Occasionally, my hunt for anything designated an explormer (which are very few games, given I'm the only one that actually uses that term) leads me down some very curious roads. Those include edge cases like today's game, Songbird Symphony, which follows the cute birb, Birb, as he attempts to locate his true family after realizing he's in an Ugly Ducking sort of scenario with his adoptive peafowl family. The game takes the format of a traditional 2D platformer with some puzzle-solving and exploration aspects - you need to thoroughly search areas for collectibles, and there's limited backtracking if you missed something - but for the most part is a linear affair that punctuates its story beats with song numbers that are presented as rhythm-based mini-games.

Much of Songbird Symphony, from its name and premise down to its mechanics, feel intended for a younger audience or perhaps those not so much looking for a challenge than something adorable they can spend a few hours playing around with. While there is conflict in the story, there's no enemies to fight or hazards to avoid in the traditional sense: you can't be hurt by anything while exploring, and I'm not sure you can actually fail the rhythm game half. It's not a game really invested in putting you through the wringer, though the puzzles can occasionally be tricky - most are of the type where you're pushing boxes into the right positions to make bridges, and there are reset points for when you inevitably mess up - and the rhythm mini-games can be monstrously difficult.

In spite of its otherwise gentle demeanor, Songbird Symphony's rhythm mini-games are every bit the sort of reflexes-intensive ordeal as something like beatmania or the Project Diva games: those where the note markers move so fast that you have to rely more on your own sense of rhythm than trying to visually follow them all. I've personally mastered all three Ose! Tatakae! Ouendan games and yet I was regularly getting my ass beat by all of Songbird Symphony's tracks, missing around a third of the notes at the best of times. Part of the issue is that despite being a very musically-inclined game, the songs themselves lack vocal components and really much of a beat: rather, the game just sends out strings of notes that sort of fit together and tasks you with repeating them. Each of these showdowns presents the note order in a different way - some have them descending from on high like DDR, while others might have them flying onto the screen from different directions or will give you a series of notes that you then have to replicate, with the right timing, from memory - and some are definitely more of a challenge to parse than others. Fortunately, as stated above, despite some miserable performances I never scored lower than a "B" grade on my first attempt with any of them: I can't be sure if a lesser score fails the song or just gives you a more disappointing result before the game just moves on, but I can at least say the passing grades have a generous window.

Completing these song numbers will occasionally give Birb new notes to sing. The game has six in total - they correspond to the top three D-pad directions and face buttons, respectively - though you only start with the one and the rest are introduced gradually. Needless to say, this makes later songs with their incorporation of additional notes a bit trickier to master. The game sadly doesn't really do enough with these extra notes for its puzzles: in most cases, you're replicating the simple, brief note sequences being displayed to move a platform or activate a switch, and the game doesn't have any manner of explormer-specific backtracking where you might need to revisit an earlier area with your newly earned notes to obtain something you couldn't get on your first time through. There are two types of collectibles: the first are what I'd call the area's "natural rhythms," where parts of the environment start generating a beat that is then incorporated into the BGM and usually involves solving a minor puzzle; the second are feathers dropped from the game's many NPCs in out of the way places, some of whom you have to then talk to again before you can confirm the feather belongs to them. The latter's mostly for cataloguing the birds you've met in an in-game bestiary, most of whom came from high-level Kickstarter backers as per their donation tier rewards. Both are relatively minor diversions that don't add too much to what is already a very slight package.

While the game's paper-thin core is its biggest issue, there's still much to like about Songbird Symphony, especially if you're not super invested in explormers and their concomitant backtracking and frequently tough platforming and combat challenges. Visually, it has an appealing pixel style that does a decent enough job animating its many large characters - Birb, the protagonist, has to be big enough on the screen to serve as the active character, but as a chick is necessarily going to be much smaller than most of the bird NPCs he meets - and even if its BGM mostly consist of short loops, the way you can build on those melodies with the collectibles is a clever and immersive way to enhance it with extra channels, transforming it into something halfway between diegetic and non-diegetic. The story is a wholesome yarn about finding your tribe and realizing who your real family is, though I did not anticipate the Hollow Knight visual references towards the end. If I liked the songs more or they had lyrics or a more consistent melody, similar to the musical boss fights in Figment (another flawed but earnest action game with some promising qualities that I hope its upcoming sequel will better utilize), I might be more tempted to replay them for some higher scores: it's often the case with rhythm games that the first attempts are doomed to failure as you work on acquiring a firmer grasp on how the song progresses. It's wholesome, it's distinct in its format, and it's a rare pacifistic example of the genre for those who seek out such things; yet I find it lacks a lot of substance, doesn't do enough with its musical leanings, and has an oddly inconsistent difficulty between its easy platforming and far-from-easy rhythm battles.

Rating: 3 out of 5.