Symphony of the Night | Tears of Themis | Event Review
Unravel the mystery behind the recent attacks on the Big Data Lab in Tears of Themis’ new story event, ‘Symphony of the Night’. Each day, an intricately crafted device known as the ‘Vesper Box’ provides a series of quests and clues, which you must complete to determine the location of a dangerous hacker who threatens the security of everyone in the city of Stellis…
Event Features:
☆ Event tasks – complete to receive rewards and unlock clues
☆ Brand-new story – unravel the mystery over a series of days by completing tasks and investigations
☆ Gacha banner – four exclusive cards are available in a new gacha banner
This event is still ongoing – ending on 3rd November – so I haven’t unlocked the full story yet. But, because the game releases new story sections over several days, it would be difficult for anyone who hadn’t started yet to finish it in time if I waited to post this until after I completed the main story. So, I’m sharing my thoughts now, based on what I’ve played so far…
Story
Despite the lack of ‘classic’ Halloween themes like skeletons, zombies, or pumpkins, Tears of Themis has managed to create a compelling story event that clearly belongs in the spooky season. The imagery is dark and intriguing, with a thrilling mystery to solve through an enchantingly beautiful object known as the ‘Vesper Box’.
“Players can delve into the thrilling investigations to find out the mastermind behind the attack on the Big Data Lab… Complete the challenges to unlock tons of rewards and bonuses!”
– miHoYo’s ‘Symphony of the Night’ Press Release
As with every Tears of Themis event I’ve played to date – the visuals are stunning. Rather than having a generic event page template and just changing the wording, Tears of Themis designs an entire new layout every time a new event is released. In the case of ‘Symphony of the Night’, the main page is set in the Vesper Box, which features an elegant, golden frame filled with mystical images that light up once you unlock their corresponding part of the story.
These sections unlock over the course of several real-world days, and will only be accessible if you have completed all of the event tasks in the previous section. This does make it feel a little bit fragmented, as we’re drip-fed story parts each time we receive a new clue, and then left to wait until the next day for more tasks to appear. However, the main event menu also contains several tabs of clues, ‘truths’, and investigation sites, to help you keep track of all the important points and I’m yet to feel particularly lost or confused.
In this event, we get to have DAVIS accompany us and assist with the investigation! 
How could you make DAVIS sad…. 
The Vesper Box is first introduced in the story as an interactive object, before being used as the UI for the main event page 
Each painting corresponds with a stage in the story and must be unlocked in a specific order 
The NXX Group chat is a new feature that I hope sticks around! 
It uses the same profile images you set in the ‘contacts’ page 
I love how the story is integrated with the group chat feature to make everything feel more connected and relevant to each other
Some parts of the story also take place in the new ‘NXX Group Chat’ function – essentially, this is the same text message feature we’ve already seen in the game, but now all the members of NXX are involved, not just MC and one of the love interests. This is one part of the event that I particularly love, as it provides more opportunities for banter between the NXX members, so I’m hoping it returns as an ongoing feature in the game.
The plot itself feels a lot like any of the other main story chapters – there’s a mystery to solve, MC gets together with the rest of the cast to investigate, and then they put everything together to uncover the truth. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I won’t go into it in too much detail, but, from what I’ve read so far, it’s a fairly average mystery story about a missing person. I haven’t come across anything particularly revolutionary that made me think the story was a masterpiece, but I’m still having fun – hence, average.
I do like the incorporation of the Vesper Box – it feels similar to the way riddles and tasks are presented in Luke’s personal story – and it helps direct the plot in a particular direction (which makes sense, as the whole story has to take place over a very short timeframe). I’m wondering if my opinion on the actual plot will change as I get closer to the end, but there were several opportunities to have something a bit more unique or interesting happen, and instead the writers went with the generic, or ‘safe’, option.
Spoiler warning! For example, it would have been fun to have the female character introduced during the investigation at the school turn out to actually be the hacker they’re looking for, rather than the hacker’s love interest. Instead, we got a misunderstood genius boy with his pretty-but-not-a-genius girlfriend. Missed opportunity to turn gender tropes on their head and have the hacker turn out to be the popular girl! This is what I mean by average – it’s entertaining, but not particularly unique.
Still, Symphony of the Night isn’t the main story. It’s a fun side-event with a dash of supernatural flavour to play during the Halloween season. It serves its purpose, and I’m enjoying exploring the story while playing around with some of the experimental gameplay mechanics… the task rewards are a nice bonus, too, of course.
Gameplay
Once again, I’m impressed by how miHoYo can take the core mechanics of their game and add a unique twist to tie it in with the theme of the event – even the tasks have a little thematic flavour sprinkled in. Rather than generic instructions for what are essentially the equivalent of the dreaded ‘fetch quests’ from classic RPG’s, we get tasks for specific debate levels that name the character or location in which you need to debate, each appearing with their own, unique description.
