Disc Room Reviews
Disc Room provides hours of high-stress fun for daring adventurers, and a few mysteries to solve.
A fast-paced arcade game with the soul of a puzzler.
Exciting and stressful in the way all good twitch-action games are, Disc Room makes you cherish every second you manage to survive in its sawblade-filled stages.
Disc Room is a hell of floating discs, obscure puzzles and inevitable death. It's great.
Disc Room wants to cut you in so many ways. It wants to chew you up, dismantle you, and make you say a swear or 50 creatively woven into the same sentence. It’s bullet hell without the regular therapy of being able to return fire. But for all of those aspects, it's also horribly addicting. The ease of picking up where you left off and trying your darndest to survive just a little bit longer to unlock a room left me putting down my controller, rubbing my head, and then often picking it up to say, “this will be the time I get it. This time.” It’s not a ridiculously long or complex romp. But it also doesn’t really need to be. It knows what it wants to be. It wants to be your murderer. And the only way you’re going to thwart it is by surviving just long enough to open its next doors and beat its myriad of challenges.
Being a game that will no doubt test your reflexes and tenacity, Disc Room will make the number of deaths you have in a Dark Souls game look miniscule in comparison.
The game is also, yes, small in stature, it is one-note, it can be enjoyed in one sitting until you reach the crest of conditioning and competence, if not completion. It is single-minded to the point of being playable with precisely one digit. You might play it for a single day, as I did, have a wonderful time covering yourself with blood, and be satisfied to never touch it again. But if these are flaws they are also proof of focus and refinement. Disc Room might be readily slept on, but if you are the kind of tough game obsessive, a connoisseur of arcade death, or a bullet hellion who cannot resist the call to mastery, these rooms should be approached wakeful and willing and ready to die.
Disc Room is an outrageous experience built around one single philosophy: getting cut in half by spinning discs. However, the challenges for surviving as long as possible and grazing past enemy attacks satisfies a craving that only the most polished of Japanese shmups could satisfy.
I had no real expectations for this game, and I still managed to be blindsided by what I discovered. Tough, tiny indie games often try to supplement their size with atmosphere, but the results are often mixed. Here, a small project from a smaller team has brewed a fabulous blend of mechanical finesse and atmospheric splendor. The game is crazy hard, and some of the puzzle elements are pretty obtuse, but I still loved it. If you’re not so impressed by the screenshots and the trailers, take my word for it: Disc Room is so much better than you’re expecting it to be.
Disc Room is an addictive title that lends itself to short bursts of play. On its surface it’s a very basic title, but in reality it plays with its formula in such fun ways that make it more than just dodging discs. Anyone on the fence like I was should try out the demo, which is a great taste for what the game offers, because I don’t think I’m doing this game justice. Neither does all the promotion Devolver has done for this game. Disc Room is something different, and I like it.
In Disc Room you will die, die, and die some more by...discs...in a room...all while showcasing fantastic and addicting gameplay.
All in all, Disc Room is a solid addition to the bullet hell genre. Alongside fluid gameplay mechanics, the choice to include puzzles makes the reaction-based thought process required to succeed in the game that much more chaotic and fun.
Like a lot of other releases in the Devolver line up, Disc Room is a wonderfully unique release that stands out well on the eShop. That premise of "a shoot 'em up without the shooting" seems silly at first, but very quickly shows itself to be an interesting idea that's taken in plenty of fun directions. Disc Room is tough as nails in all the right ways, and this combined with plenty of secrets, solid accessibility options, and an intriguing premise makes for an experience we can easily recommend. Don't pass this one up, it's definitely worth your time.
That said, Disc Room is a fantastic game. When I was playing, I got completely absorbed into the experience, so much so that the night I started I put four straight hours into it without realizing. It can be a little on the difficult side (rarely unfairly so), but this really added to the sense of accomplishment and progression that kept me locked into the game. I'm completely blown away that, for a game with such a simple concept, there's so much variety in design and so much content to discover. The team behind Disc Room obviously put a lot of love and effort into making it, and it shows. If you're even the slightest bit interested in it, you should give Disc Room a try.
Not unlike the discs we spent so long combating, Disc Room is far more clever than it appears to be at a glance. Like Minit before it, Disc Room is another minimalist concept rooted in classic design and inspiration, except there's so much more beneath the surface. Just as the ship called out to our scientist like a siren's song, Disc Room's cool, addictive appeal does the exact same to me.
Disc Room is a great example of a little indie game doing a damn fine job. From a small idea of bullet hell meets dungeon crawler, the developers have polished the concept up quite nicely. The variety of design ensure that each room feels unique. The innate difficulty of the game provides a satisfying challenge although it can also lead to some frustration. But thankfully the difficulty settings here are highly customisable and allow for great accessibility. Sure there are some confusing rooms, but they’re balanced out by amazing boss fights that left me wanting more. Overall, whilst there are some missteps, it’s definitely one game that’s well worth a try.
Avoiding discs and dying a lot never felt so good with Disc Room. With plenty of different abilities and unique obstacles and zones, Disc Room is a tight package that is sure to satisfy.
Disc Room expertly blends together the simple yet unique mechanics of Minit and the lightning-quick carnage and quick challenges of High Hell, so yes, the end result is akin to peanut butter and chocolate.
Leaderboards for each room and an unlockable Hard mode give players ample reason to continue playing even after conquering all 50 rooms, which is no small feat in itself. Unfortunately, as of review, one room seems to be suffering from a game-breaking bug, and to roll credits I needed to unlock the final area of the ship in the options menu to proceed, so hopefully that gets fixed at or before launch. Regardless, the meat of Disc Room is more than enough to warrant a pick up, especially if you think flinging a cartoon scientist into sharp, spinning discs is a good way to spend your time.
Disc Room is incredibly difficult. It definitely won’t be for everyone. If you lack patience and find yourself getting frustrated in games where you die frequently, it’s probably not for you. But for those of us that enjoy being furious, who let that fury push us further and faster because we crave a challenge, Disc Room is fantastic. You’ll find yourself going back again and again, getting a little bit further each time until you reach its conclusion. And you won’t be sorry when you do.