Symphonia is a 2D platformer that has aspects of Metroidvania but doesn’t fully embrace that model. There are sections where you wouldn’t be able to reach the first time you encounter it, but they are usually for a collectible so it’s not as a whole new area unlocks, and you are supposed to backtrack to try and progress the game.
You play as a violinist, and the game’s story doesn’t have any voiced dialogue, and there is very limited written dialogue. It’s told mostly through the visuals. The violinist travels to the Heart of Symphonia, in the hopes of meeting the orchestra only to find all its members missing. The violinist then goes ahead to find the missing members return them. The game is in 2D, so you (usually) go from left to right. The game has gorgeous art as well, and the levels look stunning.
As a platformer at heart, the jumping mechanics, and the feel of it, are extremely important. Symphonia nails that. The normal jump is so so but use the right trigger and the Violinist will use the bow from the violin to strike the ground to jump higher. Well, basically it’s just a higher jump but the feeling as if you’re vaulting off a pole is addictive, and it makes platforming a whole lot more fun.
There are no enemies in this game, it’s pure platforming, which makes the level designs more important as there is nothing else to distract you. The game requires some precise platforming but has a lot of leeway so that it doesn’t feel unfair or stalls you for too long. Usually you are able to figure out what to do and give it a few tries to progress. Dying is not punishing as you respawn at the start of that section, and each section is small enough so that it is not that painful to redo.
Another major ability also utilizes the bow. Whenever you see a red cushion, this means that the Violinist can stick to it (like a vampire) and then vault off it. It can be finnicky as you can get confused between using the normal jump button and using the trigger button, but once you get used to it, it’s smooth and satisfying. The wall jump mechanic is like every other game and doesn’t feel quite as polished as the other gameplay elements.
Apart from jumping, the Violinist can also play his violin. Playing it anywhere doesn’t really do much, but at certain points in the game, he can play it for a collectible. There are other types of collectibles in the form of notes that are scattered through the levels, a lot of them are obvious, even though most of them require you to go out of your way to collect it.
There are four main areas, with the first one being a tutorial of sorts. As the difficulty gets higher progressing through the areas, there are different types of obstacles rangin from rotating boxes spikes and air currents. There are some sections where you will die multiple times because it is hugely reliant on getting the timing perfect. Earlier on, it’s annoying but manageable as you don’t feel it is completely impossible, so you keep trying until you get through it. In the later areas, the last one in particular, it crosses the line and becomes unfair. It’s frustrating when it is so reliant on perfect timing because then you get a de facto time limit. If you don’t do it in one go, you’ll die.
When you have a time limit, it feels like it wrestles control away from you. The platforming sections are less about pure skill where you can do it at your own time, and more about forcing you to play it the developer’s way and restricting you. Now you must rush through those sections and it’s not as fun if you don’t like that type of gameplay. The later gimmicks / abilities can be imprecise, especially the one where you latch onto something, but it is slippery and doesn’t suit using a controller.
Unfortunately, where the controls feel tight in the beginning, it loses that by the end. If you get to do it at your own time, it’s fine but combined with the forced timed sections and it’s a recipe for disaster. For a game billed as a “non-violent” platformer, there is an actual final boss that is anything if not violet, and it’s one of the worst levels, bringing out all the flaws of the control scheme. The story takes three to four hours to complete and a lot more if you want to collect everything (which are usually the hardest challenges). However, there is a sense of artificially extending the gametime since it stretches the final level’s five to ten minute section into over half an hour as you are forced to repeat huge sections of it due to dying.
Overall, Symphonia starts off as a strong platformer, and refreshingly fun thanks to its focus on pure platforming. It was perfectly balanced and you wanted more. However, by the last third of the game, it destroys all its goodwill with the introduction of some imprecise abilities combined with lazier level designs that are nowhere near as tight as it should be. You know what to do, even though it becomes ever more reliant on trial and error gameplay, but the control scheme fails you. It crosses the line with its final boss and its seemingly never ending final section that just feels unfair and cheap.
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