History VideoGame / Symphony

Your ship has four slots for a range of weapons, each of which can be pivoted to aim a different direction. Each time you beat a different track, you can unlock a new weapon (these will be repeated after a point). You can then upgrade these weapons (all but your starting blasters) by spending both normal points (Inspiration) and points earned by reaching point targets. However, you can also get "[[RareRandomDrops Furia weapons]]", stronger versions of the normal kind, that do more damage, but consequently cost more to upgrade. Another thing to note about weapons is that the stronger your ship, the lower the score multiplier at the end for the leaderboards. Seeing as enemies' defenses increase with difficulty, though, good luck trying to get a multiplier above a fraction. Your real Inspiration and Kudos are unaffected, though, and you earn more Kudos on higher difficulties.

Overall, the game is fun, unique, and pretty cool, though there are a few glitches. [[JustOneMoreLevel It can also get addicting.]]

* DisneyAcidSequence: Sometimes the visual effect are like this.

* EverythingDances: The enemies spawn and fire to the beat of the music, also your fire rate increases when the song gets more intense.
* EvilSoundsDeep: Whatever it's voice changes to, the BigBad's voice sounds deep.
* ExcusePlot: This being and it's forces are invading your music, to take over your universe! Strange angle for universal domination, but hey it's an excuse to shoot stuff to your music.

* NintendoHard: Good luck trying to get any of the Kudos multipliers on Forte or above difficulty, unless you're a thirteen-year-old mainlining Adderall.

* IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels: Using musical notations for loudness, from softest (easiest) to loudest (hardest): Pianissimo, Piano[[note]][[IThoughtItMeant no, not the instrument]]; "piano" means "soft" in sheet music notation[[/note]], Mezzo-forte, Forte, and Fortissimo.

* EpicRocking: You can play songs up to 10 minutes. The dev team is planning to expand this limit. At least, it's one of the most requested things on their forums, in any case...

* PowerUps: Grabbing notes repairs your ship, and lightning bolts upgrades one of weapons. There are also a couple of unlockable power ups, including bombs and invincibility.

-->''Your music is under attack. You must liberate it.''
---> --Trailer

In the vein of ''VideoGame/{{Audiosurf}}'', ''Symphony'' is an action game that generates its levels by analyzing your own music. However, unlike ''Audiosurf'', ''Symphony'' is a scrolling shooter--and has a plot. Created by Empty Clip Studios in 2012, the game runs on the RapidFire Engine, the very same engine used by the developer's previous big game, ''Groovin' Blocks'' for WiiWare (and later Wii with a retail release). The graphics are abstract, smooth, and have a translucent feel, emphasizing pure shape and color over texture, and the interface is very basic and simple, both qualities of ''Groovin' Blocks''.

The plot goes that an unknown entity suddenly decides to assault your precious music collection (and the included soundtrack), and you must defeat it by freeing the souls of five great composers, stopping something called the Symphony of Souls from allowing this entity to cause havoc. It isn't an especially deep plot, but it's still notable due to the lack of plots in games like this. That, and the entity is pretty interesting; he appears by taking up the whole screen, glaring at you with his GlowingEyesOfDoom, and speaking in a voice that randomly modulates between a normal, tenor-voiced man to a deep, distorted, growly tone. [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou And then proceeds to talk directly to you--the player--often taunting and threatening you.]]

The gameplay is tight, but how intense it is depends on literally how intense the track is. The more intense the music gets, the quicker and trickier the enemies move. This is also relative to the track--if you put in a quiet one, the most-intense parts of that track will register as the higher intensity mode in the game. The scoring is also different from other shooters. Whereas most shooters give you points for destroying enemies, the enemies drop the points on the field when defeated. Meaning you have to go over and pick them up before they fade away, or you won't score the points. Which is hard when there are tons of enemies on the field almost constantly. Add to this the fact that you lose a considerable amount of points when you die (you otherwise have infinite lives), and you've got a true challenge on higher difficulties.

Your ship has four slots for a range of weapons, each of which can be pivoted to aim a different direction. Each time you beat a different track, you can unlock a new weapon. (These will be repeats after a point.) You can then upgrade these weapons (all but your starting blasters) by spending both normal points (Inspiration) and points earned by reaching point targets. However, you can also get [[RareRandomDrops "Furia" weapons]], stronger versions of the normal kind, that do more damage, but consequently cost more to upgrade. Another thing to note about weapons is that the stronger your ship, the lower the score multiplier at the end for the leaderboards. Seeing as enemies' defenses increase with difficulty, though, good luck trying to get a multiplier above a fraction. Your real Inspiration and Kudos are unaffected, though, and you earn more Kudos on higher difficulties.

