The Cerebral Symphony

Some RPGs are about saving the world from dark, magical forces, others are about unwilling nobodies being dragged into a life of adventure through unlikely circumstances, and some follow the misadventures of an angsty modern teenager fighting The Man while on a complicated drug trip. Cerebral Symphony falls into the last category.

It's probably the only one that does.

So, ladies, gentlemen, and robotic corporate slaves, let us go full on Freud and analyze this psychotropic journey into the teenage mind. That, or review a slightly trippy RPG. One or the other.

Gameplay

For such an otherwise unique game, Symphony's gameplay is surprisingly straightforward and basic. For the most part it's pretty simple RM2003 standard fare, with a few small twists thrown in here and there. It's not so bare bones that it comes off as technically pointless, but it does lack the quirky punch that the premise deserves.

The only truly notable technical feature Symphony throws at you is the personality system. The main character, Luke, is an emotionally unstable fellow, with a tendency to switch between three psychological states at the drop of a dime. While his changes between emotions can sometimes occur randomly during events, there are several points where the player is able to make choices to influence how he feels. Depending on what mode he's in when a battle begins, Luke will have different stats and abilities, each one with their own unique strengths and weaknesses. His default state is "Pensive", a calm, neutral and frequently sarcastic mode with a focus on telekinetic abilities. When driven to a certain emotion however, he'll switch to either an "Upbeat" or "Dark" state, which focus on explosive, elemental style attacks, and brutal, physical based attacks, respectively. Strategic influence on his mood can radically change your performance in battle, and the entire system adds an interesting twist to the standard Rock - Paper - Scissors style of RPG battles.

Unfortunately, as novel as the idea is, the personality system has one major flaw: in the end, correct selection of moods before battle often comes down to a simple guessing game. Before a battle begins, there is nothing to indicate what kind of strengths and weaknesses a given enemy will have, and thus gives the player no chance to think over their dialogue choices beforehand. Yes, you do get a few chances to change modes inside of battle, but even then it essentially comes down to trial and error for figuring out the correct state to be in. It's, sadly, tedious and arguably a little pointless, which is a shame when the idea on it's own is creative and interesting.


Hell if we know where it came from.

Outside of this one thing, most of the gameplay comes down to typical exploration, and one simple stealth section in the second half of the demo. While none of this is handled carelessly, they do both lack any sort of memorable flair, and for the most part feel like filler for the plot.

There are a few other small flaws here and there, mostly involving passability issues. There were several places in the city area, especially indoors, that were clearly overlooked for collision, and even allowed the occasional adventure into the black abyss known as The Unmapped Area.

Transition between maps was also on the strange side, as it involved no pause, sound, or really any sort of notification whatsoever toward the fact that you were entering a new area. You simply pop in and out of places when you touch a transport event and, even when I expected it, it still felt really jarring whenever it occurred. It's simply too quick.

This same problem also sort of manifested in cutscene initiation. Events seemed like they could happen in any place, at any time, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it once they began. There were several points where I simply wanted to explore an area, but got jumped partway through by a covert event.

Gameplay: 2/5


Story/Writing:

This is really where Symphony shifted most of it's focus, and the main area worth looking over. As a psychological headtrip of a plot, Symphony needed to put as much effort as possible into making it's point both subtle and clear enough to leave an impression on the player, and make it's point.

For the most part, I feel it succeeded. While the game takes some time to clarify it's intentions to the player, by the end of the demo I was left with a pretty thorough idea of the game's universe, and the struggles of it's characters. It never outright says that it's a game about a teenager's delusions about the real world, and desire to fight against authority, the setting on it's own makes that bit quite obvious. Everything is intentionally a bit over the top, and every minor character is intentionally glossed over in a way that very clearly expresses the main character's disconnection from anyone he considers below him and his friends.

The world is, on the surface, shallow, but it's intentionally painted that way to show it from the angle of a bitter teen. Everything is controlled by big, malicious organizations, all fighting against one another, and daily life is determined by the standards set by their society. It's both a hell and perfect playground for an anti-authority group of kids, wanting nothing more than to stake their place in the world.

The funny thing is, despite being so pretentious in focus, the game never actually feels pretentious. It's a game seen from the angles of angsty, self important teenagers, but it never really paints itself as being particularly perceptive or correct. The main character isn't meant to be wise or intelligent in any way. He's just a guy with an opinion, and we, as the players, are seeing that opinion incarnated. It's not right, it's not wise, and it's nothing we haven't heard a billion times before in high school.

