MUSYNX (Switch)
When it comes to rhythm games, there’s a pretty common template where the player needs to accurately perform the right sequence of inputs in line with a song’s rhythm from a set of four or so controller inputs, the player’s score based on their ability to keep up and remain accurate. From there, a game usually introduces some sort of gimmick such as Dance Dance Revolution have the player do so by pressing arrows with their feet while dancing or games like Guitar Hero contextualizing it with a plastic instrument controller. MUSYNX, however, doesn’t seem to have any gimmick, just presenting that typical rhythm game formula without anything that makes it stand out. It’s not truly bare bones, but it is certainly an interesting direction to have no unique direction at all.
MUSYNX’s four inputs are set to a rather strange default, the player asked to use the left and right buttons on the left joycon and the X and A buttons on the right joycon, and while this makes sense in some form as a sort of arch across the top of the two sides of the controllers, having only half be direction buttons makes it rather awkward to get used to the button prompts that come down towards the activation line on a tilted plane. Luckily, you can alter the inputs to be almost anything you want them to be to make them more comfortable, although since the notes are presented in a horizontal arrangement as they hit the line where you need to press your buttons to get the best score, there isn’t really an option on the Switch controller that perfectly lines up with it in the way the PC version’s keyboard controls can. However, the Switch does have a pretty strong advantage over most computers in that it can also play MUSYNX in a touch screen configuration, the player needing to tap the lane the notes come down in instead of pressing buttons. If you wish to raise the difficulty you can also play every song in a 6 button mode that really seems to demand the player either tinker with their settings or play in touch mode, but once you find the right way for you to personally play MUSYNX, everything settles into strong if typical rhythm game play.
When the notes hit the right spot, the player needs to perform the right input to have them count, the timing determining the point value of the hit and whether or not you can get a combo of successful inputs going. A Miss will end combos and provide no points, but MUSYNX seems fairly generous when it comes to note timing, the player able to activate them rather early and a bit late to get a Right rating instead. Great occupies the space closer to having your timing right, but the Exact message seems to pop up a bit more liberally than you’d expect for a word that implies perfection. Besides the individual inputs, the player also can expect other rhythm game mainstays like needing to hit two notes at the same time or hold a note down for an extended period. MUSYNX won’t end the song early or anything no matter how poorly you’re doing and holding down the sustained notes isn’t mandatory to keep a combo going so long as you hit them initially, so when you do play a song you’re pretty much always just chasing high scores and ratings for the sake of it rather than trying to avoid failure or unlock anything. There is a decent batch of related settings such as being able to determine how early you see incoming note inputs before they hit the line or the so-called Sound Enhancer altering the music so that it won’t play the associated note in the song if you miss them, although certain licensed tracks don’t have the note absence option as they seem unwilling to compromise their integrity for the sake of a more immersive experience.
Difficulty-wise, MUSYNX hits a wonderful balance once you’ve settled into how you want to tackle it. Every song has an Easy and Hard version, although these are perhaps better thought of as Normal and Extreme. Very few Easy songs actually hold your hand, the player needing to keep up with fast tempos and input rapid strings of notes to keep up with the manageable but challenging design. It is fairly “easy” to get even the special EX rating for near perfection or outright perfection once you’ve slipped into the rhythm properly, but it’s not because the game is holding your hand or presenting something that you’ll beat without issue. Sometimes a song might have a tempo shift it doesn’t really announce well, but for the most part the note spacing is done deliberately to fit the rhythm excellently while challenging your ability to keep up. However, Hard definitely amplifies the degree of finger dexterity needed to maintain a combo and earn Exact ratings. Portions of songs are practically waterfalls of notes that you need to take in quickly and respond to, so if you do get to a point where Easy has stopped putting up a fight, Hard will definitely provide a significant change-up in how skilled you need to be to earn high scores.
MUSYNX has an impressively large song list that has been extended a few times since launch. Well beyond 100 songs exist in game and come from a wide variety of artists, although a clear preference for electronic music and its subgenres shine through. Much of the music featuring vocals comes from Asian artists, meaning Chinese and Japanese musical tracks are common and unfortunately presented without any subtitling. However, within electronica there is a good mix of things like vocaloid singers, technopop, dance, and club sounds, there being diversity enough within that umbrella that the tracks don’t get stale but a player who isn’t a fan of that sound not likely to find too much else to latch onto. There are some recognizable symphonic tracks like Canon in D and Orpheus in the Underworld and some Chinese tracks contain traditional instrumentation, and a batch of chiptunes round out the later part of the track list. Some tracks from other video games like Nekopara and Anger Force Strikers are present as well to keep adding to the diversity, but beyond the symphonic tracks you’d need some rather niche tastes to recognize the music featured despite much of it being of good quality.
