N-Philes

Band Brothers Daigasso! (import)

Posted by Victor Chaves.

Do you like Dance Dance Revolution, but don't want to jump around like you have fire in your pants? Wanna play music with other people with only one cartridge but have hours of fun? And do you want to make your own music, but not have to deal with handling instruments and band mates? Then this is what you've been looking for! Band Brothers Daigasso! ("Jam With the Band" in the soon to be released US version) This is a fun game that can engross you, or just as a quick simple time filler when you've nothing to do. This game works on so many levels for so many different people, that you won't be bored with what this game offers after a long time. Here's my import review for Band Brothers Daigasso!

Band Brothers is played much like your run-of-the-mill music/timing game. However, what seperates this from the other music games is that you are using a sort of "unversal instrument" that allows you to play anything, much like the PS2 game "Frequency". The general way the game goes is you choose a song, select an instrument, preview/change the tempo of the song, then play. The playing is done much like reading regular sheet music, with four measures per line, four lines per screen, with a cursor indicating the timing of the music, and the screen going down steadily to show the rest of the song. All the buttons are used to play music, but don't neccesarily coincide with the regular scales and music theory we all learned in band class. Turns out, the real notes in the song are converted to the button presses on the screen. This could have turned out badly, but the programmers were good enough to make it to where when pressing down, then up, it sounds like the music is going from a low note to a high note. Therefore, the music plays in a correct figurative fashion and you will not be annoyed about a note not matching with your button presses.

There is an awesome selection of songs, from classic Nintendo themes (I love the Kirby theme!), a couple of anime theme songs (Full Metal Alchemist fans rejoice, Melissa and Ready Steady Go!), a couple of generally worldwide-known songs (Nintendo loves Deep Purple for some reason), J-Pop, and classical music. Overall it's a good list of music and with an average of six instruments per song to perfect, it'll be awhile before you finish each set. (For a full list, go to Band Brothers Songs). Additionally you can add more songs via song editor to up the amount of playability, and you can trade those songs with other people! The number of customs songs you can have is eight, with eight instruments each and over forty instruments to choose from. One objection to this that I have though, is that the instruments don't sound real enough, in fact, all the music in the game is done via midi-esque music, not high quality mp3 music. But this is ok, since it would have been impossible for Nintendo to stick every instrument and their notes into seperate mp3 files, when the midi-esque sounds saves a whole lot of space (my midi recorder has a tons of instruments, about two hundred, and it takes up less than three megabytes on my computer).

Playing the songs are fun, and involving enough to make you feel that you are actually playing an instrument. Most music games are hard at first, so luckily, the developers knew that, and inputted a star system next to each instrument in each song; 1 being easy, 5 being tough. Once again, the game plays by pressing buttons that coincide with the instructions on the screen while listening to music and although this may sound stupid, it is a tried and true method for gaming enjoyment. But where does the touch screen come in? While playing a song you recognize to have an extremely hard part that digresses from the rest of the song in the difficulty setting, a bright box will come up over some notes, and you touch the screen to play all the notes without breaking a sweat. Although the touch screen does not have a primary use besides navigating, it's good enough to leave it as it is. The bottom line is, the songs are fun and intuitive to play, with no real problems. It's hard at first, but just stick with it, and you'll be banging out riffs with L'Arc En Ciel (a Japanese band) in no time.

The multiplayer is awesome. That's all there is to it, it's awesome. With up to eight people, and volume turned all the way up, everyone is playing an instrument that collaborates with everyone else. Miss a beat of the drums and you might throw off two or three people on the beat. If the people are starlight newcomers, they can play a simplified version where all they do is play left and right; and for a beginner, it's highly satisfying. The premise of the multiplayer is that the more people, the more fun - even though two people is quite enough. Showing other people your custom songs and having them play them is incredibly entertaining as well. One of my friends made the first Sonic's Starlight Zone, and because he barely heard the song before, he didn't get the timing, or some of the notes right.

This game gets an N-Philes score of A+.

As far as playing it in Japanese, Band Brothers is quite easy to navigate. All you need is to experiment with the menus, five minutes of wandering the game, and you'll learn quickly where everything is at. Also, since the DS can play Japanese games, there's no mess! The one complaint I have about this game, is that the editor can get a little complicated, as they added the whole kit n' kiboodle of music theory into the editor, so maybe a quick study in music theory can help you out. Or, you can just download Midi Illustrator, and you'll be able to copy songs from the midi from the game into the DS in just a few minutes. Hardcore musicians will love just playing around in the editor too, so good times there. All in all, the game works in all situations, for kids to adults, from Britney Spears to Bach. Anyone muscially inclined will appreciate what this excellent game has to offer.

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