Symphonia Review – Review – Nintendo World Report

Symphonia is a straightforward platformer in the vein of Celeste and Super Meat Boy, where you make your way through large areas divided into individual rooms and groups of rooms. It skews a little bit easier compared to the aforementioned genre standouts, but its musical theme and charming presentation combine to form a satisfying experience. While the combo of gradual upgrades and optional traversal mechanics lend themselves to an adventure that is both better as it goes along and can be tailored to suit your playstyle and experience, frequent softlock-type glitches and a lack of standouts moments keep it from achieving the heights of other platformers.

Fans of the genre will enjoy the way in which Symphonia stays true to its orchestra-themed world throughout. Cogs, levers, and pulleys give way to windmills, trumpet tunnels, and an array of platforms, some breakable, some rotating, and others button-activated. The audio-visual elements of the game are memorable and are what distinguishes Symphonia from its contemporaries.

You wield a violin that can be used initially to gain extra jump height like a Scrooge McDuck pogo stick jump (DuckTales, Woo Hoo!) or played to activate gates and platforms. You also gain a dash and hook shot in later areas that allow you to solve the unique challenges that these more challenging rooms contain. Secret rooms and out-of-the-way coins reward you with new moves that can be toggled on and off from the main menu or the crumbs of a story unraveling the wheres and wherefores of the game world.

Even though the minute to minute gameplay is solid, there were numerous occasions during my playthrough where my character would softlock after playing the violin. The playing animation would fail to disappear and my movement would be locked in one direction, with all buttons rendered useless. The only solution when this occurred was to reset the game entirely, but frequent auto saves were a saving grace here.

Symphonia represents a welcome starting point for players who want to cut their teeth on a more approachable precision platformer. Its difficulty curve is a gentle one, so those looking for something a bit more fiendish may want to skip this concert. The softlocking was frustrating but I enjoyed my time with the fairly brisk campaign.