Don't go into Wii Music expecting it to be the second coming of Guitar Hero or Rock Band.In fact, it's the opposite.
Instrumental-Wii
At the forefront of Wii Music is its extremely diverse assortment of instruments--you start out with a decent selection of a few dozen, but the final tally runs upwards of 60. Staple instruments like drums, piano, and guitar have a good four or five variations each, but there's still more than enough room for important brass, woodwind, string, and percussion instruments. There's all-American tastes ranging from jaw harp to beatboxing. International instruments like India's sitar and Japan's taiko drum are also well-represented. And then there's the just plain bizarre modes of making music, like with barking dogs and cheerleaders. All of the above can be played with just a Wii Remote and Nunchuk.
The methods of control for these various instruments are actually quite ingenious. Despite the extreme diversity of instruments, there are really only four different ways you'll be using your Wii Remote and Nunchuk to play them. Guitar-style instruments have you holding the Nunchuk as you would the neck, strumming the Wii Remote as you would a pick. With string instruments like the violin, you do almost the same thing except you need to press a button to make noise. Woodwind and brass instruments have you holding the Wii Remote vertically and pressing the 1 or 2 button. For drums, pianos, and most of the bizarre modes of making music, simply swinging the Wii Remote and Nunchuk up and down will produce music. Drums can be spiced up with the addition of the Wii Balance Board, which adds the ability to play the hi-hat and floor kick drum to the standard set. Some instruments feel more real than others, and while everything lacks the tactile feedback present in Guitar Hero and Rock Band, its easier to pretend you're playing a violin by closely mimicking its motions than say, a saxophone by pressing buttons on a controller.
A Mixed Tape
Wii Music's most predominant mode is the Jam Session, wherein you pick the band, song, instruments, location, and bring it all together to create a performance.The first step is picking a tune. Wii Music has quite the eclectic song list. You've got classic songs everyone knows like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Happy Birthday". There's a few pop hits in the mix, like "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Every Breath You Take". And for the Nintendo fan, you've got the classic Mario and Zelda theme songs. In my opinion, there's far too many international songs that I've never heard and have little to no interest in trying to creatively interpret--have you ever wanted to play "From Santurtzi to Bilbao" with your friends? If so, they might be Spanish folk singers from the late 1800s. Hardcore fans might be disappointed with the lack of Nintendo tunes. Besides the aforementioned songs, the only other song from the 8-and 16-bit era is the F-Zero Mute City theme, as the rest come from more modern-day titles like Animal Crossing and Wii Sports. Where's the Punch-Out theme? Kid Icarus? Heck, we play enough Mario Strikers Charged in the office... we'd love to hear that theme. The lack of Nintendo tunes is doubly offensive when you consider the fact that this game is the reason there's probably no Nintendo tunes in Rock Band or Guitar Hero (both Sony and Microsoft have allowed songs from their hit IPs God of War and Halo grace 3rd party music games).
I also have to take umbrage with the unlocking system for the songs in Wii Music. You only start out with a handful of songs (and its not the best opening set, either), and unlock the first batch by saving music videos, which isn't something you'll find the pick-up-and-play casual crowd and the memory-conscious WiiWare fiends probably won't cotton to. After that batch, further groups of songs are unlocked by taking music lessons. While they only take 20 to 30 minutes to complete and you do learn some valuable things about the game and music in general, they can be frustrating and tedious, just like a real music lesson. From there, more songs are unlocked by playing through Wii Music's minigames. While that's not a problem in and of itself, the songs chosen as unlockables via this method are perplexing. After saving handfuls of music videos and slogging through music lessons, I still couldn't find the Mario or Zelda theme songs. Turns out they were hidden in Wii Music's minigames. Hiding two songs that should have been available from the outset is just a plain bad move. Imagine if a band took their biggest hit and made it a hidden track on their latest CD or buried it away on their website. That's what it felt like to have to excavate the two most iconic Nintendo songs.
Once you find a song, you pick from a handful of cute stages, each populated with Miis and overflowing with fun background activity. After that is the most important part, where you determine how your song will ultimately end up. You'll pick one of up to six parts, using one of many instruments, apply a new style to the song if it behooves you (craving a Latin-styled Zelda, perhaps?) increase or decrease the speed, and add or remove parts. Once the song begins, its up to you to interpret it however you want. I highly recommend turning the song guide on as soon as the song starts, as it will allow you to play the instruments in time with the song. Frankly, it should have been automatically turned on--playing without it is almost like playing Guitar Hero without the note scroller. Unless you have that on or just happen to be bursting with musical skills, you're almost always assured a giant mess of musical instruments played incorrectly. If you're playing with friends, the chances of a catastrophe are made greater. If your song turns out better than Shaw's spastic drumming, you can save the performance as a music video, complete with an album cover featuring pictures of the Mii performers. You can edit the video to feature new performances and remove unwanted ones and send them to your other Wii Music-owning friends. We have no doubt, however, that we'll start seeing some of these videos hit YouTube and other video-sharing sites.
Off-Stage Antics
The mini-games and alternate modes are a mixed bag. Beyond the mandatory lessons, you can try Jam Mastery lessons, which offer insight into playing each of the different styles skillfully. It uses the same lesson layout, however, so expect to be equal parts educated, frustrated, and bored. You can also take drum lessons, which require the same amount of rhythm and practice it takes to master the real thing. It's not quite as taxing (or rewarding) as playing real or Rock Band drums, but it's easily the most musically-controlled instrument in Wii Music.
The minigames in Wii Music are quite an eclectic batch. First there's the Mii Maestro mode, made famous by Shigeru Miyamoto when he first debuted the Wii a few years ago. If you really want to feel the music, this is the minigame for you. While all you really do is wave the Wii Remote with a tempo to match the song, the fact that you're determining the speed an intensity of a giant gaming orchestra makes it very easy to get caught up in the music. It's a shame there's only 5 songs to play, though. Handbell Harmony is almost the opposite in terms of scale. You play as one performer in a handbell performance, which means you play one note every few seconds. While very minimal, there's still a level of tenseness, as you've got to play your note in perfect time to stay in time with your group. And then there's Pitch Perfect mode, which tests your ear to pick the correct note being played, or placing notes in the correct order to play a song. All three are good in short bursts, and are, unfortunately, painfully low on stages and song amounts, and lack the ability to save performances.
Tired and Inspired
Wii Music is probably Nintendo's most well-meaning game ever. It wants to teach players about music in an entertaining way, and it wants the player to express their knowledge in creative ways. Unfortunately, Wii Music's gameplay crosses in between chaos and creativity too often, unless you let the game guide you to color in the lines. Playing almost any instrument in the game requires a bit more practice than say, swinging a bat bowling a ball in Wii Sports, which mires the game in a muddy territory between pick-up-and-play casual and memorizing and practicing hardcore. When you're able to successfully balance the two and create wonderful music, Wii Music can provide an experience you've never felt before. Not in a music game, not in any other Wii game.
Overall
The Good: An amazing assortment of instruments, the ability to apply different styles of playing, drums and orchestra modes are an unexpected treat.
The Bad: Extremely high learning curve, poor song selection, difficult to create decent-sounding tunes without the game holding your hand, unlockables are poorly distributed.