Symphoni Hands-On: Conducting The Classics With Your Hands Is Intuitive If Simplistic

It's hard to play Symphoni without immediately drawing comparisons with Maestro, another VR rhythm game that involves conducting classical music with just your hands as an option, and executed with more panache. Because while the latter immerses you as a conductor in the orchestra pit with other musicians, techToy Studio's game opts for a more stripped down and abstract approach.

That vision is intentional, given that studio founder Ingram Mao wanted to recreate the synesthesia he experienced at a symphony concert a couple of years ago. The minimalist, abstract style works very well in the genre, going from Rez Infinite to Beat Saber. After all, when you're tasked with hitting flying notes from different directions at the right time, readability is key.

Symphoni's UI is essentially a giant ring in front of your vision. Colored notes in the shape of arcs come from the edges, and you have to hit these notes with your hands or controllers just as they reach the ring's circumference. These notes are also color-coded, initially blue on the left, orange on the right, but will also throw you off by occasionally switching them around. Some ethereal-looking notes mean that you're supposed to hit it with both hands.

There's also a variation of holding notes that involves aiming at a colored circle, sometimes holding your position or following it along a path, sometimes overlapping with another circle while other notes continue approaching for your free hand. But that pulsing sensation of holding a note is also what makes it feel like you're a magician casting a spell and not merely conducting Tchaikovsky.

Another difference from Maestro is that Symphoni, at least from its 16 tracks available at launch, is focused purely on classical music, so you might be disappointed if you were expecting a wider variety of orchestral music. They're nonetheless recognizable, even if you might not necessarily know the tracks by name. That includes Prokofiev's Dance of the Knights, used as the theme for the UK version of The Apprentice, to Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, also famously used in Kingdom Hearts. 

There's an attempt to give the game a sense of progression by grouping the tracks into specific themes and moods, such as 'Dark Magic' or 'Radiant Charm', rather than letting you pick and choose from the lot immediately. The better you score in a track, the quicker you can unlock the next set.

Otherwise, there's less incentive to keep playing besides mastery, or ticking off its achievements. The minimalist presentation doesn't make it that appealing, while the ability to unlock new wands isn't that enticing. If anything, playing with hand-tracking is off-putting as you're not holding the wand but just having it float in front of your dominant hand, making it more of a distraction.

Playing with hand-tracking fortunately does work very well as intended, at least when playing through easy and normal difficulty, which are also rated on a ten-point scale. Conscious that even the Quest's hand-tracking tech has its limitations, Symphoni recommends using controllers for any track with a rating of 7 and above.

While failing a track is always deflating, I feel that Symphoni's audiovisual feedback could be better, where the music dims like it's being submerged underwater when you're doing badly. Perhaps it's that ethereal effect it's going for that means notes don't have the same tactility as they do in, say, Beat Saber. It took me a while to realize my absurdly small health bar is displayed just under the top rim of the ring.

With more content promised soon after launch, Symphoni is a welcome addition to the VR rhythm library for those with more classical taste than contemporary, even if Maestro has already long beaten it to the punch in hand-tracking. Yet in its abstract barebones presentation, it could do with making the experience feel just a touch more magical.