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I understand why journalists are so eager to fall back on direct name-drop comparisons in their analogies - it's not only easier for the writer to convey a meaning, but even the lowest-common-denominator reading what you wrote will understand if you paint it in blatant enough colors.
For example, I could say that Symphony is another in a long line of algorithmically-generated music games that take songs from your library and use them to generate challenge, and that this one is unique for its method of unlocking stronger upgrades. Or I could say "If Beat Hazard is Music Asteroids, Symphony is Music Galaga."
Which gives you a better idea of how the game feels to play?
You do have vertical mobility, so I guess it's more like Gaplus than Galaga, but generally you're gonna be sticking toward the bottom unless you have an odd weapon setup - you can't actually aim directly behind you, even if you can set up your side-guns to shoot behind you at about 30 degree angles. You unlock powerups and new weapons not through arbitrary in-game point thresholds (like is the case with Beat Hazard), but instead by clearing songs - one song unlocks one powerup or weapon, at random, and you can (and are encouraged - each weapon only can be used on one of your four guns) unlock duplicates if you have enough songs to mess with.
Unlike most games like this, Symphony tries to have a plot. It's really goofy and dumb and involves Satan or someone similar possessing your music library and you have to exorcise him and this is some Early 1980s Cheese but you know what, it's fine except when your song gets interrupted in order for Musifer to give a heavily digitized grumble about how you won't defeat THIS giant floating head and then you get into a boss battle. Nothing really to complain about.
Nah, my problem - and the reason I mark this as "headached" - is that the graphics are just... a mess. Everything's vector-drawn ala Tempest (or ala Audiosurf, if you want to have a rhythm game analogue instead of a shmup one), with colors shifting based on the intensity of the music/enemies. There's so goddamn many particle effects flying around that you'd think it was Second Life, and it becomes increasingly hard to see projectiles when you're dodging around enemies that move like someone put meth in their espresso today.
Don't get me wrong. It's a fun game. I appreciate that it has a few checks and balances that Beat Hazard and Audiosurf don't have - namely, it actually won't let you play any song under 90 seconds (a minute and a half), and if you try, it gives you an error and quietly removes that song from the pool of selections. (As someone who has a lot of uncurated music soundtracks with like 30 second RPG victory themes, there's a lot of chaff for me to weed through if I just import my whole music library.)
I just wish it weren't so visually overwhelming.
For example, I could say that Symphony is another in a long line of algorithmically-generated music games that take songs from your library and use them to generate challenge, and that this one is unique for its method of unlocking stronger upgrades. Or I could say "If Beat Hazard is Music Asteroids, Symphony is Music Galaga."
Which gives you a better idea of how the game feels to play?
You do have vertical mobility, so I guess it's more like Gaplus than Galaga, but generally you're gonna be sticking toward the bottom unless you have an odd weapon setup - you can't actually aim directly behind you, even if you can set up your side-guns to shoot behind you at about 30 degree angles. You unlock powerups and new weapons not through arbitrary in-game point thresholds (like is the case with Beat Hazard), but instead by clearing songs - one song unlocks one powerup or weapon, at random, and you can (and are encouraged - each weapon only can be used on one of your four guns) unlock duplicates if you have enough songs to mess with.
Unlike most games like this, Symphony tries to have a plot. It's really goofy and dumb and involves Satan or someone similar possessing your music library and you have to exorcise him and this is some Early 1980s Cheese but you know what, it's fine except when your song gets interrupted in order for Musifer to give a heavily digitized grumble about how you won't defeat THIS giant floating head and then you get into a boss battle. Nothing really to complain about.
Nah, my problem - and the reason I mark this as "headached" - is that the graphics are just... a mess. Everything's vector-drawn ala Tempest (or ala Audiosurf, if you want to have a rhythm game analogue instead of a shmup one), with colors shifting based on the intensity of the music/enemies. There's so goddamn many particle effects flying around that you'd think it was Second Life, and it becomes increasingly hard to see projectiles when you're dodging around enemies that move like someone put meth in their espresso today.
Don't get me wrong. It's a fun game. I appreciate that it has a few checks and balances that Beat Hazard and Audiosurf don't have - namely, it actually won't let you play any song under 90 seconds (a minute and a half), and if you try, it gives you an error and quietly removes that song from the pool of selections. (As someone who has a lot of uncurated music soundtracks with like 30 second RPG victory themes, there's a lot of chaff for me to weed through if I just import my whole music library.)
I just wish it weren't so visually overwhelming.