I'll be up front and say that I wish I could give this game a 5 star review. Damn, does Beat Saber come close, but its not entirely perfect (with mods, might be a different story, but I'm also reviewing vanilla). I would guess about 90% of my hours on my Quest have been spent slicing blocks and jamming out on just this game, and I only see that number going up from here. INSANELY fun game and a must have for VR gamers.

Pros:

- The twin saber gameplay feels incredible. It takes some getting used to, but playing a rhythm game where you have to physically move your entire arm (or wrist if you prefer) hits different. You FEEL powerful playing this game, almost like you’re dancing and sword fighting at the same time. Somehow the devs managed to make it feel both fluid and powerful, yet easy to get the hang of if you practice. It's really something you have to feel for yourself, words will not do it justice.

- The note variety is great; you have the standard directional notes, the “hit anywhere” notes, chain notes that require fuller swings, and arc notes that add a line you can track with your saber to add emphasis on crescendos or quiet parts of the song. It’s simple but effective in getting you into the groove and really “feeling” the music.

- Speaking of swing, the OST for this game goes so hard if you are into EDM. I was not a fan of Camellia (never even heard of him) until I played this game, and now I’m blasting Cycle Hit and Final-Boss-Chan on repeat. Beat Saber is best paired with upbeat and high-tempo music, which dubstep, electro, and speedcore fits perfectly.

- Say goodbye to your wrists. Like all rhythm games, the entry difficulty is low, which is perfect for casual players, but the skill ceiling reaches to the damn International Space Station, which is perfect for those looking for a challenge. Even without mods, maps like GHOST and $1.78 will test your limits. And if you hit that limit? Modifiers like Ghost Notes (notes disappear before they hit you) and 1 Life (one miss and you lose) will push it even farther. Those same modifiers can also make the game easier (No Fail prevents health loss from missed notes) if that’s your cup of tea.

- If you’ve never played a VR game before and you want to be blown away by neon futurescapes, this is your game. The backgrounds in this game look absolutely insane (less so on the earliest charts added, MUCH more so on the newest charts added) and do just as much to get you in the zone as the note mapping itself does. The devs knew their game looked stunning, so they even added a lightshow “difficulty” that removes all notes so you can look at the pretty lights. Can confirm; I have done that, and they are very pretty. Backgrounds and saber color palettes are also free even if you don’t buy the music pack they were released in.

- You cannot discuss Beat Saber anywhere without someone bringing up the fact that the game is better with mods. The reason is because they are right (unfortunately they can get a bit pushy dogpiling on the vanilla game because of it). The base game only has so many songs; if you want custom charts mapped by community members, you have to download modding software. Mods don’t only grant custom charts and songs, but visual mods like Chroma (which adds a whole host of lighting effective that will BLOW YOU AWAY), gameplay mods like Mapping Extensions (technical mappers can do a lot with this, like change note speed mid-song and have notes move in direction other than forward), and leaderboard mods like BeatLeader (which uploads modded chart scores and replays to an external website for anyone to view) truly elevate the experience. Trust me, you will not regret it. The modding process varies by platform, but you can look up the Beat Saber Modding Group Discord and they’ll be happy to help out.

- It's not a selling point for everyone, but this game is a real workout. It’s not like it's some magical weight loss technique that will give you 8-pack abs or anything, but you can definitely break a sweat, especially if you’re playing a map with walls (which will make you squat or dodge to avoid losing health during a chart). If you like games that make you physically move to play, Beat Saber is more than enough to satisfy.

Cons:

- The mapping of some of the launch charts is…crude to say the least. They can be stiff, flat, and even boring. Sometimes they’re piss easy on their lowest difficulties, even for casuals (the OST 1 songs being the biggest culprit here). In other cases, the hardest difficulties might be made harder just because the mapping doesn’t flow well, leading players to miss a note because they literally couldn’t move their arm in the direction needed to cut a note fast enough (Expert+ Angel Voices anyone?). From my personal experience, any map pack released before 2021 (the first one released that year was OST 4) has generally worse mapping, though my opinion on the mapping only became more critical once I started playing custom charts.

- Keeping with the general jank of some of the charts, while every chart has a fair difficulty spread, these spreads are not necessarily consistent between charts. Expert+ Magic is much easier than Expert+ Final-Boss-Chan. A lot of this disparity has to do with BPMs (beats per minute) being much faster/. A better indicator of difficulty might be the NPS (notes per second); Expert+ Magic is 3.84 NPS, while Expert+ Final-Boss-Chan is 8.83 NPS. It's certainly not the end of the world, but it can be slightly annoying at times when you can clear one Expert+ chart and not another.

- Compared to the amount of paid music packs, the amount of free songs is substantially less. There are 45 free songs (OSTs 1 through 5, the Extras, and the Camellia pack) but 146 paid songs. If you’re dead set on not buying any DLC or downloading any mods, you could run out fairly quickly. Best option is to buy a DLC song pack or two, or just download mods and have a functionally infinite amount of charts to play).

- There is a 4-player multiplayer mode, where players can compete to see who gets the best score on a voted map, but good luck finding a lobby where everyone doesn’t immediately vote for the hardest songs in the game. If you’re a casual player, it might not be worth bothering unless you have a friend to make a private room with.

- This is not a con per se, more just an unfortunate observation. While mods do make the game infinitely more fun in my opinion, seeing players that claim the vanilla game is “terrible” and not worth playing without them can be a little disheartening. I played without mods for maybe a year and a half cumulatively, and I still had a blast even if I was limited in my song choice. The game is still good regardless of if you have mods. That being said, it can be hard to go back to vanilla mapping after you’ve gotten a taste of what the community has to offer.

Objective rating: 4.5 stars
Subjective rating: 5 stars