When I first saw this, I admit, I was a little dubious. I had no idea where I would find the necessary levels, however, if you don’t feel like trying to track down the debate you need, you can simply click the ‘proceed’ button on the event task, and it will take you to whichever page you need to be on to find the appropriate debate.
The main event page is designed to incorporate the ‘Vesper Box’ from the story 
Completing tasks grants rewards and clues to progress the story 
Clues can either unlock a new area of investigation or a new option at an existing area 
Location clues are easily accessed from the main event page 
Sometimes clues unlock a new option at a site you already have access to 
You won’t be able to access any further clues at a site until you have completed more tasks – you can return to a site as many times as you need, so don’t panic if you can’t see all the clues straight away 
Once you have unlocked all of the clues at a site and selected the correct choice, you can uncover a ‘truth’, which activates a story part that progresses the main event plot
I like that players have the option to either solve the mystery themselves, or use in-game features to show them the answer. I don’t always like using my brain too much when I’m trying to wind down after work, so having these ‘easy-mode’ options allows me to still make progress in the game, but also get that much-needed relaxation time. On the other hand, if you’re more in the mood for using your noggin and cracking the case, you can just ignore these features and figure out the answer for yourself.
Rewards
“Complete the “Symphony of the Night” event, unseal the mystery to receive S-Chip ×800, Stellin, Selection Star II, and the event-limited badge “Witch’s Gift”!”
– miHoYo’s ‘Symphony of the Night’ Press Release
As with all good events, there’s a plethora of juicy rewards on offer in Symphony of the Night. Completing investigations at each location provides S-Chips, with a total of 800 S-Chips available throughout the event. There’s also plenty of Stellin, which is lucky, because I burned through all of mine crafting furniture in the previous ‘New Home Day’ event!
If you feel like your player profile is lacking, you can jazz it up with an event-exclusive badge, ‘Witch’s Gift’. Collecting badges helps complete achievements, too, which helps if you’re trying to hoard more S-Chips. I would have liked some sort of spooky invitation as well, but seeing as the ‘visit invitations’ were only recently introduced on 13th October (along with some new backgrounds), it makes sense that Tears of Themis wouldn’t bring out another invitation just yet.
In addition to these notable rewards, all the usuals are on offer, including card upgrade items, skill upgrade items, and Stellin. These may not seem quite as exciting, but they are useful, especially once you want to put together higher-powered decks for more recent main story chapters, anomaly levels, and even some event levels (I’m still emotionally recovering from the Mediation-5 level in Mysteries of the Lost Gold…).
Gacha
Tears of Themis is also running a gacha banner of the same name concurrent with the main event, ‘Symphony of the Night’. The banner features 2 x SSR cards and 2 x SR cards, all of which are event-exclusive and won’t become available in the main gacha pool.
These limited-time cards are:
- SSR – Between Good and Evil (Vyn) – odds: 0.800%
- SSR – Fabulous Feast (Marius) – odds: 0.800%
- SR – Fixated on You (Artem) – odds: 2.935%
- SR – How I Remember You (Luke) – odds: 2.935%
Final Thoughts
I don’t necessarily think the story is quite as exciting as the one from ‘Mysteries of the Lost Gold’, but my opinion on the plot may change once I reach the finale and all the secrets have been revealed. What I love most about ‘Symphony of the Night’ is the creative use of existing gameplay mechanics combined with new features, which allows it to stand out in a sea of Halloween events.
As we’ve come to expect from Tears of Themis, the visuals are beautiful and, once again, the developers have introduced a completely new interface for the main event page. This time we get the stunning Vesper Box, complete with stained glass-inspired art of mystical elements, including a witch, knight’s helmet, sword, and more.
Further to the new plot introduced in the main event, each of the four cards available in the gacha banner come with a unique story, which essentially means there are five new stories provided in total. Each time new content is released for Tears of Themis, I can’t help but be impressed by the sheer amount of effort and attention to detail that’s poured into it.
In short, the art is beautiful, the story is intriguing, and the gameplay has some unique twists added to prevent it from feeling too repetitive, all while still incorporating ‘shortcut’ features for those of us who just want to read the story without having to think too hard about puzzles and clues.
If you’re a Tears of Themis fan, or simply looking for an interesting, seasonal mystery, then check out ‘Symphony of the Night’ – just be sure to do so before it ends on 3rd November!
Trailer
Game Info
Game Name:
Tears of Themis
Producer: miHoYo
Platform: Mobile
Available to download: here!
Age Rating: 4+ / Everyone
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