Color Symphony | a Review
originally published on 29/11/2022;
Hello everyone, I am the one-man-orchestra, G.E.M.Simov, a colorful fellow who has come to this broken world to tell you about Color Symphony.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.
Gameplay
Color Symphony is an impressively, and deceptively, simple game. It is a 2D sidescroller that makes use of 3D character models, which are 3D for no apparent reason other than to stick out from the backgrounds, which has the Player controlling a character that can run to the left and to the right with the Left and Right Arrow Keys, as well as jump with the Spacebar. By pressing the Spacebar while in the air, the Player Character (PC) will jump again, but that can only be done once per instance of being in the air.
The truly interesting part of this game shows up when the Player lowers their hand to the Z, X and C keys. Through the use of those keys, the Player changes the color of the background - Z for Blue, X for Green and C for Beige. By changing the color of the background, the Player reveals, or maybe brings into existence, new parts of the level.
There are some parts of the level that are Green, some that are Blue and some that are Beige. The Green and Blue parts of the level exist and function like any other part of the level when the background is Beige, but Beige parts do not exist and do not function while the background is Beige. They can not affect the Player Character in any way. Similarly, the same applies for Green parts on Blue and Beige backgrounds and Blue parts on Green and Beige backgrounds.
The game naturally features hazards. Those hazards could be birds flying about and swooping in to peck at you (the Player [the Player Character]), unless you switch to their color, in which case they disappear. There are also two-headed hounds patrolling and being very dangerous to those who have not set their background to the color of the hounds. In addition to those, there are spikes that can be one of the three colors or black (which is always there), as well as rows of saw blades (that can be mobile), which can also be one of the three colors or black.
The goal of the Player is to reach the end of the level successfully. The end of the level is a gateway that can, sometimes, be one of the three colors, but is mostly black and always there.
There are, however, things in the way, other than the birds and dogs. One thing that is really staggering would be the act of taking damage. In most platformers (this is a platformer), when the Player Character takes damage, they flicker for a very short amount of time and maybe get pushed back slightly, or they just start flickering without being pushed back at all. In this game, however, the Player Character gets literally knocked out whenever he takes damage and falls down - if there is no floor for him to fall on, tough luck. If he lands on a floor, he lays on it for a bit before getting back up - very slowly - and for the entire duration of that he is flashing, which indicates that he can not take damage.
This is incredibly strange, because it implies that the damage suffered is astoundingly severe, though not 10 seconds later and the Health that he has lost regenerates. The consistency between the mechanics isn’t there, and there’s a dissonance - so does it hurt really bad or is it just a flesh wound? Either way, the Player spends at least 4 seconds being unable to act - and that does not include the time spent falling down. It’s really jarring.
Another issue I’d like to point at would be hitbox detection, or collision detection. The PC gets hit, takes damage, quite a lot. Is that owed up to bad hitbox detection? No, in fact, I’d wager it's owed up to far too precise hitbox detection. See, there are some levels that require from the Player a display of quickness - dropping from a green platform to land upon a green platform, which necessitates the application of a green background - but here’s the kicker - if the PC is inside anything when the color is switched back (and that thing isn’t an enemy) the PC dies immediately.
Due to the weird shapes of some platforms and the precision of the hitbox detection, this becomes very bothersome. There’s that random floating stone slightly beneath the platform that’s part of the platform and if my hat is barely touching it I end up dead.
Then there are tentacles, which tentacles seem to have bad hitbox detection, because they hit the PC without the PC actually touching them, though that could be owed up to the fact that they flare up when they do damage, so it could be that their hitbox expands… It’s all very janky.
The jank is ever present, yes. Sometimes, the double-jump just doesn’t work, even though it has not been used in this instance of air-time, as yet another example.
Well, is that all there is to this game? Not quite. There’s another mechanic, one of… Combining the colors. Normally, the Player can only have 1 color selected, negating the existence of objects of said color, BUT, when a bar at the bottom left of the screen is full, the Player can press V, and then press Z, X, and/or C to select a multitude of colors at once - it could be Z&C, it could be Z & X, it could be X&C, or Z&X&C. By doing so, the Player can avoid some naughty obstacles, but there is another drawback, which drawback is a little weird.
Aside from the bar depleting and the Player being unable to use the V key again for a short time, they also lose half of their Health… Which is just weird, as it will come back at almost the exact same rate as the V bar. That’s… That’s weird.
Lastly, this game does something very nasty. It has implemented obstacles that only show up when the PC is close to them. In this game, that’s a problem, because the precision required to do a lot of the stuff that gets done in the later stages is quite great, and the timing needs to be quite right, so having this variable mess with the Player is even less… Great, but it does remain manageable, even if it feels cheap.
The game is janky, but the idea is really solid. I will, as a result of that, give it a bit of a higher rating than it maybe deserves. 2/3
Presentation
This game’s presentation is a very mixed bag. On the one hand, the art is very nice and I really quite like it, as well as the way the backgrounds and even the character models. They’re somewhat dreary, but not too much, and somewhat grimey, somewhat dirty, even if they seem pristine in their appearance.
However, what lingers on the other hand of the scale is the quality of the animation. The Player Character looks stiff, the movements look as though they’re clunky and unfinished. The way the PC goes from standing still to running is very jarring, because he just starts running - the idle animation is immediately replaced by the running animation with no transition in between.
Not only that, but he doesn’t actually stand on the ground. He hovers at a very tiny but perfectly discernible distance from the floor, and that further contributes to the visual sensation of jank. The jumping animation isn’t much better, but in its wonkiness it displays one thing: the creators of the game REALLY cared.
Then there’s the music. There’s a single music track that, on its own, isn’t bad, but it keeps looping and looping and looping and it starts drinking away your gray matter, annoying you to no ends… That’s a bit of an OOF, when paired up with the weirdness of the sound effects, which are not bad, but they are sub-par at best.
Again, I want to give this game a higher grade than it really deserves. This time I wont. 1/3
Story
The story is, surprisingly, the weakest part of this game. It’s so… So strangely delivered that one might mistake the author for an angsty teenager who really likes the dark, brooding type of anime character.
The Main, and, frankly, only Character believes he was hurt by his trusted people, who apparently blinded him and forced him away from the world. Years later, he comes back to the world only to find that it is already ‘gone’, so to speak, and he has the epiphany that his trusted people, friends, maybe wanted to save him, rather than hurt him.
So he gets angry at the ones who made the world ‘disappear’ or ‘break’, and… He resolves to pursue their dreams.
It’s very bare-bones and really, really doesn’t do much of anything. In fact, the game might have even been better off without the story, as it gives it this cheesy feeling… 0/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? NO, it does not. 0/1
Conclusion
3/10. It is a free game, with a very neat idea, but the execution is really, REALLY lacking. Maybe play this slightly too-challenging platformer if you’re a big fan of platformers and just can’t get enough, but I wouldn’t urge you to do so.
On the Wall of Shame. It really did have the concept, but sometimes concept doesn’t get you as far as you might need to go.