If you’re looking forward to Drastic Games upcoming mix of musical mayhem and dungeon crawling adventure, then we dove into the world of Symphonia early for a hands on demo of Soundfall.
It’s been years since I first caught Soundfall’s Fig crowdfunding campaign, unveiling a musical questline to match any concept album. Due to press play spring 2022, this mix of cartoon graphics and rhythm based blasters struck a chord with me long before the like of BPM made it onto desktops, but its only now that this idea is nearing release.
With plenty of genre mashups on the market, it might sound like a difficult sell for developer Drastic Games and publisher Noodlecake to push this title to the top of the pile, but Soundfall was quick to capture our attention. The tapestry of bright bopping backgrounds, friendly characters, and some vibrant soundscapes makes this title stand out from the demon infested realms of Doom inspired BPM and other spooky hack and slash adventures. Instead, players picking up Soundfall for the first time will take the role of a Guardian of Harmony, pulled out of a run of the mill reality to a magical world driven by music. In order to get back, these Guardians will need to traverse a range of biomes, overcomes a series of challenges, and beat back an ancient evil as it returns to this land. All seems pretty straight forward so far, and yet Soundfall immediately makes an sublime stage entrance.
While the fundamental aim is far from unique, what makes Soundfall special is the implementation. The opening scenes introduce some colorful characterization and hand drawn animation that incorporates lots of free flowing lines and movement. If you’re an anime fan this is a far throw from what you know but the art direction gives the whole experience a softer edge than other dank dungeon experiences. This light touch extends beyond the fully formed interludes of Soundfall, off into the visual novel style narrative, while level design is equally inviting. The bright green overworld of Symphonia seems heavily inspired by the Mario World series, while there’s a definite hint of games like Link’s Awakening in the first set of playable zones. Stepping onto the ground of Symphonia and flicking past the initial story opening presents a verdant world full of solid colors and soft shapes. Oversized decorations, shrubbery that sways in time with the music, and even boom boxes are scattered around some simple if enjoyable environments.
Although early level design does fell quite linear with few environmental obstacles or puzzles, we only got to play through areas that are considered warmup zones. Besides, the early challenge is understanding how to play before demanding more onerous activities. The control scheme doesn’t get exotic, using the analog sticks to move and aim with the shoulder buttons doing most of the damage. Getting to grips with our Guardian is intuitive and feels responsive enough that it might not normally get a mention, but here timing and tuning is of upmost importance.
On The Beat
Players picking their way through a range of dungeons will be able to shoot, slash, and dodge around levels, but won’t get far without playing in time. Every environment is accompanied by its own score and a rhythm bar that pulses along the bottom of the screen. Each tracks picks from a sizeable pool of artists and comes with its own tempo. It is quickly evident that this is critical to the core combat mechanics of Soundfall. Blasting or slashing through the faceless hordes of the Discordians that emerge will enhance attacks, adding a powerful elemental blast and amping up the damage dealt. Firing out of time still produces a projectile but doesn’t include any bonuses. While this sounds like a rather lenient penalty, Soundfall walks a line between easing players in and punishing thoughtless play. There is some leeway for mistakes but ignore the melodies emanating around you and any weapon you wield will likely overheat, locking you out until it cools down. This is Soundfall’s equivalent to playing bum notes in Guitar hero, although its nota direct analogy.
There’s also plenty of help to keep thighs on tempo. Aside from the audible beat of the ambient electronica, there’s the aforementioned tempo bar, and a pulsating diamond that follows the player character on screen. For those that experience a sizeable input lag due to hardware or human frailty, then Soundfall also allows for timing adjustments in the options menu. It’s simplistic but welcome and this calibration means anybody having difficulty timing things just right can still play along.
Combat isn’t simply driven by musical variation. Aside from an awesome melee attack that can clear hordes of Discordians in a single swipe, the character progression provides tons of new ways to shoot and loot. Like any dungeon crawler gold is a staple but the gear is probably more interesting. Typical armour upgrades, power, range, and elemental attack types are familiar concepts, but weapon classes allow for a different approach to each area in Soundfall. Whether it’s a wide area repeater that fires three shots at a time or a close quarter cannon that is slow and incredibly powerful, Soundfall seems to provide plenty of options. There will be 50 pieces of equipment to pick from when the game goes live, making our first impressions jsut a small slice of what can be accomplished, and while we didn’t have an opportunity to delve into more than one character class, the breadth of play choices is already obvious.
That variety is evidently necessary as the faceless Discordians, a wave of glowing red subterranean monsters, provide plenty of viable targets. While waves of skittering little minions might try to overpower you during early levels, much bigger melee focused monster are mixed in among teams of ranged adversaries aiming to catch you in a crossfire. There’s something of a tactical choice to make as these opponents swarm the stages and things get a little busy. It’s up to players to pick the right weapon, decide when to dodge and, and when to draw to trash mobs into an ambush of your own.
When these Discordians do surge forward, things can get a little manic. Soundfall seems to pack levels full of closed stages that must be cleared before moving on, making combat contained and putting plenty of pressure on players to act before the next wave of nasties make their way into your crosshairs. Combat isn’t just varied, it’s also fun and feels relatively fluid. There’s a little tweaking to be done, but my overall experience is that Soundfall is far more than another rhythm based button basher. There’s plenty of Hyrule in here, but Symphonia has a style and charm all its own. There’s a lot more of Soundfall to see and you can find out more about over on the official website now.
