I am far from a rhythm game aficionado and went into Invector: Rhythm Galaxy with only a few titles from the genre under my belt, but I have recently played and enjoyed AVICII Invector, the last outing of Hello There Games. It was a title lovingly crafted to explore how the late and great DJ crafted his melodies and the variety of his oeuvre on a vibe-filled spaceship ride.
Hearing that their new title was to be based on licensed music from the Warner Music Group, I was excited to see how they would approach a wider range of sounds and genres. Upon completing the campaign and replaying individual songs in the meantime, I am sad to say that it feels like the Invector series is experiencing an identity crisis.
Invector has not evolved in any meaningful way; no new mechanic was introduced, which I find to be perfectly fine. There is plenty more that can be squeezed out of the base which the previous title built. The issue is that a lot of them feel worse here than they did in 2019. I noticed several weird changes the moment I got into the first song.
All of my inputs were late, and it turned out that the cause of this was the biggest change in the game: moving the hitbox to the front of the ship. I do appreciate the clear visual indicator, but changing the entire hitbox took a while to get used to, and even after I did, simply hitting a note with some abstract box that is completely detached from the ship felt worse than flying over it previously.
The notes themselves got a slight visual overhaul, and for the worst in my opinion. They grew larger, but in a way that would often cover up the other notes if they were too close to each other. Similarly, the strum lost the indicator which differentiated a hold action from the regular press, which would stay no matter how well you did, and in some areas, it is sorely missed, as the yellows of the strum completely fade into the background.
Furthermore, the biggest issue of the previous game remains here and seems to be much more prevalent. The most unique thing about Invector is its triangle tube, which forces the player to stay aware of when they have to spin left and right during a song. The game requires not just a good sense of rhythm, but excellent perceptiveness and reaction times. The tube is one of the three gameplay styles that may be used during a song, there is also the regular track where instead of spinning the player simply moves left and right on a track, and there’s also flying through rings, which is typically used for slower segments in-between the outburst of rhythm. Each has its issues, but the one that repeats in each style is how Invector: Rhythm Galaxy moves the camera.
In the 3D space, Invector: Rhythm Galaxy is not satisfied with simply letting you view its worlds on a straight path. It feels the need to be cinematic, to have the ship fly up and down, left and right. This feels dynamic, but is overall detrimental, as it leads to poor visibility. So many times I have found myself unable to see a set of upcoming notes or judge the proper flight path because of this. Invector: Rhythm Galaxy does not have the option to change this, which is a big shame.
What is more, the song selection (likely the biggest reason to buy Invector: Rhythm Galaxy as opposed to its predecessor) fails to excite. While it spans a wide range of music and takes from many different countries, there are a lot of structurally similar songs. While the AVICII tracklist was similar, it made me appreciate his art more thanks to the gameplay. The campaign got progressively more complex by, for example, introducing new inputs after a certain amount of time. Here, so many tracks feel like they hit the flying segment at the same spots, or use such similar note combinations; it does not feel like the gameplay evolves during the campaign. The tracks chosen for each section feel randomly selected, as many of the earlier ones are more lively and difficult. Difficulties themselves were also simplified, with each having a select set of possible inputs. The player will never see a red note below medium, for example.
The difficulties do not change just that, as they introduce a wholly new map for each song. Sometimes the spikes between them are brutal and make little sense. Take the intro to Disturbed’s Down With the Sickness for example, on easy it feels like the map is building anticipation towards the classic, explosive “OOO-A-A-A-A” with sparse notes, but on Hard and Insane, it is unnecessarily overcomplicated, adding strums in places where absolutely no instrument plays. This is a very common issue and one that drags down the song selection.
Sometimes a track does not have that much going on, and in those instances Invector: Rhythm Galaxy feels the need to have the player’s ship itself become an instrument, meaning that it adds things to press when there is no sound in the song itself, just to add complexity to a level. Take Shine A Light by Paolo Nutini: a song with a lengthy, steady, repeating rhythm that does not seem like a great fit for Invector. The game tries so hard to make it a good fit by changing the way the player interacts with the same rhythm drastically throughout its runtime. Frankly, it just feels bad to go through moments like these. Invector: Rhythm Galaxy already has the tools to elevate songs like these, as the visuals look great! I am sure many players would appreciate a simpler track where they could really take a good look at them and take it all in, but when they get into a really difficult section, their focus will rely solely on clearing them. A lot of work feels wasted on a game that seems to aim for hardcore fans.
This is why I mentioned an identity crisis: does Invector: Rhythm Galaxy want to focus more on songs like these and provide a more satisfying casual experience filled with the wonder of witnessing this ship fly through cool locations to some awesome beats, or does it want to continue its path of difficult rhythm gameplay? Right now I would say the two fail to coexist, and many tracks feel at odds with each other.
Lastly, the less said about the campaign’s story, the better. Loosely tying with the character from the previous game, four new characters meet up and have the most basic conversations that childhood friends could have until they spout off something so random in an attempt to be funny that the player is left with nothing more but a severe case of the eye-rolls. It is really bad.
Invector: Rhythm Galaxy is a game that gets the rare privilege of using so much officially licensed music, but does not seem to know how to approach much of it. The series feels like it needs a central character, as it did with AVICII, that one could explore through its gameplay. There are also some songs here, however, that show a whole lot of promise for a reinvention. Stuck in a weird place right now, Invector might just fall into obscurity unless it figures itself out.
Mateusz reviewed Invector: Rhythm Galaxy on PC with a review code.
