Review: DJMax Respect (Sony PlayStation 4)

Review by Matt S. 

For the first hour of DJMax Respect, to say I loathed the game would be an understatement. I love rhythm games, as a rule of thumb, and I especially like them when they're traditional. DJMax's gameplay system features icons flying from the top of the screen downwards, and you need to press the relevant button at the right time to match the music to earn a score. It doesn't come more traditional than that, so in theory I should have loved it, but I've never played a game so keen to throw players to the sharks and leave them to flounder before. It's not just that I found the game hard. I also found it immensely confounding, unforgiving, and intense, to the point where it was all simply unenjoyable. No rhythm game should be looking to "fail" players on a three star (out of ten) difficulty rating. DJMax seemed to take glee in that.

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