, his other piece of cursed equipment is a standard curse).
  • Cutting the Knot:
    • King Conga and Dead Ringer are each invulnerable at certain times (the former requiring you to defeat his mooks or destroy his throne first, the latter being a Puzzle Boss)... unless you have a Dagger of Phasing on hand, which allows you to bypass their armor and attack them directly.
    • Deep Blues and Coral Riff won't aggressively seek you out until you take care of their mooks, but if your weaponry is powerful or diverse enough, you can throw your weapon at them and save a lot of time.
  • Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
    • King Conga's song is the only one in the game to skip a beat, specifically the eighth. In a game all about keeping your rhythm at all times, it can be hard to remember this. To make matters worse, losing your groove chain will cause King Conga to get off his throne and attack early.
    • In Zone 3, if you step on ice and have a multiplayer, if you want to keep it, you must not move until you stop slipping.
    • The Monk, due to instantly dying when touching a coin — when you've played for however long instinctively collecting gold, it's very hard to break that instinct.
    • Mary in the Amplified DLC, by virtue of being an Escort Mission, can have this, since if you run away from an enemy (which you have likely done to avoid damage in the past with many other characters), your lamb will follow right behind you, meaning an enemy can simply attack it and end your run abruptly. You are supposed to defend your lamb instead by standing in the tile it is on in such situations, even if that means getting hurt.
  • Dark Reprise: Traces of Zone 1, Level 1's music pops up in the True Final Boss's theme.
  • Death by Materialism: Quite literal in the Monk's case. Having taken a 'Vow Of Poverty', he will die if he collects any gold (however, the shopkeeper has mercy on him and will let him have one item per level for free).
  • Death Equals Redemption: Played With. Aria was hated by her family for seemingly abandoning them, but is found deep in the Crypt with a dagger through her heart. When revived with the Golden Lute, her final act is to destroy the Lute, bringing the curse on her family to an end, at the cost of her own life.
  • Death Trap Tango: The player having to move and fight to the beat of the soundtrack.
  • Developer's Foresight:
    • Mainly with regards to the special conditions of alternate characters. For example, the Monk will die if he picks up the Crown of Greed, just the same as if he walked over gold, and attempting to get around Eli, Aria, or Dove's weapon restrictions will result in death by "cowardice".
    • Because the Dagger of Phasing is able to attack through walls, it's also able to attack many enemies when they'd normally be invulnerable, making it one of the few ways to beat Puzzle Boss Dead Ringer without baiting him into the gong.
    • The Dagger of Phasing is also the only weapon in the game that can be used while standing inside a wall with the Ring of Phasing, despite how unlikely it is to find both in the same run.
    • It's possible, though unlikely and unfavourable, to lose your shovel and continue playing without it, as it's not really needed to progress through the zones. Zone 4, however, is made up of encased rooms that require a shovel (or explosives) to break through them to reach the stairs. Should you enter any level of this zone without a shovel, four Goblin Sentries will spawn with you, which are enemies that run away from you, digging up walls in the process. This ensures that you at least have an (inefficient) opportunity to clear the floor and continue, though it requires you not killing them and baiting them towards a convenient direction. After the Amplified DLC was released, the game was changed so that the softest dirt walls in Zone 4 can be dug even without a shovel.
    • Almost all the shops in the game have gold-plated walls, which can be blown up with bombs for some extra cash. If you try and do this with Eli, who has no weapon but infinite bombs, you'll find that now none of these walls drop gold. This is done for the sake of balance, because it'd be too easy to get a lot of extra gold otherwise, and to keep the mechanic of sacrificing limited explosives for additional gold.
    • In Amplified, the Conductor fight requires you to walk along a wire multiple times. If you have the Winged Boots as you enter, which would normally make it impossible, a pair of boots will spawn in the corner, allowing you to defeat the boss.
  • Difficult, but Awesome:
    • Most of the shrines are either this or Awesome, but Impractical. See their descriptions below under Power at a Price.
    • Since only the four cardinal directions are used for controls (with using two directions at once to use items/spells), this game can be played with a DanceDanceRevolution controller. Dance Pad difficulty gives the player a few bonuses, which will be needed.
    • Any weapon that requires reloading. It means either spending an action every few attacks or attacking like a normal dagger, and if you lose track of when it needs to be reloaded, things get bad very quickly. But these weapons all allow you to attack at long range and pierce enemy shields.
      • The rifle is especially notable, as it's unloaded by default. Once you load it, you can't move conventionally; trying to do so will result in you attacking, even if there's nothing to attack (this will also blow you in the opposite direction). You can load it up to three bullets, but you can't move normally until it's fully unloaded (though the aforementioned recoil means that you can move, albeit as if confused, by attacking in the opposite direction).
    • The Boots of Lunging let you leap four tiles with every move, and attack enemies in your way for massive damage. On the downside, actually controlling your character when you move four tiles per move is not easy (fortunately, you can toggle them on and off).
    • All glass items. They outperform all others of their type, but are destroyed the first time you take damage. The glass jaw is even worse; you deal double damage, but die in one hit.
  • Disability Immunity: In a sense. Since Aria dies in a single hit anyway, she doesn't have to worry about the consequences of wearing the karate gi or glass jaw.
  • Disney Villain Death: Happens to The NecroDancer in the second ending. Curiously enough, this seems to be a far more permanent death than any of the other times he's died.
  • Double Unlock: Shopkeepers in the lobby can sell you items that'll appear later in the dungeons, and furthermore, some of the shopkeepers must be rescued in the dungeons first.
  • Doppelgänger: Palette Swaps of your hero appear as enemies in Zone 2, and mirror your own movements.
  • The Dragon: Dead Ringer.