It's just fun. It's a celebration of rebellion, breaking shit, and flipping the bird to anything that disagrees with you.


Oh, thank God, I'm perfectly qualified.

Writing-wise, the dialogue is witty and sharp, and the plot is presented in a way that, until the end, kind of just explains itself. Unfortunately, both of these things are slightly held back by a small, but notable number of grammatical errors, and a certain, probably unnecessary, info dump by the end of the demo. While neither of these things really kick the quality far down, they do prevent the otherwise fun and interesting writing from really feeling professional.

Writing/Story: 4/5


Characters:

As much as I liked the plot, and as witty as I think the writing is as a whole, I actually really disliked the main character. This isn't because of the aforementioned self-important attitude, since that was really the part that drove the plot along. It was simply because the game's explanations for his actions, and descriptions of his personality, flat out didn't make any sense.

According to his Bio, Luke is a 17 year old with a dissociative personality who "likes being insane" and "dislikes people". This apparently manifests in him changing his attitude at completely random moments, and flying into unannounced bouts of violence.

The problem with this however, is that dissociative personalities do not work that way. In fact, no one works that way. People react to things in certain ways for certain reasons. Even if a person has a tendency to slip into a rage in response to a small annoyance, or laugh hysterically at a bad joke, they're still doing those things with some amount of reason. Hell, even dramatic personality changes occur after some kind of experiential or physical trauma. It's just that sometimes these changes can be dramatic and strange to the people around them.

The funny thing is, by these standards, and by Luke's behaviour in-game, he's not so much a madman with personality issues as he is an emotionally dramatic teenager with anger management issues and a bad grip on his social abilities. This is actually pretty standard fare for a guy of his age. Could he benefit from a trip to a psychiatrist? Hell yes. Is he in the schizoid spectrum? Not at all.

Interestingly, with the nature of the storyline and setting, it could do a lot of good to keep Luke's behaviour the same, and simply do away with the "He's batshit" aspect of his introduction.


This is not a thought process that anyone would have.

Naomi, on the other hand, was a very solid character who acted in very believable ways, and actually seemed to enjoy her chances to take part in random acts of rebellion. I'm also a big fan of her werewolf form being a manifestation of her time of the month. It's both fitting and amusing.

Characters: 2.5/5


Music:

I'm actually going to leave this part of the game mostly untouched, for the simple reason of the creator implying that he's in the process of making a custom soundtrack for the game. If that's the case, any complaints I could have here are mostly made irrelevant. Though, it was weird hearing Star Fox music in the middle of a psychological teen angst game.

Music: Unscored


Graphics

There's really no way around it: the graphics are this game's weakest point. While it has fairly respectable intentions with it's use of edited character sprites and non-standard tilesets, Symphony just looks all around rough and unpleasant to the eyes.

The cyberpunky style map graphics all blend together a little too well, leading to undefined looking areas, and confusing layouts. The main city, while interestingly laid out, wound up being very hard to navigate due to the lack of clarity in just what, exactly, some of the tiles even were. There were many times where I found myself uncertain about whether I should be able to walk on something or not, just because had no idea if it was a floor or wall. It was weird, and rather disorienting all around.


I don't think I'm supposed to be here, but I'm not really sure. I guess I'm being rebellious?

The character graphics are also somewhat sloppily thrown together, especially in battle. The edited aspects of their sprites often stood out from the rest of their designs, and sometimes looked a little flat or rough along the edges. The in-battle animations were virtually non-existent, mostly just manifesting as aimless shifting around the screen with no natural looking movement on the sprites themselves. Strangely, the one animation the battles seem to have is at the end of a battle, in Luke's victory pose, where his eyes inexplicably glow red. Why? Is there a reason for this? If there is, does it have to look so silly?

The only real compliment I can give in the graphics department is that the changing window color in accordance to Luke's personality states was rather convenient, and really helped get his mood changes across without being too disruptive.

Graphics: 2/5


Final:

Cerebral Symphony is a very interesting and unique, though technically and graphically rough around the edges. While it has a quite a lot of room for improvement, I believe that it's the start of a very good idea that has the potential to be carried out in a fun and memorable way. With just a bit of tweaking, Faenon should have a crazy, unchained game on his hands, and one that I would strongly recommend to anyone wanting to try something different for a change.

Final Score: 3/5