What is a bit strange about the music selection though is it is the menu is presented in one long sideways line you scroll through. While you have a song highlighted its rather lovely key art will dominate most of the screen, some songs even having different illustrations based on the difficulty you’re tackling them on, and a preview of the track plays to give you some idea what you’re in for. With a hint at the difficulty with level ranking and the info on composer of the song and illustrator of the art, it’s not a poor display, but you can only barely see the next song in a long line of music tracks that isn’t the easiest to navigate, even the shoulder buttons’ ability to jump forward down the track list seeming inconsistent on how far it will take you. It’s not like flipping through them really hurts the experience though, but one odd feature of this track list is a music store you can access that doesn’t have anything to show. This is actually a good thing since this is a holdover from other versions of the title like the original mobile game, players not needing to buy new music in the Switch version as any new tracks are included without additional cost. This is a common and commendable feature of these mobile rhythm game ports to this system, but it is still rather odd the shop lingers around at all. The nifty moment of finding out you can play the store’s bespoke background music as a track would be lost without the empty storefront being present though.
Based on the song you selected, the actual gameplay uses different backdrops for the note lanes that are spread across multiple tracks. The key art is mostly irrelevant to what you see here, but the genre a song belongs to often lines up with what backdrop they rely on. For example, the songs that lean heavy into electronic sound and dubstep-like beats are often found with the blue technological background, but their abundance in the track list means that if you play them sequentially you’ll spend an incredibly long time with this rather straightforward template. Many of them shift as you play, such as the pop background’s colorful cartoonish design featuring a day and night cycle tied to the song’s progression. The huge tracklist means these feel like they’re spread a little thin, the game perhaps needing double the amount of backdrops to avoid the visual stagnation, but much like the tracklist navigation this is mostly an area for improvement rather than an impactful detriment. There are two backdrops that can impede your ability to parse your performance though, and it’s unfortunate because they are both stylish and used less than the main set. A black and white play field with notes made of ink is a nifty visual until you realize the messages that tell you your current combo and how accurately you hit a note are now Chinese caligraphy. The pixel art backdrop with characters running a restaurant is cute in how it turns notes into food, but the messages here are also unavailable in English, and until you learn to recognize the differences between messages, you will have to hope what is appearing on screen is positive. There aren’t any themes that impact your ability to see the notes thankfully, but if you are going for a high score, reliable visual feedback feels more important than cute aesthetics.
THE VERDICT: MUSYNX isn’t doing anything new and doesn’t really provide a hook that elevates it beyond a typical rhythm game, but it nails the basic formula and has a hearty tracklist to support it. While heavy in electronic music it still achieves a good level of diversity within that genre and branches out in a few areas like its classical music selection, and the arrangement of notes you need to press, even on Easy, provides a strong challenge that lines up with the rhythm of these songs well. Its presentation could use a little work and more variety, but it aimed to do the basic concept of a rhythm game well and certainly succeeded.
And so, I give MUSYNX for Nintendo Switch…
A GOOD rating. Sometimes you get a desire to play a certain genre of game, but playing any new game always risks whatever twists that game brings to the table coming up short or hurting the experience. However, if you just want a straightforward rhythm game you can come back to and play, MUSYNX is simple yet challenging. Its lack of ambition means it doesn’t stand out, but serving as a reliable standby for when all you want is the basics isn’t a bad niche to find yourself in. If it was going to boil its play down to the bare essentials of the genre it could have definitely spent a bit more time on presentation, but MUSYNX ensures its core play is as enjoyable and engaging as a four input system should be, with the wiggle room of bumping it up to six or increasing the difficulty to some extreme levels.
Rather than being a standout member of its genre, MUSYNX is probably better thought of as a reference point since it does the basics well enough to be entertaining. Beats for PSP isn’t quite as good because it’s attempt to line up new tracks with its plain input system is iffy, but Deemo on Switch ranks higher because it better contextualizes the music with its story, adds unlockables, and evokes piano playing with its note arrangement. MUSYNX probably shouldn’t be hailed for being a title you can easily use in comparisons with more ambitious games, but providing the basics in good quality still means it has a place for fans of the genre. Focusing on the elements that are usually there isn’t a bad idea if they are an enjoyable foundation after all, so MUSYNX manages to avoid feeling bland because it provides the typical rhythm game formula in an entertaining manner.