Back in the day, the Playstation Mobile version of Cytus was the first proper rhythm game I REALLY got into. Now i'm getting my teeth into the genre more properly, I thought i'd give it's re-release another go.
And holy shit the timing window is huge. It's something I failed to notice as a beginner, but now with the retrospect of at least kinda knowing a few things about these sorts of games, Cytus feels absurdly easy, with timing windows for goods is bigger than any other game i've played, and perfects even feel like 100ms+ windows even. It's a decision I don't really have a problem with on it's own, but even with it's additional TP system, which tracks accuracy more tightly, the leaderboards are absolutely flooded with max scores.
Which really, in a sense, shows the emphasis of Cytus. It's a far more casual game than most of it's counterparts, even on mobile, focused on an experiencial, almost concept-album like experience.
And in that regard, Cytus is very strong, with the framing device of the game being robots experiencing music as a way to experience human emotions being quite compelling, and the 10-song "Alive" album which forms the title track of each chapter and tells the story is quite compelling, and has some of the best tracks in the game at that. Many of the individual bonus chapters, specifically Chapters L, Knight and Timeline, also serve as individual little storyline concept albums, which is something I have basically not seen in other rhythm games.
And in general, the songs are good, which frankly, is the main thing. There's a good chunk of songs fro Rhythm game favourites like Cranky and M2U, as well as plenty of other good ones. Originally being a subscription thing, there are some issues in that you can tell the game took a while to find it's style, and whilst the early chapters are great and the final few are excellent, some in the middle are a bit dull and uninspired in comparison, though usually each of these at least has one fantastic track.
And in many ways, it is the legacy of this game being a game as a service that bogs down the new Alpha remaster most. The garbage song selection UI somehow managed to stick round 10 years, along with the weird insistence on secret tracks which are a pain to find. There's also only two patterns per song where even cytus 2 (which actually came out before this port) has 3+, and it leads to a huge gulf in difficulty between some of the easy and hard patterns in the same song occasioanlly, and is just overall dissapointing. There's a scant few patterns in this game that are very difficult, and im not even good at this game - more patterns pushing the envelope would help it a lot.
Frankly, the main thing the port adds is the new art and a little new unlockable story stuff. The new art is absolutely fantastic and helps address the haphazard style of the original game, and the story stuff helps the original sparse narrative get a little more meat on the bones. Its still limited, but it's nice.
The other new things in this port are online multiplayer and physical controls. Neither are worthwhile, with the multiplayer already entirely dead and the the physical controls just being fiddly and i feel would only really work on a keyboard or arcade stick where you could mash really fast.
Overall, Cytus is kinda rough, and Rayark would massively improve on polish and presentation in their later work, but Cytus is arguably still their most interesting and the focus on concept albums and narrative really makes the original in particular stand out. The timing window may be way too wide for a pro to take it remotely seriously, but it's an interesting, and rather special game in it's own right.
And holy shit the timing window is huge. It's something I failed to notice as a beginner, but now with the retrospect of at least kinda knowing a few things about these sorts of games, Cytus feels absurdly easy, with timing windows for goods is bigger than any other game i've played, and perfects even feel like 100ms+ windows even. It's a decision I don't really have a problem with on it's own, but even with it's additional TP system, which tracks accuracy more tightly, the leaderboards are absolutely flooded with max scores.
Which really, in a sense, shows the emphasis of Cytus. It's a far more casual game than most of it's counterparts, even on mobile, focused on an experiencial, almost concept-album like experience.
And in that regard, Cytus is very strong, with the framing device of the game being robots experiencing music as a way to experience human emotions being quite compelling, and the 10-song "Alive" album which forms the title track of each chapter and tells the story is quite compelling, and has some of the best tracks in the game at that. Many of the individual bonus chapters, specifically Chapters L, Knight and Timeline, also serve as individual little storyline concept albums, which is something I have basically not seen in other rhythm games.
And in general, the songs are good, which frankly, is the main thing. There's a good chunk of songs fro Rhythm game favourites like Cranky and M2U, as well as plenty of other good ones. Originally being a subscription thing, there are some issues in that you can tell the game took a while to find it's style, and whilst the early chapters are great and the final few are excellent, some in the middle are a bit dull and uninspired in comparison, though usually each of these at least has one fantastic track.
And in many ways, it is the legacy of this game being a game as a service that bogs down the new Alpha remaster most. The garbage song selection UI somehow managed to stick round 10 years, along with the weird insistence on secret tracks which are a pain to find. There's also only two patterns per song where even cytus 2 (which actually came out before this port) has 3+, and it leads to a huge gulf in difficulty between some of the easy and hard patterns in the same song occasioanlly, and is just overall dissapointing. There's a scant few patterns in this game that are very difficult, and im not even good at this game - more patterns pushing the envelope would help it a lot.
Frankly, the main thing the port adds is the new art and a little new unlockable story stuff. The new art is absolutely fantastic and helps address the haphazard style of the original game, and the story stuff helps the original sparse narrative get a little more meat on the bones. Its still limited, but it's nice.
The other new things in this port are online multiplayer and physical controls. Neither are worthwhile, with the multiplayer already entirely dead and the the physical controls just being fiddly and i feel would only really work on a keyboard or arcade stick where you could mash really fast.
Overall, Cytus is kinda rough, and Rayark would massively improve on polish and presentation in their later work, but Cytus is arguably still their most interesting and the focus on concept albums and narrative really makes the original in particular stand out. The timing window may be way too wide for a pro to take it remotely seriously, but it's an interesting, and rather special game in it's own right.