Symphony

Picked this up on sale expecting an Audiosurf clone and got something closer to music Galaga, which I ended up liking a lot more than I thought I would. Throwing my own tracks at it and watching the screen shift from calm blue to angry orange when the chorus kicks in never really got old, and swapping between Iron Maiden and something classical keeps every run feeling different. Unlocking weapons after each new song and tweaking the firing angles on all four slots gave me a reason to keep digging through albums I hadn't played in years. It's not perfect though: the particle effects get so thick that enemy bullets vanish into the background, the first few bosses are a grind before the higher difficulties open up, and browsing a big library with no proper search is painful. Still, if you like Beat Hazard style shooters and have a decent music collection, grab it on sale and just point it at a few folders instead of your whole drive.

A "music hell" shooter sounds like a good idea, but simple things like clunky menu, overly long respawn times and sluggish ship movement kill the fun. Needs work.

Despite features like the leaderboard no longer working and needing to have versions of your own songs in specific formats saved, this game feels remarkably fresh. It's vibrant, responds to music well, and is a generally really great time. Being able to upgrade your ship is a fun quirk, and that there's a storyline really helps. If you are using a controller, it's very important you go into controller settings and choose "gamepad", otherwise you're going to potentially hit a whole host of issues. I'd also recommend the beta branch or the testing one. Overall, I'm really impressed by the game and can't believe it holds up this well after 15 years. Would love a sequel someday.

It's like playing Space Invaders with your own music in the background. Cool stuff!

One of the best games I had until it stopped working. No fan patches have been able to fix it so far for me.

So much fun!