  • Drums of War: The War Drum item. Striking it allows the player to jump in place without missing the beat and increases the damage of their next attack.
  • Dungeon Shop: Every non-boss floor has a shop in it, and the vocally-gifted shopkeeper is the same person. If somehow the shopkeeper dies, he stops appearing in that dungeon run.
  • Early Game Hell: In general, the first two areas will be the most challenging since you have less powerful items. However, the third main character, Aria, is hit by this the hardest, since she goes through the zones in reverse, which means she faces the worst traps and most of the especially troublesome enemies in the first half of the game; zones 2 and 1 are usually comparatively easy. In addition, her only defenses are single-use items and spells, and at the start, all she has in that department is a single potion. Fortunately, those spirits won't appear to surprise you and mess up your rhythm.
  • Electro House: A_Rival's soundtrack, combined with some Dubstep elements.
  • Epic Flail: Features flails as an unlockable weapon. It hits enemies on five sides, and all those attacked are knocked back and staggered.
  • Equipment-Based Progression: Every run has your character traveling through a dungeon, and as you move along, you come across chests and shops filled with items that give your character an advantage. Played straight in All Zones Mode, where your character starts off sans any upgrades or any equipment picked up in the lobby.
  • Eternal Engine: Zone 5 in Amplified has shades of this. It's electric-themed with floors made of metal tiles, electrical conduits running along them, the walls are riddled with wires and plug outlets, and the torches are replaced by light bulbs.
  • Fake Ultimate Mook: A number of enemies can seem to fall under this, the main examples being Golems, who move extremely slowly but take a lot of hits, and Yetis, who attack while moving with a large area of effect attack, but are equally slow and die in a single hit.
  • Fantastic Light Source: In Zone 2, the caverns are lit by luminous fungi.
  • Field Power Effect: Zone 5 has a circuit running through the whole map into every room that charges player characters and zombies standing on them. Player characters gain a Chain Lightning effect on their attacks, while zombies are invincible unless the attack is also charged.
  • Final Boss: The NecroDancer, fought by Cadence in tandem with Dorian and later by Melody.
  • Flawless Victory: Don't miss a beat or take a hit during a boss battle in All Zones Mode, and you'll get to choose from one of three treasure chests to open before you advance to the next stage. Strictly enforced with Aria and Coda, because they die instantly to any hit or missed beat.
  • Frictionless Ice: Zone 3 has this; you keep moving in one direction, unable to stop or attack, until you either hit an obstacle or leave the ice.
  • For Doom the Bell Tolls: Dead Ringer is all about this. Ominous bells play through the entire fight, and the area is littered with gigantic bells that instantly summon minibosses when struck.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: The NecroDancer was once a rather unassuming Bard named Octavian. Then one day he found a Golden Lute and began to abuse its powers...
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Deliberate Integration in four cases. Melody needs to keep playing the Golden Lute to stay alive. If you switch weapons, she stops playing and dies instantly. Likewise, Aria is frail and suffering from a grievous heart injury, so any mistake causes her to die. The Bard is Octavian before he became the NecroDancer, and thus is unaffected by the NecroDancer's magic. Therefore, he can fight freely at his own pace. Nocturna's story in Amplified involves investigating the crypt being taken over by someone reanimating the dead using some kind of technology, so playthroughs of any zone with her has an extra room from Zone 5 added to a random place on the map.
  • Generational Saga: Reversed, thanks to the Golden Lute. You start with Cadence, eventually unlock her mother, Melody, and then finish the game with her mother, Aria.
  • Genre Roulette:
    • Danny B's soundtrack covers a lot of musical genres in itself: while the majority of Zones lean towards EDM, the second takes inspiration from Hip-Hop, and the third alterns between Trance and Heavy Metal. The boss battle themes also lend towards Blues, Funk, Conga, Heavy Metal, and Hip-Hop.
    • The OC Remix soundtrack goes further as it offers a variety of electro styles by various artists.
  • Genre Shift:
    • Most of the game's music uses synths. The boss Death Metal, arguably the most difficult one in the game due to his fast tempo, has real electric guitars and bass in the background.
    • Melody and Aria, the other two main characters, have entirely different versions of the regular soundtrack by default; the former's are electronic/dubstep while the latter's are heavy metal composed of drums, slapping basses and electric guitars.
    • Depending on your personal tastes, you can change your favorite character's soundtrack for the one you prefer, and even include your favorite (or own) music.
  • Geo Effects: Certain tiles can have specific qualities that only affect grounded characters, usually the player character. Besides traps, there are water tiles where one sinks and has to spend a beat getting out of, which disappears after, swamp tiles which do the same thing but are permanent, ice tiles that players uncontrollably slip across, and hot coal tiles that do damage if one stays on the same one for more than one beat.
  • Glass Cannon: Taken literally with glass equipment; they're the most powerful type (glass weapons deal 4 base damage, glass armor completely negates damage, etc.), but if you get hit, they break (in the case of weapons or the shovel, they leave behind glass shards so you're not completely defenseless). Taken to its logical conclusion with the Glass Jaw: you deal double damage, but if you get hit, you break.
  • Glass Weapon: They do very high damage but break if you get hit. There's also glass armour that negates damage but (again) breaks if you get hit and an item called the Glass Jaw that lets you inflict double damage but turns you into a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
  • Go Out with a Smile: Aria, after destroying the lute and breaking the curse, passes away peacefully knowing that she'd put an end to her family's curse.
  • Guest Fighter: The Japanese release includes Shiren the Wanderer and Monokuma from Danganronpa as optional protagonist looks. After an update, the Steam version of the game also features these characters, among others.
