Whenever you search for musical games, you will generally find one of two things – a focus on tonality and rhythm, or a focus on using sounds to teach words. Lyrical Letters is perhaps unique as a game because, instead of being either, it is somehow both.
Lyrical Letters gives you a keyboard and, every level, a few notes that are slowly played for you. All you need to do is figure out what the notes spell out and play it yourself and then submit it. The notes play out a word, which is defined if you click on the “Hint” button, allowing you to match your note choice based on the letters you know to be involved in the word, assuming you can guess it. As a keyboard obviously uses a lot of the same letters in each octave, the keyboard presented to you is a slice of a larger full piano, allowing you a nice range of different letters in a variety of different octaves.
Initially, the game seems to want you to be able to hear the exact note being played and thus know which keys to press, except that most people don’t know piano music by ear. To help you along, each key is lettered accordingly, allowing you to essentially just type in the right keys by guessing the word from the definition. The problem with this is that the purpose of the game seems rather muddled – is it a puzzle game about finding out the word? If so, it is strangely easy due to the fact that you are provided the definition to the always two or three letter word, making it easy.
[sc name=”quote” text=”If so, it is strangely easy due to the fact that you are provided the definition to the always two or three letter word, making it easy.”]
Or is it actually a game about musical tones and trying to remember them? If so, few can actually play it due to it requiring musical knowledge already. Or perhaps it is a teaching game, trying to get you to remember the notes in a simple way? One saving grace is that you can change the music to be any one of 8 different instruments, but this only helps those that have experience over guitar rather than piano, as it is still all the same musical notes, just on different instruments. Lyrical Letters seems to suffer from a strangely conflicting genre choice – it is part puzzle game, part musical game, part teaching tool, yet doesn’t seem to settle on any particular one.
Lyrical Letters is enjoyable, with very crystal clear, therapeutic music; it just isn’t at all obvious what it’s actually trying to do.
[sc name=”quote” text=”Lyrical Letters is enjoyable, with very crystal clear, therapeutic music; it just isn’t at all obvious what it’s actually trying to do.”]
You will walk away a bit more knowledgeable about musical notes, a bit more knowledgeable about word definitions and also, if you played it for long enough, with a very slightly sore ear from the loud music.
[review pros=”The musical tonality is enjoyable enough to calm you after a long day. ” cons=”The actual purpose of the game doesn’t really seem clear. Without already present musical ability, you are simply playing a basic word puzzle.” score=6.5]
[appbox appstore id1263188423?mt=8]
