Game Info
GAME NAME: Cosmophony
DEVELOPER(S): Bento Studios
PUBLISHER(S): Moving Player
PLATFORM(S): PlayStation 4
GENRE(S): Musical Rail Shooter
RELEASE DATE(S): May 5th, 2015
Cosmophony is a musical rail shooter developed by Bento and published by Moving Player. This game is so intense and so absolutely crazy hard! Okay, so that is not a proper descriptive sentence but it is none the less true. Complete focus is a must and your reflexes and reaction time have to be perfect because you only live once, that’s right, permadeath. Nothing like permadeath to humble a gamer.
There are five unforgiving levels set in a space time rift that makes absolutely no sense at all. I tried to like this story, I really did. I love sci-fi, I should’ve loved the “save the universe” plot but they made it so hard. First, the character you meet says she’s dead, then no, she’s trapped. She is to blame for the disharmony of the universe and we are the only hope yet she keeps attempting to show me the way. This and grammatical errors in the opening scene and its time to mash buttons and skip the story. Luckily, plot isn’t of utmost importance and is easily ignored.
The level of difficulty between stages is immense. I enjoyed this game but the elation of winning a level did not counter act the failure and frustration losing over and over produce. I started to feel like beating all five levels isn’t humanly possible. If you’ve managed to get past those first two, congratulate yourself because that’s no easy feat. The third level was the most fun for me. I think it was primarily because of the music that I felt so “in the zone”. I didn’t feel like the drum and bass really helped the way I thought it should to cue your moves in any level but the third. The fourth level is beyond me and after 179 deaths and not even making it halfway through the level, I’m done. I can’t imagine ever wanting to even try again.
The controls are very simple and straight forward. You can use both the directional pad and the sticks to move your icon side to side and the x button to shoot at the oncoming triangles of doom. Cosmophony does a good job prompting you through the game with press x cues to start or advance. On the left hand side of the screen there is a small triangle that tells you how many in game triangles you need to shoot and how many you’ve shot. The right hand side has a circle that displays what zone you’re in and what percentage of the level you’ve completed. These are great, except you can’t look at them while playing and trying to have someone speak to you during this game isn’t good for concentration either so while pretty cool to look at while you spectate, they’re really useless to the actual player.
The Recommendation
Cosmophony is an intense and exciting gaming experience I never want to experience again. It’s not a bad game by any means and I actually did enjoy this rail shooter much more than other games in it’s genre. The frustration and refusal to replay are based on difficulty. I just feel the game becomes unfair. Maybe I’m just a sore loser but I really felt like beating the game is impossible. If you think you’re up for the challenge, go for it. A challenge is exactly what you’ll get. Cosmophony was fun for me and the kids as well, and that’s always a plus when trying to get little ones into the game.