  • Guide Dang It!:
    • Almost all items and shrines have succinct descriptions explaining what they do to new players, but three items (the Ring of Becoming, Ring of Shadows, and Ring of Phasing) deliberately have just "???" as their descriptions. This makes sense for the Ring of Becoming, whose true mechanics would be a spoiler (see Magikarp Power), but is inexplicable for the other two because they can be given out by shrines with perfectly reasonable descriptions (Shrine of Darkness says "Turns out the lights" and Shrine of Phasing says "Become incorporeal"). A new player who happens to encounter the ring first who hasn't seen the shrine yet will have no idea what it does (slightly downplayed in that a new player is pretty likely to encounter the shrine first, due to how the new player progression system works).
  • Guns Are Worthless: The Rifle and Blunderbuss are bad at every leaderboard category (speed, score, survival). Because of the game's dance pad controls, tapping a direction with a loaded gun causes you to fire in that direction, meaning you can't move unless the gun is unloaded. Each shot also recoils you backward a tile, so you lose three turns for every shot (load, fire, step forward). Unless you can get every single shot to pierce three enemies in a row, this is a huge speedrun time loss. The Rifle and Blunderbuss cannot be enchanted with gold (causes enemies to drop extra gold), so they always lose to other weapons in scoreruns. Finally, they're hard to learn due to how rarely they drop, and in a long survival run you risk mixing up whether it's loaded or not (or the recoil pushing you into a different enemy/onto ice/etc.), making it bad for survival runs. Pretty much their only use is as a "meme" weapon for skilled but non-serious runs.
  • Hailfire Peaks: Zone 3 is split into two sides, one of which is a Lethal Lava Land and the other a Slippy-Slidey Ice World. Each side has different enemies, as well as a unique environmental hazard — the hot side has hot coals that deal damage if a player stands on them for more that one beat, while the cold side has tiles of Frictionless Ice that cause players to slide along them. The music even changes appropriately between hot metal tunes and cool techno beats when you cross from one side to the other.
  • Handicapped Badass: Eli, who has a shovel for a hand, but can kick bombs, which he has an endless supply of, toward enemies.
  • Harder Than Hard:
    • Aria can only use the dagger as a weapon, has only half a heart and can't collect any more, and dies if you miss a beat. In addition, her story mode starts in Zone 4 and goes in reverse.
    • The final character, Coda: Aria's half-heart, death to a missed beat, and can only use the dagger; Bolt's double-time speed; and the Monk's Vow of Poverty which makes touching gold fatal. To give an idea of how difficult it is to manage all these conditions; less than 0.006% of the entire playerbase has ever managed to complete an All Zones run with her. That amounts to less than 30 people ever clearing the game with her with verified legitimate victories.
    • Amplified adds in a "Hard Mode", where there are more enemies to fight, two minibosses guarding the stairs instead of one, and each room has a Sarcophagus that will periodically spawn enemies and can only be destroyed by bombs. To make matters even harder, minibosses can even spawn during boss fights. Oh, and you have to beat all of the Zones in one go, so dying anywhere will send you back to Zone 1-1.
  • Harmless Enemy:
    • Green Slimes never move, and thus never attack the player. There is an achievement for getting killed by one, which requires you to go out of your way and use very specific items.
    • Water Balls in the Amplified DLC create a puddle of water upon colliding with the player, slowing them a bit. They do no damage otherwise.
  • Heal Thyself: From healing spells, food, blood magic, and other magical objects, there are a number of ways to find HP.
  • Heart Is an Awesome Power: When you slay an enemy while wearing the Ring of Courage, you immediately take that enemy's place (or move forward a square towards where that enemy was). The real surprise comes from the fact that if taking that step would put you in a position to get attacked by enemies, the attack is stopped by your courage. You can even completely avoid traps by using this ring, a fact that the game kindly teaches you in the third Codex trial.
  • Heavy Metal: FamilyJules's contributions are this:
    • In Danny B's soundtrack, Zone 3's hot areas as well as the boss themes for Death Metal and the Golden Lute are this, even if the retro-electro vibe is still subtly present.
    • Aria Awakened makes the whole soundtrack a heavy metal symphony which explores various sub-genres: for example, if the majority of the tracks are Power Metal, Coral Riff's theme leans towards Funk Metal, while Deep Blues and Frankensteinway's themes are closer to Hard Rock.
  • Helpful Mook: The pixies in Zone 4. Touching them restores you one heart of health. However, attacking them will cause them to explode like a bomb.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Aria knows that the Golden Lute is the only thing keeping her alive, but destroys it anyway.
  • Hip-Hop: Zone 2's themes tend to sound like, as well as Fortissimole's song which is a reprise of Zone 2-2's theme. This latter track can vary depending on the soundtrack: for example, FamilyJules's version is Rap Rock.
  • Hurricane of Puns:
    • Each of the bosses has their own punny name and theme music:
      • Deep Blues plays his blues while sending his fifteen chess piece minions after you.
      • Death Metal looks like the Grim Reaper and has a real fast theme as well.
      • King Conga is a gorilla playing conga whose zombie minions dance in a conga line before taking you on.
      • Coral Riff is a giant octupus with a bass guitar for a head, and various instruments played by its tentacles, in a half-flooded arena.
      • Fortissimole is a giant mole wearing golden armor that makes him look like a walking fortress. It's also a pun on the word "fortissimo", which, in music, essentially means "play at an obscenely loud volume."
      • Frankensteinway is a stitched-together artificial creature that uses a steinway piano as its basis.
      • The penultimate boss in Cadence's story, Dead Ringer, is a suit of armor with a large mallet. The fight itself is a Puzzle Boss involving a set of bells placed throughout the arena. Dead Ringer is also a very familiar face for Cadence.
