I have a peculiar habit which may play into how I feel about Wii Music. I'm a big fan of lengthy progressive rock concept pieces that last the duration of my commute home from the office. Whether the music is rockin' or just groovin', I love to engage in the admittedly traffic-hazardous pastime of drumming my fingers on the steering wheel with an occasional palm slap for emphasis, inventing my own complementary rhythms as I navigate the freeways.
Wii Music feels a lot like doing that. Instead of buying into the age-old music genre design of "press buttons/play imaginary instrument when cued to make music" (which, just to be clear, is still a totally viable and worthy way to make a game, just... different), it taps into the deep-down joy of playing with music, rather than the challenge of merely executing a song competently.
This feat pulled off thusly: for six parts each of the game's 50 tracks, Nintendo's own crack musicians arranged note-filled scores that would make a prog virtuoso break out his finger exerciser. Variations were made for certain instruments; there are 60, though you can't play every instrument for every part, such as a drum kit on the melody line. Several motion-based control schemes, simplistic in nature but with extra button-triggered options were thought up and assigned to each instrument, and when triggered by the player, notes are played from the score.
In theory, and as touted by Nintendo, this means it's impossible to play something that sounds bad—which isn't the case. A cursory glance around YouTube will show you that. Making music that sounds good in Wii Music takes both technical skill and, for lack of a better description, the ability to feel the music you're playing—which isn't the same as knowing the song inside and out, but more being able to channel the song's spirit. If you have both, at least in sufficient quantities, you will be able to unlock the joy of Wii Music. If not, and you're not willing to suspend your sense of aural aesthetics at a level commensurate with your ability, you're going to bang your head against the wall in frustration.
The fuzziness of music appreciation versus technical prowess then comes to a head in Wii Music's unorthodox scoring system: when you've finished putting your arrangement together, you assign yourself a score based on how well you think you and your optional bandmates did. It's a score you'll never be able to put on a leaderboard—in fact, if you send your music to friends, they'll be grading it themselves, not seeing what you assigned it—but the one 90% grade I've given myself I'm still proud of, having laid down track after track with the song in my soul and coming up with a performance that I adore.
The way you measure your own achievement in Wii Music, I think, is the key to its mixed critical reception. A lot of people have said it's more appropriate for kids than adults, but I don't think that's the whole story. Rather, kids are more likely to have a better match between what they're capable of and their capacity to enjoy the musical results, something that's absent in some more jaded adults who can't loosen up and play with Wii Music until it pleases their ear. But if you have the skills to play Wii Music to a level that pleases your ear—or have the patience to get yourself up to that level—you'll be able to really get into the joy of playing.
There is room for improvement, of course. Sometimes, the arrangements you'll be playing, despite their careful assembly, still manage to sound out-of-place—though, careful, this is a very subjective thing: "wrong notes" can actually be the player's fault for not sufficiently understanding the underlying nature of the music. The method of unlocking all the songs—do a number of performances, then work through unnecessary in-game lessons—is weak. Sharing functionality is limited to sending "videos" to friends; there's no Brawl-alike Submit option to share the best of the community. The optional drum kit mode pushes the Balance Board and Wii Remote further than their capabilities, and it shows, with inadvertent triggers and awkward button-shifts making for a very frustrating experience versus the simple and solid instrument modes found eveywhere else.
If you can set aside the flaws, though, and think you might have what it takes to feel the music rather than just follow along, Wii Music is a one-in-a-million title you should strongly consider. Don't let its casual-appearing control scheme or the perhaps-misapplied Wii branding throw you off; on this disc is a completely new kind of challenge and joy that you'll not find anywhere else.
Wii Music feels a lot like doing that. Instead of buying into the age-old music genre design of "press buttons/play imaginary instrument when cued to make music" (which, just to be clear, is still a totally viable and worthy way to make a game, just... different), it taps into the deep-down joy of playing with music, rather than the challenge of merely executing a song competently.
This feat pulled off thusly: for six parts each of the game's 50 tracks, Nintendo's own crack musicians arranged note-filled scores that would make a prog virtuoso break out his finger exerciser. Variations were made for certain instruments; there are 60, though you can't play every instrument for every part, such as a drum kit on the melody line. Several motion-based control schemes, simplistic in nature but with extra button-triggered options were thought up and assigned to each instrument, and when triggered by the player, notes are played from the score.
In theory, and as touted by Nintendo, this means it's impossible to play something that sounds bad—which isn't the case. A cursory glance around YouTube will show you that. Making music that sounds good in Wii Music takes both technical skill and, for lack of a better description, the ability to feel the music you're playing—which isn't the same as knowing the song inside and out, but more being able to channel the song's spirit. If you have both, at least in sufficient quantities, you will be able to unlock the joy of Wii Music. If not, and you're not willing to suspend your sense of aural aesthetics at a level commensurate with your ability, you're going to bang your head against the wall in frustration.
The fuzziness of music appreciation versus technical prowess then comes to a head in Wii Music's unorthodox scoring system: when you've finished putting your arrangement together, you assign yourself a score based on how well you think you and your optional bandmates did. It's a score you'll never be able to put on a leaderboard—in fact, if you send your music to friends, they'll be grading it themselves, not seeing what you assigned it—but the one 90% grade I've given myself I'm still proud of, having laid down track after track with the song in my soul and coming up with a performance that I adore.
The way you measure your own achievement in Wii Music, I think, is the key to its mixed critical reception. A lot of people have said it's more appropriate for kids than adults, but I don't think that's the whole story. Rather, kids are more likely to have a better match between what they're capable of and their capacity to enjoy the musical results, something that's absent in some more jaded adults who can't loosen up and play with Wii Music until it pleases their ear. But if you have the skills to play Wii Music to a level that pleases your ear—or have the patience to get yourself up to that level—you'll be able to really get into the joy of playing.
There is room for improvement, of course. Sometimes, the arrangements you'll be playing, despite their careful assembly, still manage to sound out-of-place—though, careful, this is a very subjective thing: "wrong notes" can actually be the player's fault for not sufficiently understanding the underlying nature of the music. The method of unlocking all the songs—do a number of performances, then work through unnecessary in-game lessons—is weak. Sharing functionality is limited to sending "videos" to friends; there's no Brawl-alike Submit option to share the best of the community. The optional drum kit mode pushes the Balance Board and Wii Remote further than their capabilities, and it shows, with inadvertent triggers and awkward button-shifts making for a very frustrating experience versus the simple and solid instrument modes found eveywhere else.
If you can set aside the flaws, though, and think you might have what it takes to feel the music rather than just follow along, Wii Music is a one-in-a-million title you should strongly consider. Don't let its casual-appearing control scheme or the perhaps-misapplied Wii branding throw you off; on this disc is a completely new kind of challenge and joy that you'll not find anywhere else.