Until you beat the game, occasionally, a boss might barge into a track, staying in that track if you decide to quit or lose against it. You fight a boss three times, in three separate tracks, until you clear a page of the Symphony of Souls. The boss gets harder each time, naturally, and the next boss you fight after one set has different tactics. [[TimedMission Oh, and you're timed,]] [[JustifiedTrope but this IS a music game, so it makes sense.]] And you don't get to submit your score to the leaderboards on that song the first time through, either; this is probably because the boss drops a TON of Inspiration after you defeat it.

* DimensionLord: The BigBad

* SpiritualSuccessor: To BeatHazard, another ShootEmUp MusicPlayerGame.
* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: The BigBad speaks and taunts to you before and after you face a boss, and other times throughout the game..
* ThePowerOfRock: Whenever you play a rock song. Unlike BeatHazard, you don't need to play an intense song in order to use more firepower.

* XMeetsY: {{VideoGame/Audiosurf}} meets {{Galaga}}. At higher difficulties (or with the right music) Audiosurf meets VideoGame/{{Touhou}} isn't a stretch.

Until you beat the game, occasionally, a boss might barge into a track, staying in that track if you decide to quit or lose against it. You fight a boss three times, in three separate tracks, until you clear a page of the Symphony of Souls. The boss gets harder each time, naturally, and the next boss you fight after one set has different tactics. [[TimeBasedMission Oh, and you're timed,]] [[JustifiedTrope but this IS a music game, so it makes sense.]] And you don't get to submit your score to the leaderboards on that song the first time through, either; this is probably because the boss drops a TON of Inspiration after you defeat it.

Overall, the game is fun, unique, and pretty cool. It can also get addicting, so beware. It's also just been released, so expect a few glitches here and there.

* EpicRocking: For those interested in playing long songs, can play songs up to 10 minutes.
** The dev team is planning to expand this limit. At least, it's one of the most requested things on their forums, in any case...

* NintendoHard / ImpossibleByDesign: Good luck trying to get any of the Kudos multipliers on Forte or above difficulty, unless you're a thirteen-year-old mainlining Adderall.

* TronLines: Everything is '''made''' of these!

In the vein of ''{{Audiosurf}}'', ''Symphony'' is an action game that generates its levels by analyzing your own music. However, unlike ''Audiosurf'', ''Symphony'' is a scrolling shooter--and has a plot. Created by Empty Clip Studios in 2012, the game runs on the RapidFire Engine, the very same engine used by the developer's previous big game, ''Groovin' Blocks'' for WiiWare (and later Wii with a retail release). The graphics are abstract, smooth, and have a translucent feel, emphasizing pure shape and color over texture, and the interface is very basic and simple, both qualities of ''Groovin' Blocks''.

* XMeetsY: {{VideoGame/Audiosurf}} meets {{Galaga}}. At higher difficulties (or with the right music) Audiosurf meets {{Touhou}} isn't a stretch.

* TronLines: Everything is '''made''' of these!

* ThePowerOfRock: Whenever you play a rock song. Unlike BeatHazard, it you don't need to play an intense song in order to use more firepower, but that shouldn't stop you.

* MusicalAssassin: Both you can your enemies firepower increases during the more intense parts of the song. Shown when the graphics become a more intense color.

* ThePowerOfRock: Whenever you play a rock song. Unlike BeatHazard, it you don't need to play an intense song in order to use more firepower, but that shouldn't stop you.

* EpicRocking: For those interested in songs, sadly this game only allows songs up to 10 minutes.

* ThePowerOfRock: Whenever you play a rock song. Unlike BeatHarzard, it you don't need to play an intense song in order to use more firepower, but that shouldn't stop you.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To BeatHazard, another ShootEmUp MusicPlayerGame.

* MusicPlayerGame: Of the vertical shooter variety.

* MultiversalConqueror: The BigBad at times claims to be this.

Overall, the game is fun, unique, and pretty cool. It can also get addicting, so beware. It's also just been released, so expect a few glitches here and there.

Until you beat the game, occasionally, a boss might barge into a track, staying in that track if you decide to quit or lose against it. You fight a boss three times, in three separate tracks, until you clear a page of the Symphony of Souls. The boss gets harder each time, naturally, and the next boss you fight after one set has different tactics. [[TimeBasedMission Oh, and you're timed,]] [[Justified but this IS a music game, so it makes sense.]] And you don't get to submit your score to the leaderboards on that song the first time through, either; this is probably because the boss drops a TON of Inspiration after you defeat it.