I was weary going into this game, when a game makes it's entire foundation motion controls things can go very badly. Hence the title the entire game is controlled from vibration, it's extremely unique and creative
I have not seen any game quite like it.
I wanted to give this a chance, even if the gameplay was terrible
That's not the case though, I just picked up a small cardboard box I had lying around, set the sensitivity at the highest level, and it just worked.
I almost couldn't believe it. I didn't have to find a better surface or mess with any calibration or anything like that. And it only lost it's sync a few times due to my own error.
The game is very sensitive, so if things aren't set up just right it seems broken, but it does work under the right conditions.
This game does something I think is a smart solution but to a problem they created themselves, instead of buying a game and and a cheap plastic peripheral like a fake drum or mat the developers had the idea to just use the controller itself as the peripheral. Of course a regular controller could have worked just fine, and at times I felt like it would have been easier to get into, but it's something that does make the game stand out.
You don't even touch the controller, just a surface it's lying on and they found a lot of different ways to use this, I'm pleased with how precise it is, it's not just on/off it detects a large range of force.
It's difficult to review this because there's a lot of very different modes to play
there's a sort of track and field style obstacle course mode where you tap fast or slow to run/walk and hit to jump which I did first, it's really memorization heavy with how punishing mistakes are, and the CPU often plays just about perfect, I got all gold on it in a few hours but it was a mixed bag due to not being able to see far ahead and some occasional weird timing, I think this is much better against real players.
I played a lot of the Rythm mode which feels like the main mode. it's basically Taiko Drum Master but with a distinct style and visuals, this mode is strange though, it kind of has a wii music problem where it's way too lenient, there's no real timing penalty as long as the note is hit within like half a second.
Miss or tap when nothing is on screen with no penalty, you could just constantly hammer away at the surface and hit every note, the game tries to get around this with a pressure sensitivity system, that gives more points if hit with correctly, I felt like I could just cheat and had to choose to play the intended way.
It's probably better that it's too lenient than too strict especially for motion control and it was still fun, there's 20 tracks to play through and they still get challenging despite the limitations, unlocking the last few took many attempts.
there's an endless randomized balloon fight style mode, just replace the A button with tapping and it's functionally the same. The style in this mode in particular is so sleek, it has a quintessential 2000s style it was nice just to look at.
There's a very janky physics mode that's a copy of the board game Jenga that feels more intended for multiplayer, I'm terrible at it.
And most of all there's the visualizer modes, I'm really glad these are included, just open a theme and mess around, vibration effects things onscreen differently in each theme.
One thing this game gets right consistently is style, every mode has very nice looking backgrounds and great use of color, it has that polished wii era look but with a specific 2000s digital aesthetic, it's very appealing just to look at and the visualizers put the style to great use.
I probably don't have to say it but the soundtrack fantastic, it's almost consistently catchy and just has a feel good sound and tone, 9 different composers worked together to give this some nice variety each with a history of top tier game soundtracks.
The game would have really fallen flat without it (looking at you wii music and Donkey Konga)
I can't stop listening to it after I found out about this game, I wasn't expecting an all star cast of composers for a game like this, they really pulled out the stops to give this game a soundtrack that elevates it.
So the gameplay is a nice but short distraction, a great novelty, kind of toy-like at times, I didn't get to actually try any multiplayer.
It's all decent stuff but it's really carried by the sound and visuals, and it all fits the overall them very well.
I'm having a difficult time giving this a rating though it's on the positive side, there's high and low points but I had a mostly great time.
This is a hard sell, a lot of people aren't into motion control especially when it's something so different. It takes some patience and finesse to understand how it's supposed to work, it seems most players don't want unique control schemes or input methods, and that's fair I didn't think I'd like it before I played it.
I think it's worth playing just for the visuals and music, it's a very cheap used game so there's not much to risk in trying it.
Put in the time and effort to adapt to what the game is asking and you could have a lot of fun with it, multiplayer helps too.
I have not seen any game quite like it.
I wanted to give this a chance, even if the gameplay was terrible
That's not the case though, I just picked up a small cardboard box I had lying around, set the sensitivity at the highest level, and it just worked.
I almost couldn't believe it. I didn't have to find a better surface or mess with any calibration or anything like that. And it only lost it's sync a few times due to my own error.
The game is very sensitive, so if things aren't set up just right it seems broken, but it does work under the right conditions.
This game does something I think is a smart solution but to a problem they created themselves, instead of buying a game and and a cheap plastic peripheral like a fake drum or mat the developers had the idea to just use the controller itself as the peripheral. Of course a regular controller could have worked just fine, and at times I felt like it would have been easier to get into, but it's something that does make the game stand out.
You don't even touch the controller, just a surface it's lying on and they found a lot of different ways to use this, I'm pleased with how precise it is, it's not just on/off it detects a large range of force.
It's difficult to review this because there's a lot of very different modes to play
there's a sort of track and field style obstacle course mode where you tap fast or slow to run/walk and hit to jump which I did first, it's really memorization heavy with how punishing mistakes are, and the CPU often plays just about perfect, I got all gold on it in a few hours but it was a mixed bag due to not being able to see far ahead and some occasional weird timing, I think this is much better against real players.
I played a lot of the Rythm mode which feels like the main mode. it's basically Taiko Drum Master but with a distinct style and visuals, this mode is strange though, it kind of has a wii music problem where it's way too lenient, there's no real timing penalty as long as the note is hit within like half a second.
Miss or tap when nothing is on screen with no penalty, you could just constantly hammer away at the surface and hit every note, the game tries to get around this with a pressure sensitivity system, that gives more points if hit with correctly, I felt like I could just cheat and had to choose to play the intended way.
It's probably better that it's too lenient than too strict especially for motion control and it was still fun, there's 20 tracks to play through and they still get challenging despite the limitations, unlocking the last few took many attempts.
there's an endless randomized balloon fight style mode, just replace the A button with tapping and it's functionally the same. The style in this mode in particular is so sleek, it has a quintessential 2000s style it was nice just to look at.
There's a very janky physics mode that's a copy of the board game Jenga that feels more intended for multiplayer, I'm terrible at it.
And most of all there's the visualizer modes, I'm really glad these are included, just open a theme and mess around, vibration effects things onscreen differently in each theme.
One thing this game gets right consistently is style, every mode has very nice looking backgrounds and great use of color, it has that polished wii era look but with a specific 2000s digital aesthetic, it's very appealing just to look at and the visualizers put the style to great use.
I probably don't have to say it but the soundtrack fantastic, it's almost consistently catchy and just has a feel good sound and tone, 9 different composers worked together to give this some nice variety each with a history of top tier game soundtracks.
The game would have really fallen flat without it (looking at you wii music and Donkey Konga)
I can't stop listening to it after I found out about this game, I wasn't expecting an all star cast of composers for a game like this, they really pulled out the stops to give this game a soundtrack that elevates it.
So the gameplay is a nice but short distraction, a great novelty, kind of toy-like at times, I didn't get to actually try any multiplayer.
It's all decent stuff but it's really carried by the sound and visuals, and it all fits the overall them very well.
I'm having a difficult time giving this a rating though it's on the positive side, there's high and low points but I had a mostly great time.
This is a hard sell, a lot of people aren't into motion control especially when it's something so different. It takes some patience and finesse to understand how it's supposed to work, it seems most players don't want unique control schemes or input methods, and that's fair I didn't think I'd like it before I played it.
I think it's worth playing just for the visuals and music, it's a very cheap used game so there's not much to risk in trying it.
Put in the time and effort to adapt to what the game is asking and you could have a lot of fun with it, multiplayer helps too.