Crypt of the NecroDancer

The Good
+ Crypt of the NecroDancer is notable for having the most comprehensive wiki (at Wikia.com) that I have ever seen for an indie game. The information there is so detailed and in depth, I think it's written by the developer over the course of several months.

• It's the only notable game written in the Monkey X programming language. This has provoked some philosophical discussion inside my head, like "why would someone create a game engine, when apparently no one will use it". The name "Monkey X" is particularly funny, since there are indeed monkeys in this game.

• Stylish, inventive use of the four buttons (A,B,X,Y). They are now directional buttons. Even when you're in the menu screen, the A (Cross on PS4) button moves the cursor down.

• The designer tried to make the game design somewhat consistent with earlier prominent games in the genre -- the "Bomb" button for example, defaults to LB (L1 on PS4), exactly the same as The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth. Another example is the monkeys -- they do not deal damage to the player, but rather make them unable to move for a short period of time, similar to the monkeys in Spelunky.

The themes of the first three zones are also copied from Spelunky -- Zone 1, 2 and 3 are the Mines, Jungle and Ice Caves respectively (with different names).

• There are a large selection of different gameplay modes, including non-randomly generated puzzles that teach advanced mechanics. -- Whether these modes are actually fun though, is a different matter.

• Every weapon and item serves multiple functions. For example a healing item not only heals you, but also makes you invincible during the beat the item is consumed. For this reason, high level players can take advantage of the mechanics and use the healing items while they would otherwise take damage. The strategic gameplay is rather deep in this regard.

• The Electric Dagger! The best weapon (there are other great weapons but this is the best) in the game and a breeze to use every time I find it.

• The daily challenge leaderboard provides the full replay (and displays the cause of death) next to each player so there's always something to watch and learn from (or laugh at), and cheating is pretty much impossible for this reason.

• I have a friend who held the world records for a few speedrun categories in this game. Yeah this is some personal bragging rights right there.
  
  The Bad
  - The various gameplay modes are generally not fun. They are difficult challenge runs such as no damage runs, no gold runs etc.. I know people who enjoy these no-gold runs but I personally don't care for them.

• The character inventory is limited. You can generally only carry one weapon, one spell, one ring etc. at a time. There are often times when you will want to carry multiple weapons, or multiple rings, to get the combined effects of them.

This is particularly problematic since the bosses can drop rewards after the fight, and since your inventory is limited, it's very common to not be able to collect the reward anyway, so what's even the point?

• The item pool is rather small. After just a few hours you should be able to see (almost) every weapon and item in the game. There's pretty much nothing new to discover after awhile.

• The pixel art feels unpolished and a lot of the terrains and monsters look alike -- it's hard to tell which monster is which quickly, and equally hard to tell which direction they are facing. This severely hurts the gameplay.

• Finally, the biggest problem here is that, while the rhythm/music element is the main hook of the game, there isn't anything inherently "musical" or "rhythmic" about it. The action is standard hack and slash, standard movement across a grid-based board. The action and the music don't mix very well -- to the point that I feel they don't really have anything to do with each other.

The music itself is also not the best work from Danny Baranowsky. There is only one good song in the game, in Zone 4. The music in Super Meat Boy was much better and much more engrossing. Ironically, while Super Meat Boy was not a rhythm-based game, the action in that game felt more "rhythmic" than in NecroDancer, and fit the music better.

The Bottom Line
In truly great games, the different components work together to achieve a singular artistic vision. In Braid, you have the time travel gameplay mechanic, the puzzles, the narrative about dealing with regrets and mistakes in life, and all of these become a cohesive whole. In Crypt of the NecroDancer, you have the rhythm, the music, and you have the hack and slash action, the dungeon exploration, but sadly they feel like two separately created, unrelated things put together by brute force.