How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Fantasia

In Fantasia: Music Evolved, there's a section where you control three street-performing cuts of meat. The bacon creates an accordion-style noise, while the drumstick does a bunch of tap-dancing moves, and the T-bone steak, oh, wait a second, I'm getting ahead of myself. Fantasia: Music Evolved is a rhythm game from Harmonix Music Systems, the team behind Rock Band and more recently Dance Central. It involves a lot more than musically inclined cuts of meat, but our protein-packed pals are indicative of the game's goofy sense of humor.

Like any good rhythm game, Fantasia requires you to accept that what you're doing is a little ridiculous in order to start having fun. Are you going to look goofy waving your arms around pretending to conduct a custom remix of "Enjoy the Silence"? Yes, yes you are. Should you let that stop you? Not one bit.

Playing Fantasia involves swiping your arms in various directions to sync up with the arrows onscreen. When the down arrow lights up, you swipe down. When the left arrow lights up, you swipe left, and so on. There are some other interactions as well, but arm swipes are your go-to move.

Now, when I started my first song in Fantasia, I didn't want to look like a complete buffoon, so I tried to do controlled hand gestures, rocking my hands back and forth in little circles. The game was not amused, and scored me appropriately. My second time up to bat, I just cut loose and started flailing my arms around like a crazy person, and I did much better.

At certain points throughout a song in Fantasia, you have opportunities to remix the music. The blue remix is basically the original mix of the song and is always unlocked, while the pink (classical) and green (modern) remixes are unlocked as you progress through the single-player game.

In the single-player game, groups of songs are clustered around themed hub areas. These hub areas are filled with little asides and surprises that unlock as you complete the songs. And that's where our cuts of meat come into play. Poke around the New York hub area long enough, and you'll find this trio and create your own little melody to play in the background. And for all the vegans out there, fear not. There's a trio of beat boxing vegetables to choose from as well.

If multiplayer is more your style, don't worry, because the game has an option to unlock all the songs in multiplayer so you don't have to grind through single-player first. Multiplayer involves the same sorts of motions as the single-player game. However, you either perform these moves in sync with your partner or take turns performing one after the other. Fantasia: Music Evolved will be released October 21, 2014, for the Xbox One and Xbox 360. Polish off your tap shoes, grab your favorite drumstick, and get ready to create music magic.

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