Oh, and I started playing Symphony. I like me some bullet hell shooters.
In Phylum terms, it's somewhere between Jamestown and Audiosurf,* with the randomised enemies and loot of a Torchlight-style hack 'n' slash. Which leads me to regale such bizarre anecdotes as:
"I was finding it pretty hard until a song dropped a rare Megablaster Furia, the high damage and accuracy of which helped me take out the suicide tank things that Dragonforce seems to spawn all the time; Combined with turning down all the distracting graphics settings, the game got fairly easy until I unlocked Mezzo-forte mode."
Seriously, in bullet hell shooters clarity is everything. Neon glow and bloom effects have no place here.
What's nice is that not just the timing but the actual types of enemies spawned are dependent on the texture of the music; Heavy thrashes get you lumbering, exploding tanks, while a plinkety piano solo will swarm you with little seeker drones. I'm pretty sure the loot is based around it too - machine guns for fast songs, energy cannons for slow, scatter lasers for wild etc. Plus, there's an actual end-game goal, something Audiosurf lacked.
*Let's just forget Beat Hazard exists.
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