I have always believed that if you want to escape to a magical world, you should read a book, but if you want your senses and even your soul stimulated, there is but one answer: Music. Since time immemorial, music has been an important part of human nature, whether it is a tribal dance or a famous artist, music is a part of our daily lives. Even if you aren’t aware, there is music in you as well. So, it’s no surprise to see the rhythm genre coming out strong in this generation of consoles. Before as far as I remember, they weren’t that popular except for arcades with games like Pump It Up and Dance Dance Revolution. Now, developers have the challenge to breathe new life to the genre because now we play using our fingers instead of our feet. The dance mats are long gone, so they have to come with ways to make the game interesting and keep you engaged on the game but also keeping it accessible to newcomers to the genre. I think that at the end of the day, the most important thing is to keep it simple and focus on what’s important: the music. With MUSYNX, I feel that the developer has grasped the idea of giving the music the first place with a wide variety of genres to cater to all music tastes, including a clean interface where it’s just you and the music.
MUSYNX wastes no time getting you into the mix, opting for a simplistic UI. Don’t expect much of menus outside of an “Options” and “Manual,” but do expect to be taken straight to all of the available tracks that you can scroll through. There are a lot of different tracks, and the diversity among them makes MUSYNX special. Speaking a little about rhythm games on Nintendo Switch, something they all have in common is that they have songs and artists that many consider “too Asian oriented”( which in my opinion doesn’t matter at all, being open minded about different styles and cultures is called growing up). So while MUSYNX have many cool songs in Chinese and Japanese, they have also different songs in different genres, so if you don’t like the awesome track that is Journey to The West (you are missing out), just because you don’t understand the lyrics, there are options to enjoy the game.
When you really get into it, you’ll enjoy everything MUSYNX has to offer. Depending on the genre of the track, each will have a specific stage to help compliment the mood and give MUSYNX some visual flair as well. Another aspect of MUSYNX that I like is the variety of backgrounds on each stage. One example is a really cute stage in which you are in the middle of the sea, with a cute sun, clouds and the rainbow is the track where the music keys fall. Each key with a different color and kawai animal-like face. In other stages, it looks like you are traveling through an Ethernet cable. One has like a spaceship vibe. There are several that have a watercolor aesthetic (Journey to The West), so I feel that it suits each song very well. I also liked some stages that take place in a 16 bit cafeteria, where the notes turn into dishes coming down a conveyor belt with sprites on the bottom of the screen and the button prompts are reacting to every single note you hit. I like this a lot because it helps give the songs something to look at instead of being something that’s just heard. It’s kind of like the good old days of Pump it Up and Dance Dance Revolution, where there was a lot of cool visuals accompanying the notes, and all came together and became entertaining even for those just watching. MUSYNX didn’t hold anything in terms of presentation,,and it helped a lot in my opinion to make it stand out from other rhythm games. The accessibility of it makes it all the more appealing.
When selecting a song, you can choose the style of Sound Enhancer you’d like: “Auto,” “Strong,” “Weak,” and “Off.” Sound Enhancer determines how much your accuracy will affect the music being played, so if you miss a lot you’ll hear nothing at all or some instruments will be missing, etc. In addition to the Sound Enhancer, you’ll have a choice of how fast you want the notes to come down. 1.0x is obviously the easiest, and 4.0x is faster (all the way up to 9.0 for gods of the genre). Having the choice of speed is nice for those that feel a song may go too fast or too slow, and gives players the option to tweak the speed to be a more optimal experience for the person playing. I personally like to stick to 4.0, since I get a better feel of how to play the game the best way possible, or at least I try. Pro tip: If you press all four buttons at the same time (since you don’t get penalized for pressing buttons before the keys), you can get a good rating even at top speed accessibility for the win. However, there were some songs where I had to go below my comfort speed to make a song more accessible. It’s a great way to train your reflexes but also get used to how some songs and genres work out. The tracks themselves give you a hint before selecting as well as when you’re in Easy or Hard Mode. Every song has an assigned Level that gives you an idea of what you’ll be working with. Some songs are so frenetic that they’re labeled as “Level?” are Master class songs. MUSYNX is all about the music right, so it makes sense that has tons of songs to choose from–nearly 100. In fact and even more on the way, you can also switch between 4K and 6K modes (silly me thought it was resolution related). They have nothing to do with resolution, but instead adds additional inputs to songs. In 4K, you’ll be mainly utilizing the Left, Up, X, and A buttons. 6K also adds Down and B.
For those who may not be too confident in their button pressing potential or maybe find it slightly confusing or uncomfortable with the way the Joy-Con are shaped, MUSYNX is also entirely playable as a touch-only experience. While I liked the touch controls (and for those that don’t like Joycons, it’s the ideal control scheme), I prefer to use controls even if Joycons are not the best. The only issue I found with the touchscreen is that for some reason when you’re scrolling through the track list and you want to select it, a simple tap on the screen won’t do it. You have to tap a number of times before it finally would take you to the Sound Enhancer and Speed customization before the start of the song. I’m not sure what could be the problem, since everything else from the scrolling to the in-game presses, to menus, and everything else work perfectly fine, but tapping on the screen to select the song you want is a struggle.
The only thing that I did not like about MUSYNX is that with so many great tracks, there isn’t an option to filter through or favorite the tracks that you like the most. While simple, the nature of scrolling through what feels like a never-ending amount of tracks can get tedious, especially when you know what you’re looking or are in the mood for.
Bottom Line: MUSYNX is a fantastic rhythm game that has a simple approach. You just start the game and you are golden. It excels in song diversity, great visuals that don’t overstay their welcome, and ultimately with tons of accessibility options that even a newcomer on the genre can enjoy everything the game has to offer. I am honestly surprised of how polished the game is. This is a game that HAS to be on your Nintendo Switch. I completely recommend it.
A Review copy was provided for this review.