Variety Is the Spice of Music: MUSYNX Review

Player(s): 1
Platform(s): Nintendo Switch

The rhythm game genre is easily one of the most enjoyable video game experiences to me. Thankfully, the Nintendo Switch has no shortage of such games, with MUSYNX joining the family.

The shop wasn't functional at the time of this review.

MUSYNX was originally released on mobile platforms and will now see a release on the Nintendo Switch. If you’ve played the likes of Superbeat: XONiC and VOEZ, then you are already familiar with the type of game that acttil likes to make sure we have in our hands. Despite being different developers, the other games were highly polished experiences, and MUSYNX is no different.

The types of button presses are nothing unique

As a rhythm game, the most important things you are likely interested in are the music selection and the gameplay precision. Let’s start with the gameplay and interface. Upon booting up the game, you’re greeted with a barebones menu that has all the songs in a single row. There was no option that I could find to sort through the music, which is a tad bit annoying when there are 50+ songs. They aren’t organized by difficulty, but rather by musical genre. On the bright side, it saves the cursor location on the last song you played, so if you are doing them in order then it’s easy to continue where you left off. Navigation isn’t difficult, allowing for buttons or touch screen, being simple and functional. I just wish it was better organized.

Is that Icey? Why yes, it is!

The gameplay itself doesn’t suffer, though. The button presses are accurate, and reasonably forgiving while avoiding being laughably easy. It’s nice that the game retains the touch screen controls from its mobile counterpart, while allowing for buttons as well. I mostly used buttons, as I’m not a fan of touch screen, but I spent enough time with touch screen controls to know that it’s equally responsive. The backdrops, of which there are a few depending on the genre of the song, are pretty and crisp while avoiding being distracting. I never had any trouble focusing on the incoming notes no matter how hard the song was, which is an unfortunate flaw I’ve seen in some other rhythm games I’ve played.  Each song has its own gorgeous artwork to accompany it, which is a nice touch. The difficulty progression is one of my favorite things about MUSYNX.

A little customization for how the game flows.

As mentioned earlier, there is no difficulty organization, so if you want to play through each song by order of difficulty, you will have to scroll through the entire library every time you finish a difficulty level. Annoying navigation aside, playing in this order made it easy to get a hold of the mechanics and I never felt overwhelmed as the songs got progressively challenging. To add to the ramping up challenge, there are effectively 6 levels of overall difficulty beyond the individual songs’ difficulty ratings. The game can be played in a 4-note and a 6-note level, depending on how challenging you want it to be. On top of that, there is an easy, hard and inferno mode for all the songs in each note count. This not only provides a flexible challenge range for the player, but also adds a lot of replay value if you’re an incessant completionist like myself. I’m giving the challenge level of the game a lot of praise for being balanced, but there is one glaring issue: I’m an experienced rhythm game player. If you’re relatively new to the genre, MUSYNX does absolutely nothing to ease you into the experience. A quick and simple tutorial explaining how to play would have been sufficient, but not even that is included. I get that the game is advertised for the ‘hardcore’ crowd, but that doesn’t excuse alienating a whole crowd of players over something that could be amended with such a simple solution. Rhythm games can be very daunting for those who aren’t familiar with how to play, and the lack of a tutorial could easily force some players to be overwhelmed and shy away from playing. Beyond this issue, I was really happy with the level of challenge that this game provided.

The traditional setting...

...is one of the more challenging to follow.

To help accentuate the broad level of challenge is the fact that there are multiple play options. You can control the speed of the notes to meet your needs. You can also control how loud the sound effects are from you hitting the notes, depending on how you like it (minus a handful of songs that force you to use their settings). Pressing the notes is actually what makes the music play, so parts of the song won’t play if you are missing notes. Not a big deal, as this is how rhythm games usually are, but it’s good to be aware of.

The 8-bit themed setting being based on sushi made me really hungry.

Now let’s take a moment to look at the music itself. While being an Asian themed rhythm game like the other games acttil has helped bring to the Switch, this one offers an interesting level of variety. Not only is there the standard electronic music, but there are also a bunch of traditional Chinese style songs, a variety of instrumental songs and even some 8-bit songs along with a handful of Japanese and English. One thing I noticed is that a lot of the Western created music is instrumental, leading to most of the vocal tracks being Asian. That being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed most of the music selection. There’s a lot of very good talent that was put into the music in MUSYNX and that’s one of its strongest points. As a side note, I had the ability to go through every song at least once to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

Some of the visuals are easier to follow than others.

The music is great, the game looks crisp and it plays well. These are all important factors in a good rhythm game. There is one gaping hole though: lack of features. MUSYNX is a barebones rhythm game that doesn’t give you any incentive to work towards completion beyond having a pretty S or better rating next to the song. There’s no story mode, there’s nothing to unlock beyond inferno mode, no demo mode, no free play, nothing at all. This is a huge disappointment considering how great the rest of the game is. There was no work put into making this a fulfilling console experience, and as a result it still feels, at the core, like a mobile game.

The artwork is made to reflect on the type of song.

If you’re here solely for a tight and precise way to play over 50 varied and well-done songs, then MUSYNX is the way to go. The lack of tutorial and further features along with lack of song organization may be a turn off for some, but if you can get past those flaws you will find an enjoyable game. I was able to go through the entire game on 4-note as well as about half of it on 6-note before getting to this review. Due to the lack of a proper timekeeping feature on the Switch, I’m not entirely sure how much time I spent, since I would sit down for long sessions without realizing how much time had passed. That should give you an idea of how much I enjoyed the game though.

Don't be fooled by the more accessible EX ranks in 'EZ' mode.

MUSYNX is set to release on the Nintendo Switch on the eShop (pre-purchase available) for $26.99 on 6/21 while the physical version releases a little earlier for $29.99 on 6/19.

- Teepu

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Gameplay: B
Graphics: A-
Sound: A+
Value: C

OVERALL: B+

Pros:
+ Fantastic selection of music.
+ Plenty of difficulty options for a broad range of players.
+ Varied backdrops add some nice visual variety based on music genre.

Cons:
- Lack of features beyond playing the songs makes the game feel barebones.
- No tutorial means players new to the genre might be overwhelmed.
- No song selection organization options make navigation a chore.

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Disclaimer: This game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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