Placed among the most prominent titles of the first Apple Arcade delivery, we see this interesting Sayonara Wild Hearts in its review
More than a simple business model able to favor the user portfolio, Apple Arcade has the noble intention of focusing on more classic style productions to favor the development of new quality games for iOS platforms (and not only), therefore the most prominent titles of this first mandate are in charge of demonstrating what the service is able to provide in qualitative terms, which brings us with some interest in front of this review by Sayonara Wild Hearts. The Simogo title was used as one of the flagship games to advertise the entire Apple Arcade system, complete with a demonstration of the gameplay on the stage of the Apple presentation conference, just to show how much it is also considered by the organizers of the new service on subscription.
In fact, already the pedigree of the Swedish team is clear: in its nine years of history, Simogo has distinguished itself for having produced some of the strangest and most interesting experiences studied especially for the mobile platforms, from Beat Sneak Bandit to Year Walk to Device 6 and The Sailor's Dream, always going to explore the boundaries not only of the videoludic medium but of its possible applications on the devices in question, often looking for impact effects in the intersections between narration and form, between message and means of communication or even between view , touch and sound, as in the latter case.
The synaesthesia could be considered the base of Sayonara Wild Hearts, which focuses a lot on the effect given by the rhythmic action and on the sensations that come from a harmonious fusion between audio, animations and player interaction. It is not a completely new thing in the field of video games and running on abstract streets or flying through night skies to the rhythm of music, it is natural to think of Tetsuya Mizuguchi or even the more prosaic Harmonix, when it becomes clear that this strange game is basically a rhythm game. However, it is also a title that avoids very specific cataloging and that forces us to pull out of the drawer the infamous phrase "is not a game but an experience", which actually should trigger various alarm bells on the possibility of find ourselves in front of another pretentious and pseudo-artistic ciofeca. This is not the case, fortunately: beyond the obvious pop art ambitions we note a study on the gameplay that is then typical of Simogo productions and that makes this strange "experience" even a really fun game, which is not a small thing.
Racing, duels, neon and broken hearts
Sayonara Wild Hearts is a sort of continuous vision or maybe a dream, which represents an allegory of the love and mammoth challenges that await those who try to emerge from suffered stories and broken hearts. It is a secondary but important element to understand the tone that characterizes the game, composed of about twenty levels united by the need to follow a flow of movements to the rhythm of music, but otherwise separated in terms of setting and peculiar mechanics. In most cases, however, we find ourselves running in a predetermined direction, whether we are on a motorbike on neon highways, whether we ride deer in a mysterious forest or fly in metaphysical tunnels and between skyscrapers, with the possibility of moving to parallel planes to avoid threats and collect bonuses, or hovering in the air with daring trajectories or even touching with the right timing some signals in order to attack in perfect rhythm with the music. It is therefore a challenge of senses and reflexes, which requires fast movements and a glance, moving the finger on the screen with short and fast movements to make the protagonist on bumpy small and precise turns, trying not to lose the rhythm and increase multipliers to reach the maximum score.
Beyond the bizarre presentation, it all comes down to these elementary units of the video game: the race, the need to dodge obstacles and take down enemies and the hunt for the high score, so beyond the aesthetic futurism Sayonara Wild Hearts titilla the strings more deep of the gamer, connecting to the most classic arcade tradition. Also for these reasons it is a game particularly suitable to be used on mobile platforms: it lends itself to short and immediate sessions, with a gameplay able to absorb at the instinctive rather than cerebral level, therefore easily removable and usable at any time and based on on a control system calibrated on the touch screen. Regarding this last aspect, there is some inconsistency in the response to the commands depending on the different game situations, so it may be necessary in some cases to change the sensitivity level to the inputs in the options screen.
However, the remarkable graphic connotation and above all the soundtrack make us fall deeply into its mechanics: as we have said, the music here is not only a pleasant background, it is an accompaniment that becomes an integral part of the gameplay and the overall gaming experience helping to generate a sort of videogame trance that transports us from the beginning to the end of Sayonara Wild Hearts, a path that, to tell the truth, does not last long but still invites to be undertaken several times.
