Before finally getting a chance to play it this week, I'd been hearing things about Thumper for a good long while. It's freaky, it's fast, it's "Rhythm Violence". It's barely even a rhythm game, it's all about getting into the flow of things. It'll stress you out. It'll make you sweat. It's not like other rhythm games.
Having played it, I'm inclined to disagree. Not to say the game isn't an odd duck, it definitely has its own idiosyncrasies. For instance, in a genre which typically maintains a shorter playtime on songs, around 2-4 minutes, to avoid overwhelming the player, Thumper gleefully has levels which reach over 30 minutes in length. In relation, the game doesn't really seem to expect you to memorize the levels the way you would memorize note charts in other rhythm games, given how it'll give additional sound cues ahead of time for the notes and also how 30 minutes is a ludicrous amount of time to memorize. Most importantly, in my opinion, the game’s soundtrack isn't catchy, or listenable, or even rhythmic: I often found myself completely incapable of finding a beat, only hitting notes by listening for the sound cues or looking carefully ahead. The soundtrack is more like a horror movie soundtrack, like John Carpenter's The Thing: The point isn't to be melodic or catchy, it's to set an unnerving and eerie mood.
But, ultimately, it's still a rhythm game. Let's compare it to a more recent release: Hatsune Miku Project Diva: Future Tone! There are the obvious similarities: You're still hitting buttons and directions in time with a rhythm. The music is a focus, though for different reasons. And, interestingly, there's a lot of visual noise behind the important, gameplay-focused notes and paths: Thumper has writhing limbs and flashing backgrounds, while Hatsune Miku has its music videos, which vary from unassuming fake concert footage to 3D animated music videos.
For me personally, the biggest similarity is what many people seem to think separates Thumper from the rest of the genre: stress.
Thumper revels in the stress it causes players: The long levels mean you can't feel "finished" with a song in the same short period of time as a typical rhythm game, and of course the Lovecraftian look of the game is incredibly unsettling. But the sweaty palms, the tense shoulders, the cursing at mistakes...that's not a new feeling for me when I play rhythm games. When I play, I want to get a perfect score. Any difficult part of a song, any tricky pathing...my shoulders tense up. My toes involuntarily flex. Every part of my body acts as if a moment of great exertion is happening.
That's what rhythm games are to me: stressful. A fun stress, not unlike what horror fans get out of their chosen genre. I don't dislike the Hatsune Miku games for that reason: Project Diva f 2nd is still a mainstay in my Vita, which I come back to periodically to try and do a bit better on songs that are always frustrating me. Ultimately the thing I'm there to do is overcome that tension and do my best. Thumper revels in it like few others do, sure, but it's not particularly novel in that respect. Thumper extends that stress out over 30 minutes, but the spikes I've felt playing through, say, Close and Open Demons and the Dead on Extreme difficulty easily match that stress, if not exceed it (though to be fair, I'm only about halfway through Thumper.)
My palms may be sweaty, my shoulders may be tense, my tongue may be sticking out to focus, I may be cussing a lot. But that's rhythm games for me. Thumper isn't an outlier; it fits comfortably, if oddly, among the rest.
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