Synth Riders (2018)

For a rhythm game that doubles as a bit of a workout, I think Synth Riders is pretty good. It's not an intense workout and you'll probably get more of one out of something like Beat Saber, but I do find it a nice change of pace. Plus, it feels a bit more "dance" focused in a way, which tends to be more fun to me personally than just super fast movements aiming for high scores. The accuracy seems pretty strict in this game and I've never found myself as engaged in the gamey aspect of aiming for a higher score or perfect hits throughout the levels because of that.

My biggest issue is that I simply am not into the music in the game and unfortunately, that's a pretty big issue for a rhythm game, especially one where I'm basically dancing. There's some fun to be had, but it's harder to really get in the mood and want to keep pushing when most of the songs are just not my kind of thing. I did find some of the DLC albums more to my liking and that's most of what I've played of the game, so I've definitely gotten a good deal of playtime out of it with those, but it's not really enough to make it a favorite game. That said, it's kind of on me since most synth-based music I'm not that crazy about anyway and got the game just hoping for a different kind of exercise/rhythm game. If you are more into the genre, this game might come across a lot better.

Still, I don't regret getting it at all and the tracks I do like are pretty fun. It's a nice change of pace that while similar to something like Beat Saber, manages to get you moving in a different way (and one that isn't as hard on the wrists). Lastly, while I feel this way about most rhythm games, I honestly found the gameplay kind of boring until I got the hang of it and was able to handle the highest difficulty level. At that point though, it's pretty fun.

It's ironic that this game has native support for custom songs but there's not a lot to chose from because the community is much smaller compared to Beat Saber, for which custom songs have to be hacked in with mods.

The fluid movements work better for some songs and I like the stages, but the lack of songs is the nail in the coffin. I don't think we'll play more of it.

Synth Riders is a cool VR game that shares the same idea as Beat Saber. You have two different colored ball glove things and punch balls of the same colors on the beat of your chosen music track.

You got blue balls (hehe), pink balls for your left and right hands and also come across yellow and green balls. The yellow ones are punched by holding your hands together and punching the ball with both hands. The green ones can only be punched with one hand and, in this case, which one of your hands used, does not matter.

The game got a fair amount of build in music packs and tracks to choose from and can be expanded by buying DLC packs or using custom tracks that you can download from the official Synth Riderz community page.

On the Synth Riderz page, many people mapped their own songs into worthy Synth Riders maps and uploaded them for you to download. I myself also mapped a fair amount of maps and although this takes a lot of time (everything needs to be mapped by hand, one note at a time), it is worth it in the end. People can leave votes and reviews on your maps, so you know where to improve. My only complaint with this system is that people leave down votes without explanation. It would work better when you needed to give a reason or some feedback on why you did not like the map.

What makes Synth Riders stand out from Beat Saber, at least in my opinion, is that it plays more smoothly and you have more control over the incoming notes. This is mainly because of the fact that you only need to focus on the colors and their positions, rather then slice a note in a certain direction, something I am really bad in. With Synth Riders, you just punch the right color and you are set. You also ride some colored rails which is very satisfying.

You can compete on leader boards and battle against other people and friends to receive the highest score, something that makes the game pretty intense sometimes.

The best thing in this game is the community behind it. Like I said, it has a official fan community website in which people can make and download custom maps, it has a discord server for mappers and interested people and overall, this game feels more alive than Beat Saber, because of its active community behind it.

Definitely recommend this game for your VR headset.