Beat, Heart, Beat is an action-rhythm platformer that puts a unique spin on the auto-runner, incorporating a midwest emo soundtrack and a truly bizarre cast of characters and premise. Through fifteen unique levels/songs, you’ll avoid obstacles, attack in three directions, chain combos, and try to do it all to the beat to earn the highest scores. The short quest relies heavily on replayability and high score chasing and your enjoyment will likely hinge on your affinity for the distinctive midwest emo soundtrack.

While I wouldn’t say that I’m much of a midwest emo fan (I prefer math rock), for the most part, the soundtrack to Beat, Heart, Beat is pretty good. If you’re unfamiliar with the genre, the singing can certainly be an acquired taste, but the instrumentation tends to be interesting and, at times, complex.

Other than one particularly rough track that had some truly painful vocals, I enjoyed the featured music and found myself replaying levels both to score higher and relisten to tracks I really enjoyed. That said, if you don’t like midwest emo, you’re probably going to want to skip this one. Rhythm games live and die based on their music, so it’s imperative you dig the tracks to really sink into the gameplay. 

As stated earlier, Beat, Heart, Beat is an auto-runner and it gives you a couple movement options that you’ll leverage to both platform and tap along to the beat. As you move forward, you’ll encounter obstacles to jump over and enemies that you can slash. At first, you’ll just be making casual jumps over enemies and slashing the ones that show up in front of you, but as the game progresses, you’ll start chaining your attacks to help move you over long stretches of pits.

It’s not uncommon to slash an enemy above you, which gets you airborne, and then follow it up with forward slashes that help you remain in the air. Sometimes you’ll need to attack upwards again, giving you even more vertical height, allowing you to reach the next platform. Other times, while airborne, you’ll need to quickly attack downward to avoid an obstacle and take you out of that jumping state.

There are some unique enemies you’ll encounter that force some different movements. One particular foe has you attack in a pattern – 1-2-345 – which brings a bit of percussion to the track in time with the beat. Other enemies have you holding your attack and releasing it at a particular moment, again, all with the beat.

When songs start to get faster and more complex, you’ll have lots of enemies stacked in unique formations, moving your thumb across the face buttons and attacking in the cardinal direction the button corresponds to. Some songs in the game map more cleanly than others, making the beat extremely easy to lock into. But as with most rhythm games, practice makes perfect and having a flawless run or nailing down a SSS ranking will take a few attempts before you can lock them in.

If you make an error in a level, either by attacking off-beat, failing to attack, missing an enemy, or colliding with an obstacle, you’ll lose a heart. If you lose all five of your hearts before the next checkpoint, you’ll spawn back within the section you failed, sometimes at a seemingly random location. Deaths lower the ranking/score you receive at the end of the level, so it’s important to keep up.

However, one of the more frustrating facets of the gameplay is that missing an attack over a pit will mean instant death. This means there’s little room for error, especially as you get to the later levels, as they feature longer and more frequent death pits. One particular sequence had me forward attacking in rapid succession, with the last attack being a hold attack, all over a pit. Unfortunately, I kept hitting the button one extra time (I must’ve made the mistake five times in a row), which meant plummeting to my death and forcing a replay of most of the section.

I also seemed to encounter a few runs where things were desynced and attacks, though done on beat, didn’t register as expected. Given that the game is releasing in Early Access, I suspect these types of issues will be sorted, but fair caution that the team still seems to be knocking out some bugs.

While the core content of the game occurs across its fifteen levels, you’re treated to the game’s story between them. You’ll bear witness to the interactions between a couple of characters about repairing the psyche and to be honest, I didn’t really follow what was going on nor could I adequately explain what the premise actually is. While I appreciate the Tim Burton-esque vibe, the story doesn’t reach any sort of conclusion to bring it some meaning, as this is just the first chapter of the story.

Once you complete the story mode, you’ll be able to dig into the game’s other modes. Free play has a few extra tracks not featured in the story, so there’s some more gameplay to be found there, as well as a built-in level editor, opening the door for players to create their own tracks or play ones created by the community. Given the solid basis of the gameplay, this is a promising addition to the experience that could put a little bit more meat on the game’s bones while the rest of the game is built.

And really, that’s the biggest issue with Beat, Heart, Beat, as of its launch. Even with fifteen tracks, it feels a little thin - I completed it very quickly, in a span of a couple hours, with plenty of SSS rankings to show for it. This is understandable for an Early Access release, so if you don't mind waiting for the content and you’re a die-hard midwest emo fan, this game is for you. Outside of that, it’s tough to recommend it unless you really vibe with the music. But if you’re starving for a new rhythm game or auto-runner, Beat, Heart, Beat will suffice, but understand it'll be a year before the full game is completed.