Beat Saber Review | The King of Virtual Rhythm, 5 Years Later

Beat Saber is a must-own VR game. It’s a must-play VR game, and even if you don’t have the equipment to play it, I encourage you to go out there to one of those overpriced joints that rent VR equipment and try it for fifteen minutes. It’ll blow you away, some of you so much so, that you’ll be sold on getting VR equipment for yourself.

That’s what happened to me anyway, years back I had the opportunity to try Beat Saber around the time of its release and I was hooked, enough to get seriously addicted to visiting my friend with a headset, leading to me getting one of my own. After 5 years and over 300 hours of block slashing, I still open it up and have just as much fun as I have ever had within the game, even after I’ve earned all its achievements, and burned all my calories (an insane average of 30,000 per year).

The gameplay loop, no matter the difficulty, is satisfying. It taps into that “rhythm game” hype and madness that I haven’t felt rage within me since the highs of Guitar Hero and Rock Band many years ago. Starting from the lowly depths of “easy mode” I built reflex after reflex from the scraps of my failures, and I slowly advanced through the difficulties week by week and month by month. The patterns of the blocks started to emerge and instead of being disappointed by seeing a glimpse of what’s behind the…