      • Nocturna's final boss, The Conductor, is an electricity-themed boss who also holds the Golden Lute. Now what's the leader of an orchestra called again?
    • The soundtracks don't go easy on puns neither as many track titles are some variety of pun:
      • For the levels, 2-2 is "Grave Throbbing" and 4-1 is "Styx and Stones", while Zone 3 tracks are separated between the cold and hot ones, with names refllecting each other: for example, 3-1 goes from "Stone Cold" to "Igneous Rock".
      • For the bosses, Deep Blues' theme is "Knight to C-Sharp", Fortissimole's song is called "Notorious D.I.G.", Dead Ringer's theme is "For Whom the Knell Tolls", the True Final Boss theme is "Absolutetion", Frankensteinway's theme is "Steinway to Heaven", and the Greater-Scope Villain boss theme is "Vamplified".
      • The metal soundtrack renamed all the tracks, doubling the offer of puns: alongside Death Metal's theme becoming "Pyrodancer" and Frankensteinway's theme now being "Steinway to Hell", the 3-1 "Frozen in Panic" now has for answer "Scorched Volcanic" and it goes the same for all the Zone 3 tracks.
    • The end credits list every enemy in the game; each monster and mini-boss is given a suitably music-pun-based name (the Slime is "Boogie", the Golem is "Hard Rock", the Spider is "8-Legato", the shopkeeper is "Freddie Merchantry", and so on).
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: Healing items come in the form of food. You can choose between apples, cheese, drumsticks, and ham. The DLC introduces magic food, which functions the same except it gives you an extra heart container if you "overeat" (eat it when the healing would put you past max health).
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: Averted for the most part. Cadence can only carry one shovel, torch, set of armor, helmet, and pair of boots (and she starts with just a shovel and a dagger). She also starts off with only being able to carry one weapon (which can be increased to two weapons if she picks up a holster) and one consumable item (that goes up to two if she picks up a backpack, or an infinite number of consumables if she picks up a bag of holding — playing the trope straight).
  • Immunity Disability: The Bard doesn't have to worry about the rhythm; for him, it's a turn-based game where the enemies move only as he does. Unfortunately, there's no dedicated "stand still" button, so unless he has certain items (such as the war drum), he can't simply stand his ground. Occasionally, that means you'll simply have to choose one of four ways to die.
  • Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests can be found all over the dungeons. These contain valuable equipment and items.
  • Infinity -1 Sword: The game doesn't really have an Infinity +1 Sword, but the dagger (the shortest-ranged weapon in the game) has four unique variations that no other weapon type shares.
    • The Jeweled Dagger deals a base of 5 damage, more than anything else in the game (even more than glass weapons, which have base 4 damage but shatter on hit).
    • The Frost Dagger freezes solid any enemy it hits. And if it hits an already-frozen enemy, that enemy is instantly defeated regardless of remaining HP, allowing it to two-hit KO everything in the game (including standard bosses, but excluding plot-specific bosses). It's not even close to overpowered though, because of the aforementioned short range and the fact that its power is nearly useless against enemies with only 2 HP. Against a bunch of 2 HP Mooks (a much more common situation than a boss fight), a lot of other weapons would rapidly outclass it.
    • The Electric Dagger's arc damage (see Shock and Awe) inverts the dagger's usual downsides, potentially giving it greater range than any other weapon in the game (again, not overpowered as it has no range at all against enemies that aren't in clusters).
    • The Phasing Dagger hits through walls, floors, and even 'supernatural' defenses like ghosts turning themselves invisible.
  • Interface Screw:
    • A banshee's shriek deafens your heroine, rendering the player temporarily incapable of hearing the song they need to keep moving in time with.
    • When fighting King Conga, or if the Shrine of Rhythm is active, every eighth beat is dropped.
    • The Ring of Shadows greatly reduces your vision range.
    • The sunglasses provide a damage boost but reduce all enemies to silhouettes, making it difficult to tell which version many of them are, with the only visible difference being the color of their eyes.
    • Stepping on a confuse trap or being the victim of a Lich's spell temporarily reverses your controls.
    • Mystery Mode in Amplified takes this up to eleven by turning all items and enemies into question mark silhouettes that all look the same from one another. The only way to tell the enemies apart is to carefully watch for their patterns. However, for the items, you'll have to experiment on what you pick up, since the item won't be displayed on your inventory interface. The worst case scenario in this mode is a cheap death caused by picking up items that inflict damage like the Boots of Pain, since there is no way of knowing visually what the item looks like on-screen.
  • Kaizo Trap: It's not over after Aria kills the Golden Lute, since all the statues will attack with a firebeam starting from the top row, which can very much kill her before she gets to the exit. And of course, missing a beat after killing it will also kill her.
  • Kung Fu-Proof Mook: The Blademaster enemies in Zone 4. They parry any weapon attacks normally, and can only be hurt right after they attempt to counterattack you.
  • Large Ham: The NecroDancer himself. His hilariously evil voice is first heard in the official launch trailer, and he also talks like this in his fights and cutscenes... Mostly. At some points, he does talk normally, but it doesn't tend to last. There's one scene in particular when he abruptly flips from normal to overly-evil-voice in mid-sentence.
  • Life Drain: All blood weapons are known for this power. For every 10 foes defeated, half a heart is restored. The Crown of Thorns shares this same ability with blood weapons, with the exception that upon being equipped, damage is dealt.
  • Limited-Use Magical Device: Crypt of the NecroDancer has consumable scrolls, including a Freeze Enemies scroll and a Scroll of Need, which gives you an item that you need.
  • Long Song, Short Scene: Girlfriend Records' version of Death Metal's theme "Metalmancy" is twice the length of the original and plays at a much slower pace; however, the tempo still remains the same as all the other versions. Because of this, you'll likely be done with Death Metal well before getting the chance to hear the rest of the song unless you stall the battle or remain idle in his arena after his defeat.
