Kombo’s Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don’t waste your time. This is why we’ve split our reviews into four sections: What the Game’s About, What’s Hot, What’s Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.
What the Game’s About
Two E3s ago, Nintendo unveiled an orchestra game, which received a positive response from excited Wii fans. Shortly after the unveiling, the company confirmed that the orchestra mini-game was a part of a new game in development by famed game creator Shigeru Miyamoto, called Wii Music. The publisher then kept silent about the title for nearly two years — until this year’s E3, during which the title made an on-stage return. Surprisingly, the game was met with a reaction opposite of the excitement and curiosity displayed by Nintendo fans just a couple of E3s prior. Words like “stupid” and “lame” have been used to describe Wii Music’s E3 2008 showing. Bluntly speaking, fans weren’t happy.
Wii Music isn’t really a game so much as it is a toy-like experience. Unlike musical games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, the goal is not to pass a song with the highest score but instead to make music. In the title, you have access to 60 different instruments — including variations of drums, guitars, pianos, flutes, trumpets, violins, turntables and more. Likewise, there are lots of songs packaged in the game. However, there’s little competition to be had outside of the game’s side mode, titled simply Games. Wii Music is a collaborative experience that you can’t win or lose, and the focus is on creating music using the motion-sensing Wii-mote and nunchuck.
What’s Hot
Wii Music is the kind of game that young kids and families can enjoy together. You don’t compete for the highest score, rather you hold the Wii-mote and nunchuck like an instrument and create music by moving them as if you were playing a real-life instrument. There are four types of instruments in the game, and likewise there are four types of control styles: guitar, trumpet, violin and drums. Depending on the instrument type you select, you’ll hold the Wii-mote and nunchuck differently. For example, when playing the drums, you’ll treat the two controllers like drumsticks, beating on an invisible drum set. The guitar, however, is played by holding the nunchuck up as if it were the top of the guitar and the Wii-mote down as if it were the bottom. The nunchuck represents the frets, while you strum with the Wii remote. Meanwhile, horn instruments, such as the trumpet, are played with just the Wii-mote held up, in front of your mouth, and are controlled with the 1 and 2 button.
Although the instrument controls are simplistic, I can’t help but appreciate that Wii Music focuses more on the aspect of making music, rather than just timing button presses with on-screen notes. Wii Music allows for some creativity in how you play each song, which music lovers will surely take pleasure in. In Custom Jam, you can even individually record each instrument as its own track and then splice together the separate tracks, creating your very own mix. Using “overdubbing,” you can also recreate rock, classical, jazz, electronic and other renditions of your favorite songs. It takes a while time to do this since you have to manually record each track yourself, but avid music lovers will no doubt get a kick out of the feature. What’s more, you can save recordings as videos and share them via WiiConnect24.
Outside of the Jam mode, you’ll find a mode called Games. Here, you’ll find three mini-games that are more competition-driven than the rest of Wii Music. The three modes — Mii Maestro, Handbell Harmony and Pitch Perfect — offer a more traditional gaming experience, in the sense that they have goals and scores. Mii Maestro is the orchestra mini-game first shown at E3 2006 and has you conducting an orchestra by waving the Wii-mote as if it were a baton. Handbell Harmony is similar to more typical music video games. You must time your Wii-mote and nunchuck shakes with the bell icons that scroll across the screen. The better your timing, the higher your score. Finally, there is Pitch Perfect, which is probably my favorite of the three modes. Here, you’re met with a variety of challenges, such as recognizing the highest or lowest frequency sounds or arranging notes to create a specific melody.
There’s also the drum mode, which requires the Wii Balance Board. The mode lets you drum on a virtual drum set, using the Wii-mote and nunchuck as drumsticks and the Balance Board as two foot pedals. The controls are complex, but you can definitely bang out some real beats with the mode.
