| Daigasso! Band Brothers - review |
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Daigasso! Band Brothers may have been one of the less prominent Japanese release titles for the Nintendo DS but, by heck, it demands your attention. Band Brothers is not only a Rhythm Action game, but also a music sequencer (capable of turning any sound into an editable score) and a communal musical conductor, allowing many DS owners to play different instruments within the same song at once. It sounds impressive, but can a game with such a wide scope actually succeed?
The game builds upon itself in layers, in both difficulty and scope, as the player's skill develops. To begin with you might, say, experiment in practice mode then, once comfortable, move on to Studio mode to unlock harder levels of play. Once you're able to knock out a decent tune, you might brave the humiliation (or adulation) of a multi player game, and eventually start composing your own songs to share with others.
Band Brothers makes good use of both the DS’s screens during play. The lower screen contains the song name, tempo, your current combo, and the score breakdown. The upper screen is where the game is at, displaying a vertically scrolling series of bars, four bars to a line and four lines high. An arrow pulsing on the beat travels left to right, indicating your position within the 'score'. This gives you much more information about upcoming musical sequences than most Rhythm Action games, aiming more at practice and timing than reaction speed.
You start the game in Beginner mode, where only three inputs are required: d-pad, button, or touch. The timing is pretty tight (as there is a very small hit window), and accuracy is essential. A hit is given for the 'head' of a note, and sometimes the 'tail' - a lengthened bar indicating that the input needs to be held down for its duration. Once Beginner is mastered you unlock Amateur mode, where specific directions and individual buttons are distinguished, which really cranks up both the difficulty, and player involvement.
In Beginner and Amateur modes, complex musical sequences are activated by touching the lower screen, rather than having the player follow them manually. This makes Band Brothers one of the few games that expects you to press the touchscreen with your fingers, rather than using the stylus or thumb strap. Your DS shouldn't suffer fingerprints for too long though, as Pro mode does away with the touch input during recitals altogether.
Even the promotion to Amateur mode will not prepare you for the increase in complexity that Pro mode offers. Not only is the player now expected to handle complex sequences manually, but also the shoulder buttons act as note modifiers. Combining with R-trigger gives you up-octave, and combining with L-trigger gives you flat. If you consider that Band Brothers now uses 32 notes, you'll get an idea as to how hairy the more complex arrangements can become.
It may seem that Pro mode is too tough, but that isn't really the case. While mastering Amateur mode the player will begin to yearn for more freedom, and Pro mode delivers exactly that. The learning curve from Beginner to Pro is perfectly judged to teach common button sequences, one by one, and transform what begins as a Rhythm Action game into what eventually becomes a musical instrument. Unforgiving to be sure, but it does afford the gamesplayer some rare respect, tipping its hat to the fact that players are, generally, very skilled at their pastime. The freedom of Band Brothers' Practice Mode is the core of the single player game, and Studio Mode provides a means of progression, both modes working in tandem.
Adding a whole new dimension to this superbly designed learning path, wireless connectivity has everyone play the same song at once, choosing different instruments for the same piece of music. On each DS the played instrument is loudest, but everyone playing can be heard. This introduces some really interesting dependencies; go slightly off with your drum pattern, and listen to the guitar and piano players follow suit. Wireless Band Brothers is co-operative play in the most complete sense. Remarkably, only a single cartridge is needed to play any song with up to eight players, and a near limitless number of players are possible if each owns the game.
As you'd expect from a memory-limited medium - cartridge - the range of sounds available to construct songs is, well, limited. No doubt this could put many punters off, but it shouldn't, and does have a strange early-nineties midi kind of appeal about it. The choice of songs is typical Rhythm Action fare, with a smidge of Nintendo eccentricity, and work well. Among the contemporary J-Pop singles, TV themes, classical music, and classic pop is a very generous selection of Nintendo medleys. Any seasoned games player will find at least one Nintendo song here to warm their hearts, and, more importantly, to master.
The mix of quality with quirk extends to the packaging, which makes Band Brothers even more endearing. The oversized card outer box (think 'craft') contains a pair of special bud earphones, and three instruction sheets in the style of band flyers, explaining each of the three main modes in the game. All this for a launch game demonstrates impeccable attention to detail, and the level of commitment Nintendo hold for their games. Great stuff.
The inquisitive player will find a complete Edit mode, where songs can be created and added to the standard roster, sharable with others. It is here that Band Brothers really demonstrates its commitment to both technical achievement and generating musicians. Not only can songs be constructed by manual notation, but the mic input can even be used to 'record' a series of musical notes by following tones. It is doubtful that these song-editing features are going to turn your average gamer into a skilled composer, but then, how could it? Edit mode is a fun inclusion all the same.
With this hardware launch, Nintendo has really set up the DS as a platform with which to try something new. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Band Brothers: a hugely addictive Rhythm Action game that has the audacity to add collaborative performance, and an impressive Edit mode. If you bought a DS for the reasons Nintendo hoped - in order to play something different - then Band Brothers is a game you should already own. |
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System: Nintendo DS
Genre: Rhythm Action
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-8
Version: Japan
Reviewed: Jan 2004
Writer: Richard Davies
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Pros:
- addictive Rhythm Action
- superlative wireless linkup
- impressive edit mode
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Cons:
- Pro difficulty is hard
- midi sounds may put some players off
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