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Sunday, January 24, 2021

Synth Riders

Synth Riders is a VR game. You'll be standing on a moving platform and colored orbs will be coming closer to you. You have colored orbs in your hands and a notes will come from further away to closer to you. When they reach you, you have to hit them with the corresponding colored orb. You have blue notes that you need to hit with a blue orb and magenta notes that you hit with the magenta orb. Then there are sections that you have to play with either of your hand (you start with one hand and have to finish with that hand, these parts are green by default) or you have to use both hands kept close to each other (gold parts). Apart from the single orb notes you have to hit there are 'rails'. Those are long notes and your hand has to follow them from start to finish.

The game has two modes - rhythm and force. Rhythm is accuracy based and judges you based on how close to the center of an orb you managed to hit it. Force mode judges you based on how much 'force' you used to hit an orb. The force has an indicator bar that fills up depending on how much force you used.

Synth Riders features different kinds of mods so you can use them to make the game more challenging or easier (for example smaller notes, higher note jump speed).

The game is combo based and you get a lot of points for rails and special sections.

Synth Riders is easy to learn but already requires more skill than Beat Saber at first. On the other hand Synth Riders doesn't get too complex later on (compared to Beat Saber) even though it requires more movement from the player.

As for graphics, the game is set into a retro-futuristic setting which creates a good ambience but is not necessarily something you can visually enjoy or consider stunning. Synth Riders may not have the best graphics out there but it works, is flashy enough to catch your eye and is primarily functional.

The songs are mostly synth wave or how to call it (electronic music). Something you'd expect from a sci-fi movie from 80s and it will certainly remind you of (original) Tron. Some of the song packs are really great and I enjoyed the Electro Swing ones a lot.

Maps are good (compared to Beat Saber officials). They are well done so there is a certain learning curve and that you have a lot of room to dance to the tunes. I haven't played on Easy or Normal but there is a difference between Hard, Expert and Master. The lower the difficulty to more straightforward the charts are and make you alternate your hands more while keeping your hands at their respective sides. On Expert the notes can be out of line so you might need to be crossing your arms and there are more patterns that you have to do with one hand. On Master you are required to do different kind of motion with each hand at times. You will also notice that the speed and density gets higher with each difficulty level.

There are quality of life options that can make the game playable (if you suffer from visual effects like me) and streamable. It has everything you need for streaming in game! For example it has in-game support of VRM avatars and camera views. Everything is set so the community can customize the game and add other custom content - songs, platforms, mods etc.

Verdict: Synth Riders is a rhythm game that in its default settings doesn't bring anything new and is rather lacking both in game mechanics and score system. The game though will bring you as much fun as you manage to get out of it - be it by actually dancing, using various mods to spice up the game or modes to enlarge the play area or be able to play in (up to) 360 degrees.

This means that if you don't want move to move you don't need to and this way you can find the game very boring. This is the kind of the game you need to be in flow with otherwise it won't give you anything. If you wish to get good at the game and excel you might also hit a ceiling quite fast because there simply isn't enough depth to the game and all it will come down is accuracy/force which is a very vague thing in this game. The game lacks clarity and feedback of other games which makes it difficult to try to get good.

The game features good music (even though it depends on your taste) and very well done maps. There are leaderboards for the songs. The game has a nice community and gets a lot of love from it. The community brings new content and there are always people around for multiplayer.

I see this game as a hit or miss because it's more about you than the game itself. If you can move around in a way you like and have fun than the game will be great for you. It's a good workout if you are someone who likes to move around a lot.

This is the rhythm game I would recommend beginners to try. Hitting the orbs seems to have oddly satisfying effect on people.

S'Tsung (stsungjp @ Twitter)

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