  • Losing Your Head: When a skeleton is down to its last heart, its head goes flying off its shoulders. They start running away when this happens. Unless they bounce on an arrow trap opposite its direction and start charging directly at you.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Cadence can use shields in Synchrony, blocking hits in the direction she's facing.
  • Macrogame: The diamonds you collect throughout the dungeon are used to unlock upgrades and additional items that can be found in subsequent runs.
  • Magikarp Power:
    • Obsidian items start off only as powerful as your starting gear, but increase in power the bigger your groove chain gets. That said, they also reset to minimum power if your groove chain gets broken.
    • The Ring of Becoming turns you into a One-Hit-Point Wonder, but if you can transmute it, it's replaced with the Ring of Wonder, which combines the effects of most of the other rings in the game and actually doubles most of those effects.
  • Magnetic Plot Device: The Golden Lute is ultimately responsible for the entire story.
  • Make Some Noise: Getting hit with the Banshee boss's attack mutes the music for a few seconds, forcing the player to rely on the beat meter to keep time.
  • Maximum HP Reduction: Cursed Wraiths deal no damage but effectively do this to the player by destroying all their empty Heart Containers and transforming any non-empty ones into Cursed Heart Containers. While this doesn't quite behave the same as an HP bar, one can think of it as reducing the player's maximum HP to 0 — now that the player's current health is 'above their maximum', all of their precious healing items instantly become near useless, and even the rare items that increase the player's maximum HP barely have any effect. Easily one of the most aggravating enemies for casual players and speedrunners alike (on the other hand, if the player has no healing items (or is doing a Minimalist Run), they basically have no effect at all).
  • Meaningful Name: Several of the playable characters, whether by having a name related to music or one that hints at their playstyle.
  • Mega Dungeon: The dungeon comprises the whole of the game. Since the player characters died there and are more or less haunting the place, they cannot ever leave until the NecroDancer is dead.
  • Mickey Mousing: Everything is synchronized to the background music.
  • Mondegreen Gag: In a flashback, Cadence is eavesdropping on her father and uncle's conversation and wonders what could possibly be so important about "gold 'n loot"...
  • Money Spider: Every enemy drops coins upon being defeated. Minibosses drop more and Bosses drop large amounts of gold and diamonds.
  • Money Multiplier: Each enemy killed adds to the coin multiplier. note  In addition to this, permanent money multiplier bonuses can be purchased from the lobby shop.
    • There are also items which can increase the amount of money enemies drop: this can range from golden weapons, a ring of gold, and a crown of greed.
  • Mook Bouncer:
    • The Magic Monkeys in Zone 4 will force-teleport you to a random area of the level if killed after they grab you.
    • Warlock enemies will forcefully teleport you to their location should you kill them with anything except spells and scrolls.
  • Mook Maker: Starting in Zone 4, you'll run into the Sarcophagus, which will periodically spawn Skeletons, Armored Skeletons, Skeleton Knights, and Skeleton Mages every twelve beats. They are always found right next to the stairs and need to be destroyed along with the miniboss to unlock them. Thankfully, they only spawn one Skeleton mook at a time, so as long as the mook is still alive, they will not spawn another one unless that mook is killed first. Certain bosses like Dead Ringer, the NecroDancer (as Melody), and the Golden Lute will also have these in their arenas.
  • Musical Assassin: Melody's weapon is a golden lute, which damages any enemies adjacent to her each time she moves.
  • Musical Spoiler:
    • As of the full version, it's possible to determine if a floor's Shopkeeper is in fact a Monstrous Shopkeeper by listening carefully to their singing.
    • Aria Awakened's track order may spoil the fact that you actually do the dungeons in the reverse order with her.
  • Musical Theme Naming: There are actually fewer playable characters that don't follow this theme.note 
    • In the main game: Cadence, our heroine, her mother Melody, and grandmother Aria. Also her father, Dorian. Coda and Octavian as well.
    • In Amplified: Nocturna and Tempo. Plus Mary, if you count actual song titles.note 
  • Nintendo Hard: The game moves to its own pace... whether you're ready or not. You have to move and attack to the beat (unless you're playing as the Bard) just like the enemies, and the game's fast pace doesn't allow for you to carefully plan your next move. And if you die at any point on a normal run, you're thrown all the way back to the beginning of the zone you were playing, regardless of how far you got or how many items you amassed. And you should expect to die frequently.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The whole reason the game took place is because the NecroDancer betrayed Aria when she asked for his help.
  • No Name Given: The Monk, but not the Bard, as Melody reveals that his former name was Octavian.
  • Obvious Rule Patch:and
    • When the Codex areas were first added, the "Merchanticide" achievement became very easy to unlock, as "How to Get Away With Murder" is all about the various ways players could provoke and kill the shopkeeper. A later patch closed the loophole, so they must kill the shopkeeper during an actual run to unlock the achievement.
    • Blowing up the golden shop walls drops collectible gold on the floor - unless you're playing as Eli, who has infinite bombs, in which case they drop nothing.
  • Our Liches Are Different: Most of the playable cast has had their heart stolen by the NecroDancer, or are otherwise dead, and are only kept alive by the power of the Golden Lute. More literal in the case of Melody and Aria; if they stop playing the Lute, they will die immediately. The only exception is the Bard — which hints to his becoming the NecroDancer. This is fixed by Aria defeating the Lute, which saves her family at the cost of her own life.
  • Pickup Hierarchy:
    • Primary: None
    • Secondary: Equipment and spells. Keys are this before you've unlocked all the NPCs, and diamonds are this before you've purchased all permanent upgrades.
