Wii Ware’s first music title falls flat
Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 12:41am by Naomi
Even the medicine colored title screen of Yudo’s “Aero Guitar” that was released on the Japanese Wii Shop Channel last week told me that the game might not really satiate my desire for a quick-quality music title to play while waiting for “Wii Music” and the pointlessly late Japan release of “Samba de Amigo.” Nonetheless I figured it would at least make for a fun review and I flushed my 800 yen down the digital drain.
Time to call the plumber.
Aero Guitar tries to capitalize on the stateside success of “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” and lack of attention from Konami to port their original “Guitar Freaks/Drum Mania” series onto the Wii.
Let’s get the most crucial part out of the way: the music. A music game has to have good music to be a good game and this one does not. It’s got four cheesy songs pre-loaded from bands you have never heard of (with vulgar names, no less) that appear to be mimicking other songs like the kinds they use in low-budget commercials that couldn’t afford to use originals. It appears you can buy a couple more songs with your hard earned Wii points but it’s hard to justify paying a premium for songs you don’t know.
Forgoing any peripherals, the game uses the wiimote (or the much less fun A-button) to strum and all the while you press either up, down, or nothing at all on the nunchuck to simulate the holding down of a string. In theory this isn’t a terrible way to simulate how a guitar might feel, but the wiimote strumming is a hair-trigger. It ended up being more effective to hold the remote like a drum stick and swing it forward over-hand with my wrist, rather than moving it up and down in a strumming motion.
In addition, any note can be played by flicking the wiimote forwards or backwards, but some bonus notes can only be activated with the backwards flick. These are notoriously hard to pick up and presumably add a level of challenge though the points system doesn’t make a lot of sense. Also the lack of any tutorial or practice mode before the game started made sure I wouldn’t hit at least the first 4 or 5 bonus notes without any trial and error. Overall the effect is fun for a bit, but you end up pounding the wiimote quite hard and it kind of gets tiring quickly.
Oh yeah, and once the notes get fast? Forget about it. I cleared all but one song on normal mode with relative ease but the hardest song “How the hell?” contains a few quick notes that just don’t seem plausible — as if strumming the previous note keeps the wiimote from sensing the next one. Aero Guitar actually gives you quite a bit of control over how fast the notes go by, and the faster you make them the easier it is to figure out these quick strums, but most of the time they still seem not to work.
This brings me to Aero Guitar’s biggest problem: the overall interface. All selection can be done using the D-Pad and buttons but the default is to point at it with a guitar-pick shaped cursor. Now a pick is shaped like a triangle (right?) and one would assume that the tip of the triangle would be the part of the cursor you need to put on an icon in order to select it… right?? Apparently Yudo did not see my way and you actually have to point the fat bottom end of the pick on an icon to select anything. Now if you went ahead and read the instructions you might know that you can use the d-pad to circumvent this issue, but here’s one you can’t fix. Let’s say you pick the wrong song or the wrong difficulty – there is no pause menu, you cannot quick-fail the song by fudging every note, and you can’t even go back to the Wii menu. You have to either wait until the entire song has finished or reset the console just to get back to a menu. This is an oversight that encourages users to turn the game off — which is never good.
I don’t know if this is normal but I also had one of the three commands (up and stum) simply stop registering on one song — quite frustrating when you can’t pause or quit in the middle.
Now I make it my business to pick up almost every rhythm game and play it at least once no matter how terrible, but Aero Guitar doesn’t really need to be picked up again after that. Unless you’re really itching to try out the strumming or… can think of another reason, I wouldn’t recommend buying Aero Guitar if/when it is released stateside. Let’s hope if it is, though they fix some of the above problems.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:23 am
Sounds bad… The beginning of Wiiware shovelware?
October 12th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Actually, I think that pog racing game was the beginning of the Wii-shovel-ware
October 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I think you nailed it right on the head when you said, “A music game has to have good music to be a good game”. I think most people will find that is what will make Wii music lose its appeal after a few plays. It will still probably sell millions, but I wonder how many people will be playing it after 2 or 3 weeks.
I’ve been playing GH3 for over a year and can still get into it because of the music. It’s the music that makes it fun.
October 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
It must be killing Derek and Blake, what with their self-ban that prevents them from talking about Wii Music and everything.
Iwata Asks: Wii Music – An excerpt:
Iwata
I’d like to ask a little more about breakthroughs on the way to completing Wii Music. When did you decide to rule out wrong sounds no matter how someone plays?
Totaka
That was soon after I joined.
Iwata
Why did you decide to do that? Musical instruments are usually something you practice in order to master. Learning to do what you can’t is rewarding as well as enjoyable.
