Symphony

 PC
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 54 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 54
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 54
  3. Negative: 6 out of 54

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  1. sh4dow
    Dec 8, 2012
    6
    This could have easily been as big (and better) than Audiosurf. Unfortunately, the ridiculously clunky implementation of leaderboards (which is really what these kind of games are mostly about - at least to me) and overall very bad interface keep it from being that.
    It looks like it was designed for mobile platforms and there was NO optimization for PC gaming whatsoever. HUGE text and    This could have easily been as big (and better) than Audiosurf. Unfortunately, the ridiculously clunky implementation of leaderboards (which is really what these kind of games are mostly about - at least to me) and overall very bad interface keep it from being that.
    It looks like it was designed for mobile platforms and there was NO optimization for PC gaming whatsoever. HUGE text and mouse input only (and on a general note: one cannot store weapon loadouts. It's tremendous fun having to swap all those weapons depending on what difficulty one chooses...). But worse than that, you can't see anywhere which songs were already played by others, you have to let the game analyze a whole song (which takes about 20 seconds) and then you still have to click a button just to check whether there are leaderboards for that particular song. Good luck finding one. Aside from the songs that come with the game and those that are discussed on the GOG forums I have not found a single one so far. And... the fact that there may not be a huge diversity of songs that have been played by people (I can't say for sure because I don't have the time to let the game analyze 100 songs just to check that) wouldn't even be so bad if they would either at least show in the song list which songs have leaderboards or have a catalog somewhere, even if it is just on their website. SOMETHING, damn it!
    They should've ditched the whole story aspect (which I find just annoying aside from the somewhat interesting boss battles) and concentrated on the things mentioned above instead. It could have been so great because while I like the interface of Audiosurf, I don't really like the gameplay of it. With Symphony, I would LOVE the basic gameplay but without proper leaderboards it's just useless. So in a way, my score is somewhat generous. But... it does look and play very well and I see all the potential that it has. It seems such a waste because it seems to me that implementing those things I mentioned probably would just take them 5% of the time that it took to create this whole game. And it could catapult it from nice but useless to cult status.    … Expand
  2. FurthestFlung
    Jul 3, 2013
    6
    While this is a great game in concept, in implementation, it stumbles. The procedural game setup can always be a double-edged sword, since, even if you "never get the same layout twice" by randomizing the stages, if all the stages just consist of the same 6 things over and over, then if you've seen one, you've really seen it all. Symphony has not just too few enemies to stayWhile this is a great game in concept, in implementation, it stumbles. The procedural game setup can always be a double-edged sword, since, even if you "never get the same layout twice" by randomizing the stages, if all the stages just consist of the same 6 things over and over, then if you've seen one, you've really seen it all. Symphony has not just too few enemies to stay entertaining, it has the same small number of enemies flying in the same small number of patterns over and over again. In fact, there are so few patterns of enemy flight paths that you frequently find ships overlapping!

    There is another major problem in the game, in that, apparently fearing that they might make some songs too hard or others too easy, they decided to give the player infinite lives, a ship so huge you can't possibly dodge anything, but make it take tons of hits and regenerate with every enemy killed (including by ramming your ship into it), so there's basically no skill to the game at all, you just play by buying up more expensive weapons for your ship to be able to handle higher levels that give you more cash to upgrade your weapons enough to handle the next highest level.

    In general, I think how much you like this game depends on how much you've played it. It's fun for the first few hours, but notably, only 0.5% of players ever actually played the game for 12 hours. That, right there, shows exactly the problem in the game. It just doesn't have enough variety to keep people coming back past playing their favorite 20 songs or so.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

94
#94 Best PC Game of 2012
93
#93 Most Shared PC Game of 2012

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. PC PowerPlay
    Oct 11, 2012
    60
    Busy and discordant. [Oct 2012, p.76]
  2. PC Gamer
    Oct 5, 2012
    84
    Symphony is fun, pure and simple. [Dec 2012, p.75]
  3. Games.cz
    Sep 18, 2012
    80
    This well-made musical shoot 'em up probably won't live up to the classics, but it manages to entertain for long hours. Fortunately, some flaws here and there do not bring the gameplay enjoyment down. If you love music and shoot 'em ups at least a bit, you can't go wrong with Symphony.
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