Shoot – shoot – dodge – repeat. Soundfall is a game about rhythm. The music plays in your ears, the environment beats and dances to the beat, and your fingers twitch as you tap and tap on the controller.
More and more developers are turning to music to bring interesting twists to action games, from Crypt of the Necrodancer (and the rhythm of its Zelda follow-up Hyrule), to the minute-by-minute FPS Bullets and platformer No Straight Roads. These aren’t games about making music, they’re world-saving rhythms.
That’s your mission in Soundfall. Inspired by the NecroDancer, the metronome at the bottom of the screen beats and your job is to shoot-shoot-dodge-repeat through each level in rhythm. Shoot or dodge the beat and the action will fail.
Most action games have an inherent rhythm, but in Soundfall it’s explicit. Even hypnotic – your ears are as highly focused as your eyes, determined to maintain a combination. Later levels became bullet hell — or rhythm hell, I should say — and I found myself nodding and tapping my feet as I played, dancing in my seat while my eyes refused to blink. Eventually, I also browsed the menu rhythmically.
The beats are infectious, and so is the soundtrack, including music from real-world artists. Each region of the world has a different genre: fantasy-popular Skylands, heavy metal Hotlands, classical forest, and more. Each has its own challenges. For example, less punchy classical tracks have a less pronounced beat, while heavy metal tracks tend to switch time signatures to keep you on your toes. While faster tracks may seem more intense, slower tracks are actually trickier—fewer beats means fewer opportunities to attack.
Tying it all together is a skippable story involving a young would-be musician (named Melody, of course) being transported to the world of Symphonia to defeat the Discordians. Everything in Soundfall is music: instrument weapons, character and world names, an underused element system. If the musical puns of the script pique interest, it at least presents charm and clarity. Animated scenes offer some popular styles.
However, where the core hooks are sound, the theme lacks variation. Sonic Soundfall is a whirlwind tour of genres and remixes, but its gameplay can quickly become repetitive. Shoot – shoot – dodge – repeat.
Levels are mazes of repetitive battlefields and environmental art with few obstacles or puzzle elements to challenge you. Bullet sponge enemies lack variety and never force a change in strategy. Boss fights at the end of a level without a climax mean no ups and downs.
There are also multiple characters to play with, with unique artifacts and overdrive. However, they share experience and weapons in common, so the play is too similar. There is little instrumental overtones between them.
Disappointingly, Soundfall’s gameplay is a note. The difficulty increases with the number of enemies, but the complexity of the music is minimal. Soon, that constant beat becomes rigid and limited. There is no room for improvisation or syncopation. The colorful world and brilliant soundtrack belied an overly simplistic dance. Boredom begins.
Perhaps Soundfall’s biggest misstep was a lack of creativity. Isn’t that what music is all about? No effect on your movements, no music effects. Miss a beat and you miss your shot, but the music goes on. For a game that’s all music, there’s still a disconnect between the soundtrack and the gameplay. Maybe that’s why Soundfall ended up sounding empty and unsatisfactory.
One saving grace, at least for PC players: Soundfall allows you to import your own music and will procedurally generate a level around it. It’s a way for the game to let you inject your own personality, even if it’s just a new song with the same assets, the same enemies, the same shoot-shoot-dodge-repeat.
Soundfall plays like an extended pop album, with each level a three-minute burst of music that is initially sizzling and delightful. However, repeat play proved to be superficial. The music is the killer, but the gameplay is the filler.