Totaka
I completely agree.
Iwata
That’s the basic idea behind traditional music games. What made you decide to exclude mistakes?
Totaka
That’s exactly what people who can play music say. Their music life revolves around knowing what notes to play and how to play them note by note. They want to know what the deal is with getting it all right merely by swinging a remote. Which is understandable. But I think both ways are possible. Without a doubt, you can enjoy music by starting from zero and determinedly learn to play step by step, but there are other ways to achieve the same results.
Iwata
I see.
Totaka
This is a bit of a digression, but when I started working on Wii Music, I hadn’t played many conventional music games, so I tried some out. When I was playing one of them, I was having fun, and decided to try to play one of the songs perfectly. I played flawlessly through the last note, and in triumph laid on an extra note at the end of the song. But when I looked at my score…it wasn’t perfect!
Iwata
Because of that extra note?
Totaka
Yeah, it said I’d done something I shouldn’t have. But isn’t adding a note in keeping with the music a good thing? So I wondered if we could make a game that would allow such embellishments, and came up with the design we have now, whereby you can play normal melodies or elaborate however you see fit.
October 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
On the Drum Mode:
Morii
I completely forgot to mention it earlier, but this game has a drum mode. You can take some pretty serious drum lesson2 using both your arms and legs on the Wii Balance Board for Wii Fit..
Iwata
Oh, that’s right.
Morii
Some staff members and I were going through the lessons in order, and since hardly any of us had any experience on the drums, we had a lot of trouble at first.
Iwata
Because each limb has to keep its own rhythm.
Morii
Right. It’s really hard! Most of us were sure we’d never get it, but everyone gradually got better. In the end, nearly everyone had made it through all the lessons!
Iwata
Huh? You mean to tell me that even though no one had any training in the drums or had the coordination at first, everyone mastered the lessons?
Morii
That’s right.
Iwata
I’m impressed.
Totaka
Yeah, and there’s more.
Iwata
Huh?
Totaka
After that, I wondered if they would be able to play real drums, so we went to a practice studio near the office.
Iwata
No way! How did it go?
Totaka
I made a video recording. I had them try beats with quarter note, eighth note and sixteenth note patterns, and they could do it. On real drums!
Iwata
Really? (laughs)
Morii
It sounds too good to be true, but it is.
Totaka
They crossed their arms the right way and positioned themselves properly. That’s unimaginable for beginners!
October 12th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
And finally (with bold words for emphasis):
Why This Isn’t The Traditional Cookie-Cutter Music Game Everyone Wants It To Be:
Iwata
Totaka-san, when you became director, you must have tried out some of your ideas. Did the game immediately come together after that?
Totaka
No, not at all.
Iwata
Do you remember when the turning point was?
Totaka
When we gave up musical notation. Playing without a score on the screen felt really good.
Iwata
By a score you mean indications like other music games usually have as to what the correct timing is. Getting rid of them is quite a drastic move. Why did you decide on that?
Totaka
Well, when I played multiplayer mode in various music games with other staff members, I noticed that we weren’t listening to each other’s performance at all.
Iwata
Because you were focused on the score. (laughs)
Totaka
Right. We were absorbed in punching buttons.
Iwata
As a musician, did it feel like you were enjoying the music?
Totaka
No, not at all. When I play music in my free time, the enjoyment lies in letting myself go. But I didn’t feel like that was happening when I was so intent on following a score.
The same thing happens even when I play a real musical instrument. If I cling to the score, I don’t feel that sense of liberation. Getting the general gist of the score and then letting yourself go while playing is significantly more enjoyable.
October 12th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
I’m curious if Helix is any good or if it is out over in Japan. It’s a rhythm game in WiiWare form over here. That said, I really like seeing some review stuff like this from the other side of the world!
(And honestly, I don’t see what Poochy’s copy-pasting of an interesting article has to do with Naomi’s review of Aero Guitar.)
October 12th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
In the US, Helix is the first music game on Wii Ware. I don’t see it getting much attention, but it’s actually pretty cool. For 1000 Wii points, the game comes with 26 songs and 3 difficulties. I’ve never heard of any of the artists before, but it’s probably because I’m not usually into this style of music (techno/dance/trance/disco). The style of music fits the gameplay nicely, and I’m impressed that they were able to fit so many songs into a Wii Ware title. It’s a fun little rhythm game for the price.
October 13th, 2008 at 8:33 am
argus is correct, Helix was first in the U.S., and word is is fairly awesome. (He’s probably not heard of the music because they wanted the game to showcase relatively obscure, but cool, musicians.)
October 13th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
@ David:
It was just a response to Mark ranting about how bad Wii Music will be.