Music games were and have been an ever-increasing genre with titles like Dance Dance Revolution, Singstar and Guitar Hero being top sellers and influences on the genre. While those games require accurate timing and correct pitch and rhythm for high scores, what about the creative types of muso-gamers who want to make their own music and experiment? Nintendo attempts to answer that question with Wii Music, a continuation of its Mii-based games for the whole family that began with Wii Sports. Is it a sweeping symphony or a string of sour notes?
The game is split into three different types: Jam Mode, Lessons and Minigames. Jam Mode is the core game mode inside Wii Music, allowing up to four players to either improvise with the collection of in-game instruments or jam to one of the game's various songs. You can pick from multiple genres like Rock, Classical, Jazz, Pop, Reggae, and Electronic and what part you’d like to play. Nintendo had tried to streamline the game a bit for newer players without overwhelming them, though the lack of other genres like Country, Hip-Hop, Folk, Soul and RnB is disappointing.
You can also replay a song to add extra performances of yourself or others. Once completed you’ll be asked to rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 100 points and save a video of your performance. The idea of scoring yourself is an odd and obscure idea and the heavy emphasis on video creation seems somewhat forced. Songwise, the game has 50 songs, with 45 needing to be unlocked. The collection of songs is probably the biggest letdown of Wii Music with most of them being public domain and outdated songs aimed at kids and parents, with some decent Pop classics (September, Woman, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Material Girl, etc) and Nintendo tunes (Zelda, Super Mario, Animal Crossing, F-Zero, etc) thrown in. When was the last time anyone wanted to play along to Do-Re-Mi that wasn’t in a primary school music class?
The Lessons mode can be helpful in teaching some basic rhythmic patterns and timing with certain instruments and genres but there’s only one song used for every lesson and it can get ear-grading having to play it over and over again but with different styles. Finally, there are three different mini-games that you play inside Wii Music. Open Orchestra lets you conduct an orchestra of Mii’s, the Guitar Hero-esque Handbell Harmony and Pitch Perfect in which players must run through various pitch matching tests. While the game tries to do a decent job of teaching musical education, the underwhelming soundtrack and forced video creation won’t keep them interested for long.
Getting down into the 60+ instruments, each one boils down to four different motions to perform. Keyboard, Percussion, Guitar and other Stringed instruments require you to strike and or strum the Wii Remote and Nunchuck like the actual instruments while others like Woodwinds and Flutes only need the Wii Remote on their own with two buttons. The range of instruments includes the Jaws Harp, Sitar and DJ Turntable but also includes some gimmicky instruments designed to make the game more “hip” and “quirky” (at the time) like the Beatboxer, the Dog and the Cheerleader. If you’ve ever wanted to play Ode to Joy with a Blackbelt, Cat, Rapper and Dog, Wii Music has you covered though be warned, some earplugs will be needed. If you hit the notes correctly in time with the music you’ll get some decent results but trying to improvise with the lack of control and accuracy of your notes can turn into a chaotic waggling of sounds that sound worse than the on-disc songs included.
If you happen to own a Wii Balance Board, you can try out the game's Drum Mode and play on any of the game's drum kits. Unfortunately for the aspiring drummer, the controls are awful and don’t feel natural. The player has to input a button combo and waggle the Wii Remote and Nunchuck to play each drum as opposed to the more natural striking out to each drum without any button presses. While the game does offer lessons on this playstyle, we’d recommend sticking with air-drumming or paying for actual lessons. Frustration is the word we’d describe the experience of trying to get a passable or decent sound and result from the game's song list. If you get a few friends over to play, they’ll probably grow bored very quickly and go back to playing Karaoke Revolution.
The presentation matches the same look one would expect from Nintendo’s Mii-based games like Wii Sports and Wii Play, with the added Jim Henson-looking “Tutes” playing alongside you. All the songs are relatively short, barely reaching over two minutes, and like the songs themselves, the sound quality of the instrument samples is on the same level as an outdated Nokia cellphone. It’s a shame that Nintendo would use poor-quality samples seen in Jam Sessions on the DS featured great and proper-sounding samples that sounded much better even on an underpowered handheld.
While some fun can be had with how hilariously below-average the game is and for the few willing creative participants, that will get old very quickly. The poor sample quality, the weak and elderly soundtrack and inaccurate controls will have most players dropping out of the group before a proper gig or wishing to go deaf. If you’re an aspiring musician looking for a creative tool, stick with Garageband and leave Wii Music for the bin.
Design: 6
Gameplay: 5.5
Presentation: 6.2
Sound: 4.5
Overall Score: 22% (F)