    • Tertiary: Gold and consumable items. Diamonds also become this after you've purchased all permanent upgrades.
    • Extra: Keys after unlocking all the NPCs
  • Piñata Enemy: If you leave a large pile of gold alone for a short while, a Leprechaun will spawn from it and run away from your character. Killing it will give you the Lucky Charm and a big sum of 100 Gold. Oh, and it'll chase you after being attacked, leaving a trail of 25 Gold on each tile it steps on. Be careful though, as it'll steal all of your money if it lands a hit on you.
  • Pistol-Whipping: Attacking with an unloaded Rifle or Blunderbuss is implied to be this, dealing minimal damage with no range and none of the weapon's usual piercing ability.
  • Post-Modern Magik: The Conductor is using the Golden Lute as a power source in experiments to reanimate the dead. This leads to things like cyborg zombies, skeleton wizards with lightbulb staffs firing ball lightning, golden replicas of other instruments for a full ensemble, and conduits of the lute's power running all throughout the crypt that electrify the attacks of any player characters who stand on them.
  • Power at a Price: Nearly every shrine in the game is this one way or another.
    • A Shrine of Blood will give you blood weapons, at the cost of nearly all of your health. Conveniently, blood weapons deal massive damage while you're at minimum health, and can heal you over time.
    • A Shrine of Glass turns all of your equipment into glass, making them more powerful, but also ensuring that they'll shatter if you get hit.
    • A Shrine of Risk offers you a random powerful item plus a couple of free HP items, but you're dealt damage when traveling between floors.
    • A Shrine of War gives you some kind of telepathy item, but evolves all enemies into their strongest versions, including zone bosses.
    • A Shrine of Peace refills your life and gives you an extra heart container, but takes away your weapon and replaces it with your starting 1-damage 1-range dagger (prior to the DLC balance patch, it gave two extra heart containers and took away all your items instead of just your weapon, making it too strong at the beginning of the game and too weak at the end).
    • A Shrine of Rhythm turns all your items into their Obsidian versions, but causes all the songs to skip every 8th beat of input. It will also deal a half-heart of damage whenever you mess up the beat.
    • A Shrine of Sacrifice can offer you powerful weapons, but requires that Cadence slay monsters right in front of the altar. Killing a miniboss before it fills it up the fastest, but causes only glass weapons to appear.
    • A Shrine of No Return gives you a glass rapier and a war drum, but damages you if you ever move to a square you occupied last turn (which one does frequently in normal gameplay). Which will, of course, break your rapier.
    • A Shrine of Pace rewards you with free items for finishing levels very quickly, but damages you any time you fail to do so.
    • A Shrine of Phasing gives the player a Ring of Phasing, but removes all their other equipment except bombs and spells, leaving them next to defenseless (and incapable of winning unless you throw your dagger first or can find another weapon before the next boss, or are playing a character whose weapon can't be changed).
    • The hidden Blood Shop does this as well — offering you items in exchange for taking 1-2 hearts worth of damage. If you don't have enough life when you make the exchange, this will kill you (and give you a death by "Blood Debt").
    • The Ring of War grants you additional damage and knockback, but makes minibosses harder.
    • The Blood Drum makes your next attack do infinite damage, but damages you when you use it. It becomes this even more if you use it with a blood weapon, which does massive damage if you are critically injured but will heal you past that point after 10 kills.
    • The Blood Shovel allows you to dig any walls in the dungeon, and digs up a big 3-by-3 square whenever the tile you dig is not the lowest tier. However, digging any tile that isn't the lowest tier will also deal half a heart of damage to you every time you attempt this.
    • The Risk Charm gives you +2 attack, but only when you're at minimum health. As soon as you regain more health, the boost goes away, so it only works when you're in range of Scratch Damage.
    • The Boots of Pain will deal damage to breakable objects and enemies located two tiles away whenever you move. However, they will deal one-and-a-half hearts of damage to you whenever they are equipped, even if you just took them off.
  • Power Glows: Blood, gold, and obsidian items all have ways to increase their power. When powered up, they will glow in your inventory.
  • Pun: The NecroDancer does this, but only once.
    NecroDancer: I guess you don't have the HEART to face me!
  • Powers via Possession: Inverted. Chaunter, a character added in the Synchrony DLC, gains the health and abilities of the creatures they possess.
  • Punny Name: Many of the enemies and characters in the game, who are named after people and aspects of music, like NecroDancer, King Konga, Death Metal, Coral Riff, and the shopkeeper "Freddie Merchantry." You can see them all during the credits.
  • Puzzle Boss:
    • Dead Ringer, who's invincible unless he charges into the gong spawned when all four bells are rung.
    • The NecroDancer, fought immediately after, has you control two characters at once and use obstacles to let them step on buttons at the same time.
    • Return of the NecroDancer needs to be pushed into the pit of lava behind him, meaning either pushing him to the side of his minions or taking them all out first.
  • Regional Bonus: The Japanese PS4 and Vita releases included Shiren and Monokuma as character skins, and some Danganronpa remixes as well, although this content was eventually ported to the PC version.
  • Ret-Canon: Cadence of Hyrule gave Cadence the ability to use shields alongside Link. Come the Synchrony DLC, Cadence would be able to use shields in her home game as well.
  • Royal Rapier: One of the weapons available is a rapier, which does double damage on a successful attack on any enemy 2 tiles away. Your character will also step forward on such an attack.
  • Rule of Three: Upgrading your weapon to 3 damage is a critical threshold for both speedruns and scoreruns, and skilled players will do a lot to go from 2 to 3 damage that they wouldn't do even to go from 3 to infinite damage. Three damage is required to break open crates and barrels for free (often containing gold or good items), as well as defeat the very common black shielded skeleton without worrying about the shield. Nothing else in the game gives you as much payoff for reaching a specific damage value.