What’s Not
While I can appreciate what Wii Music tries to do, I can’t help but feel unimpressed. The game is simplistic and at times nearly plays itself. While it’s true that you can tweak the sound of your instrument as you play, by holding down different buttons, that’s about the extent of the control’s depth. Otherwise, depending on how fast or slow you shake, your instrument will play faster or slower. Initially, there’s an element of novelty to Wii Music. Admittedly, it’s kind of fun to motion the controller as if you’re playing a real instrument — especially when playing with something like a violin, which simply feels good to play in the game — but the enjoyment quickly dissipates. The more that you experiment with Wii Music, the more that you’ll realize that no matter how you play, the game will produce music that sounds pleasant. As a result, there’s no sense of accomplishment when you play and complete a song. It just feels like you’re shaking the controller to progress the song.
In Mii Maestro, this is especially true. In fact, I found that the more creatively that you conduct, the lower you’ll score. On the other hand, mindlessly shaking the Wii-mote as fast as possible results in a high score. It’s a testament of just how shallow aspects of the game are.
Perhaps the most important aspect of a game rooted in music is song selection. Wii Music successfully manages to underwhelm in this regard. The song selection is comprised primarily of public domain stuff. You’ll find tracks like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” “Ode to Joy,” “My Grandfather’s Clock” and “O Christmas Tree.” No offense to these songs, but there’s something decidedly unexciting and even lame about them, at least in this setting. Thankfully, there are some tracks from popular Nintendo franchises like The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. and F-Zero. These tracks are more appropriate, and frankly, they’re infinitely more fun to play in Wii Music than, say, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” It’s a missed opportunity that there aren’t more Nintendo songs, but I’m thankful for what we got. Further, there are even a few licensed tracks, such as “Every Breath You Take” by Sting, “Material Girl” by Madonna and my favorite — because it reminds me of Zoolander — “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by George Michael. Even so, the lack of licensed music from more recent bands is a disappointment. Then again, considering Nintendo’s taste in music, perhaps it’s better that the company stuck with mostly proven tracks. Although, I wouldn’t include “The Locomotion” in that assessment. Oppositely, the song is cringingly bad, torturous and has no place in any game, ever.
Even though I’m not a fan of the song selection in Wii Music, it would be nice if more songs were available right from the start of the game. As is, you’ll be stuck playing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and a couple of others like it until you start making videos and playing through the game’s school-like Jam Mastery mode, which teaches you how to create different variations of songs (rock, classical, jazz and other adaptations of songs). These tutorials are long and mundane, and I would have preferred not to have to force myself through them to unlock songs. You can also unlock songs through saving videos and playing the Games mode, but there are a limited number of songs that you’ll receive by taking either of these routes. It’s a little baffling, actually, that you can’t just unlock songs as you play, regardless of the mode you’re in. Wii Music is most likely to be enjoyed by younger gamers, and I just can’t imagine any 8-year-old playing through the tutorial-heavy Jam Mastery. Maybe 8-year-olds won’t mind the limited number of songs you start with, but I’d be surprised if that were the case.
Finally, one note about the drum mode. The control setup is incredibly complicated — using the Wii-mote, nunchuck, A, B, C, Z buttons and all directions on the d-pad. If you can get the hang of the controls, you can produce your own beats, but good luck. It’s about as unintuitive as a control scheme can be.
Final Word
Shigeru Miyamoto said it best. Wii Music isn’t a video game, it’s a toy. The only demographics I can imagine getting any lasting enjoyment out of the game are young gamers and families who want a wholesome game to play together. Even then, I can’t imagine that younger players will stay entertained for long, and, well, parents won’t either. Wii Music is dreadfully simple and shallow, and it fails to deliver any sense of accomplishment. Again, I can appreciate that Nintendo didn’t want to create a music game in which you just press buttons at the right time to get a high score, but instead a game that you actually create music in. But Wii Music is a boring and ultimately failed attempt at that. I wouldn’t quite describe it as “bad,” but I would categorize it as underwhelming and unexciting.
I just can’t recommend this game to anyone but the youngest, most easily entertained gamers out there.
