In one of my many dice rolls of game purchases in 2026, I picked up a rhythm action game that is built around a Romanian hip-hop duo called Bazooka. They’ve released seven albums, rap in their native language, and create music videos full of arm swinging, chain smoking, beer drinking, and a disproportionate amount of hi-vis clothing. Everything says this could be a disaster… but I love a rhythm game, so I went in anyway.
The results are far better than I could have imagined.
Bazooka: Rhythm Game comes with 30 songs, with almost a third of them being unlocked through in-game currency for completing tracks. Romanian hip-hop is not my go-to genre at all, and whilst this isn’t music I’d usually listen to, some tracks have choruses with playground catchiness. There’s a lot of vocal noises and throwbacks to 90’s “woah-oh-oh” style melodies, often with classical samples or Romanian accordion as part of the backing. You can select any of the available songs and play them initially on Baby or Normal mode, with a Devil mode unlockable through general play. Bazooka follows a Bemani 4 arrow set-up, with press or hold triggers for the plays to follow and match. You can’t fail a song, but you will be graded a medal depending on how many misses you collect over the course of a song. Unlike some music games, it seems that Bazooka provides the full song most of the time, with a few sounding like they fade out early. That means you’ve plenty of time to get into the groove and enjoy either the music video or the logo with video imposed onto it as you play.
What I enjoyed most about Bazooka was its rhythm charts. They continuously switch up which instrument is leading the chart. Sometimes it’s the beat, then it’s the bass, then it might be the synths, or it could be the vocals. The charts make a lot of use of the hold and multiple key presses. The arrows are mapped out to A, S, K and L on the keyboard, and Bazooka has no issue with asking you to hold three buttons and rhythmically tap a fourth. That’s just in normal mode, too. When the vocals get silly, the rhythm charts will let your fingers skip around. Many more serious rhythm games get charts wrong and are a poorer game than Bazooka as a result. I may not be a fan of the music itself, but the rhythm charts are well done and varied.
I also like the way failure is handled. As mentioned earlier, you can’t lose a song, but if you miss arrows or accidentally press buttons you shouldn’t; your combo returns zero. If you get the next move wrong, you’ll go to -1 as a combo, and you can keep going in the minuses, making things worse. As you do, the music fades away to sound like it’s happening in another room and the members of Bazooka sigh and take over the audio with a Romanian conversation. I’ve no idea what they are saying, but I assume we’re being dissed. Similarly, the tutorial song features an iconic attempt to sing the English chav saying “bottle of water” with a thick Romanian accent. It was joyous.
There’s plenty of game to be had here for the price. As you play, you’ll earn currency to unlock photos of Bazooka, more songs, and the devil mode. I’d say devil mode equates to a level 10 song in DJ Max, so it’s a decent challenge to master. Each song has an online leaderboard and friends’ leaderboards, too. I came in expecting a low-budget cash cow that would barely work. Instead, there are some genuinely enjoyable rhythm charts to tackle against hip-hop songs that channel secondary school playground energy. Much better than expected!
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