  • Schizophrenic Difficulty: Zone 5 in Amplified manages to be both easy and hard at the same time. It's hard because the enemies are crammed into tiny rooms and have irritating quirks to watch out for, such as the Orcs' shields, the Electric Mages' lightning orbs, and the Skulls splitting into three Skeletons when hit once. On the other hand, it's easy because exploiting the electrical wires to your advantage is helpful in taking out large mobs of enemies at once.
  • Scratch Damage:
    • A rare example of this trope being exaggerated to the player's detriment. The player starts with only 3 hearts of health, and damage is measured in half-hearts. No matter how much armor and other defensive equipment the player has, all enemy attacks will always deal at least half a heart of damage. So if the player has, say, 33% of their HP left, then proceeds to find the best armor in the game, they are still going to die in 2 hits no matter which enemy hits them.
    • Exaggerated even more with the Quartz Armor, which ignores all other defense and reduces all incoming damage (from the strongest boss to the weakest mook) down to...exactly twice the usual Scratch Damage (one heart). Theoretically, the item is very strong if the player is somehow surrounded by only giant enemies, but in practice this doesn't occur and the item is worse than even the weakest armor if the player is surrounded by any mooks past, say, the first level (which occurs a lot).
  • Sequential Boss: Cadence's story ends with two bosses, Dead Ringer and the NecroDancer.
  • Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: With careful timing and luck, you can do this to enemies by luring other enemies to attack them if they happen to be in the way when they attack you. The most noticeable examples that can be done are with the Red Dragon's fire breath, an Ogre slamming its club, and Dead Ringer's Flash Step attack.
  • Shield-Bearing Mook: Skeletons in later zones have shields which can block weaker attacks from the front.
  • Simple, yet Awesome: The Dagger of Frost freezes whatever it doesn't kill, rendering even minibosses completely helpless, and instantly kills any enemy that's already frozen. Its only downsides are that it, like all daggers, has a range of only one space, and that fire or a bomb blast will melt it into a regular dagger.
  • Single-Use Shield:
    • Glass armor, the frost charm, the ring of shielding, and the crown of teleportation all will prevent a single hit and have various effects trigger instead, but will then break completely.
    • Starting in Zone 2, skeletons carry shields. These shields have a defense that's as high as the health of the skeleton using itnote  and can stop any attack that couldn't 1-shot the wielder. If your attack matches or overpowers the defense of their shield, they lose their shield. If you attack from a direction other than their front, the shield doesn't help them any.
  • Shmuck Bait: The game sometimes spawns rooms that contain a valuable item surrounded on all four sides by traps. One of the possible setups has the loot surrounded by four seemingly harmless bounce traps, trapping the player inside until a monster comes along or the level music ends. The way to get around this is to bomb one of the traps to remove it.
  • Skill Gate Character:
    • The Ballet Shoes are an item rather than a character, but still fit the spirit of the trope: they allow players to keep their coin multiplier on missed beats. While it's good for new players who still need to get the rhythm of moving every beat, for veteran players who are accustomed to keeping the beat, the shoes are a wasted slot that can be filled with something better.
    • The whip attacks in a five square wide line in front of the character, allowing newer players to safely attack enemies from a distance. However, it can only attack one enemy at a time, and with its huge range it's common to stop and attack targets that you wanted to leave alone. In later zones with more numerous enemies where quick movement is key, having this as your weapon can be a death sentence, leading many experienced players to skip this weapon.
  • Shock and Awe:
    • In Zone 5 in Amplified, there are electrical conduits on the floor which allows a character to channel electricity to nearby enemies when attacking if he/she is standing on them. Hit one enemy, and lightning will jump to any enemy adjacent to it, and so on. In addition, the Electric Mages also attack with lightning orbs.
    • The Electric Dagger allows the player to use the chain lightning effect at all times, in addition to dealing 2 damage to the first enemy attacked.
  • Shoplift and Die: Zig-Zagged. The shopkeeper is a carefree guy who sings along with the current music and will only attack you if you attack him first. Not only can you shoplift without consequence when wearing the Ring of Shadows, but you can even knock down his golden walls for some free gold. Should he die, not only can you take all his goods for free, but he'll drop the Crown of Greed, which will double all gold received (at the cost of causing your total gold to tick down along with the beat) and is essential to a high scoring all-zone run. However, if you do attack him via hitting him with a bomb, spell, or thrown weapon, he immediately charges you, able to move diagonally and hitting like a truck.
  • Short-Range Shotgun: The Blunderbuss hits enemies in a triangle-like pattern up to three spaces away. While it's outclassed by Crossbows, Rifles, and thrown Spears and Daggers, it still has pretty good range.
  • Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: Averted. Piercing and stabbing weapons tend toward long range, while slashing and bludgeoning weapons tend toward wide range instead, making them feel very different to use.
  • Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: The shopkeeper sings along with the music, and you can hear him outside of his shop.
  • Sprint Shoes: The Boots of Speed used to allow you to move twice as often per beat, but were removed from the game for being overpowered.
  • Start of Darkness: Octavian was but a normal bard until he found the Golden Lute and amassed an undead army.
  • Synthwave: Girlfriend Records' soundtrack, inspired by 1980s Synth-Pop and New Wave Music, with bits of Disco too.
  • Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Downplayed, with advantages and disadvantages. Throwing a dagger or spear will indeed give you a great deal of range for a single turn, but then you'll be left pretty much defenseless while there's probably at least one enemy between you and the weapon on the floor across the room. In general, it's a perfectly good move in some uncommon situations and a pretty bad move in most other situations.
  • Timed Mission: The song for each level does not loopnote . When the song ends, you're dropped into the next level via Trap Door, which also resets your multiplier.
  • Time-Limit Boss: Return of the NecroDancer. The walls close in with every few beats, and will eventually crush Melody.
  • Trance: Zone 3's cold themes are influenced by this genre.
  • Trap Door: Scattered throughout the dungeon. If an enemy steps on one, it disappears. If you step on one, you lose your multiplier, since it counts as missing a beat, but immediately go to the next floor. One will automatically appear under you if you spend too long in the level and the song ends (this means that if you're playing as Aria or Coda, not finishing the level before the song's over is death by missed beat). Worth noting is that if you use a trapdoor before you defeat the floor miniboss, you'll spawn in a tiny arena with wall-covered rocks, the miniboss of the previous floor, and some extra monsters to boot, and the walls will only open when you defeat the miniboss, so do so at your own peril (because of this possibility, using a trapdoor as Dove is also lethal).
  • True Final Boss: The Golden Lute, fought by Aria.
  • Turns Red: Every one of the bosses except the True Final Boss. A few of them do it twice. That said, for several bosses, their "second form" (where they attack themselves) is much easier than the first form (where their minions attack), and with the right weapons, you can kill some bosses before they even leave their first phase.
    • King Conga: King Conga will merely sit on his throne playing bongos while his two zombie conga-lines slowly chase you, where he's immune to most sources of damage. As soon as you kill the last zombie, he'll get up and start chasing you, whereupon he can be damaged normally. Additionally, should you miss a beat during the first phase (not too unlikely, especially if you forget to skip the eighth beat), he'll chase you along with the zombies. Attacking him while there's still zombies alive only teleports him back to the throne unscathed.
    • Death Metal: Death Metal will at first slowly walk towards you, while the other monsters pose a more immediate threat. When he takes enough damage and his shield is removed, he'll periodically start spawning skeletons to go after you as he slowly walks away from you. When he's near death, he'll start moving much more quickly and start targeting you with fireballs.
    • Deep Blues: Like a real game of chess, all you have to do is defeat the King. Unfortunately, unless you can do so almost immediately, all the other pieces will aggressively try to trap you while the King runs off to a corner. Only when the King is the last remaining piece will he go towards you, but by then it's a much easier fight. Also, if the pawns reach the other half of the board, they promote to Queens.
    • Coral Riff: Coral Riff has eight tentacles, which will periodically pop up beside you, while his head remains behind several rows of water and evades being in your direct line of attack. After you defeat all his tentacles, or enough time passes, the head will now seek you out with a wide attack, creating pools of water as it moves.
    • NecroDancer (as Cadence): The NecroDancer starts off by just standing on an elevated platform whilst occasionally summoning monsters and minibosses to go after you while you set off traps or bombs. Once the ground beneath him is detonated, he'll teleport away, start moving around at your pace, summon monsters much more frequently, and also cast very wide area of effect spells.
    • NecroDancer (as Melody): It starts off in a huge arena, filled with many sarcophagi that spawn tons of skeletons to get in between you and the NecroDancer while he moves away from you, sometimes throwing bombs at you. When he's on his last bit of health, he'll teleport to the middle, standing on a purple carriage that cannot be damaged. The only way to finish him off is by pushing him towards the giant pool of lava that just spawned behind him, but you have to get rid of all the skeletons that block the path behind him first. All while he still throws bombs and the walls close in on you.
  • Underground Monkey: Some enemies, like slimes and bats, appear as differently colored variants with differing patterns in later zones.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: In Melody's backstory, her mother (and Cadence's grandmother) Aria used the power of the Golden Lute to heal her fellow villagers of the plague that was tearing through them. They repaid her by forming a mob and attempting to take the Lute for themselves, leading Aria to seek a way to destroy it.
  • Unintentionally Unwinnable: The game was purposefully designed in such a way that good players could always progress and win a round, and this can be done with almost no equipment. Left your shovel behind or intentionally destroyed it? You don't really need it, either the exit will always be reachable without having to dig any tiles, or in the case of Zone 4 you can just punch individual dirt tiles down. It's even possible to go through zones without a weapon, using equipment such as Boots of Pain, Fireball Spell, Earth Spell, or just plain old bombs to damage bosses and minibosses. However, there is one special case: If you somehow get rid of your irreplaceable starting weapon as Aria, which would require you to throw your dagger and either not pick it up before leaving the weapon or destroying it, your run is eventually doomed, since the final boss is immune to all damage sources except your starting dagger. You really need to go out of your way to accomplish this, and there's no reward for it.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment: Unfortunately, you can't pick up the skeletons' shields for yourself.
  • Variable Mix: The shopkeeper will sing along to the music when you get close to him. Additionally, the third zone has two different tracks that it segues between depending on whether you're in the hot or cold area.
    • When fighting Coral Riff, taking out his tentacles will also take out the corresponding instruments playing in the BGM until all that's left is the bass guitar playing. All of the instruments will resume playing again once the head starts making his move.
  • Villain Song: Dance for your Life, a Power Metal anthem sung from the NecroDancer's POV. Sadly it can only be found on the Aria's Ascent soundtrack (normal and remastered) and never appears in-game.
  • Visual Pun: Very rarely, when you break a barrel, a monkey may emerge from within.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Zone 4, until it was replaced by Zone 5 with the Amplified DLC.
  • Video Game Stealing: Wearing the Ring of Shadows allows you to steal from shops.
  • Where It All Began: Aria's run, the third and final act of the story, goes in reverse — starting from the fourth dungeon and ending at the first.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: After Octavian the bard finds the Golden Lute and learns about its powers, he soon abuses them, culminating in amassing an undead army.

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