is a
free form music game for the
Wii that simulates playing
musical instruments using the
Wii Remote,
Nunchuk, and the
Wii Balance Board (in Drum Mode only). The game is part Nintendo's
Touch! Generations brand.
Wii Music was originally suggested as a Wii launch game, but was not released at launch and received little coverage from the company over the next several months. However, in 2008, Nintendo explained more about the game in preparation for its release scheduled for later that year.
Gameplay
In
Wii Music, the player uses both motions and button presses on the
Wii Remote and
Nunchuk to control a
band of up to six
Miis. Unlike other music games,
Wii Music does not require the player to press specific buttons at certain times but only requires the player to move the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as if he or she were playing the instruments.
Instruments
Sixty-six playable instruments are available in the single and multiplayer modes, including the
violin,
drum,
cowbell,
clarinet,
harmonica,
piano,
guitar,
trumpet,
harp,
shamisen,
maracas,
sitar and
marimba, as well as unconventional instruments such as dog and cat sounds, pseudo
doo-wop vocals (Singer),
Kung Fu (Blackbelt),
cheerleader, and
8-bit (music). In addition, the
Wii Balance Board can be utilized to play the
drums. Some instruments also have extra playing options. For example, with
woodwind instruments, the player can aim the Wii Remote up or down to simulate an increase or decrease in blowing strength, while with Guitar instruments the player can hold down the C button to get
chords instead of single notes. This allows a single player to play an entire band.
Players can save their Custom Jam sessions as music videos for later playback, or share them via WiiConnect24.
Minigames
Along with the freeform Jam Mode,
Wii Music features several structured
minigames:
*Drums uses the Wii Remote and Nunchuk together to simulate drum sticks, while the Wii Balance Board can be used for the pedals. The player moves the "drumsticks" up and down while pressing certain buttons to hit the drums, while players stamp with their feet on the Balance Board to hit the pedals. The drum set can also be used in Jam Mode. The game supports split-screen multiplayer.
Mii Maestro (known as Open Orchestra in PAL regions) uses the Wii Remote to conduct an orchestra. The player swings the Wii Remote up and down to a certain tempo. Moving the Wii Remote quickly with no real rhythm will make the Mii orchestra play frantically, while slow, more graceful movements will create dragging notes and softer, longer tones. There are no indicators of any kind to show how well the player is performing, forcing the player to try to match the original music from memory, and experiment to find which movements give better results. At the song's conclusion, a round of applause sounds and a numerical score is displayed. In multiplayer, several players conduct the same orchestra at once. Scoring is based on the players' chemistry: better scores are obtained if the players conduct harmoniously, but if their styles vary the score is poor.
Handbell Harmony lets players match notes by playing with handbells. In the game, the player controls two handbells with the Wii remote and Nunchuk, while NPC characters play with them (if there is more than one player, then that player controls the bells the NPC did) Players are scored depending on how many notes are played correctly. The 8 coloured notes move along a bar, similar to the moving colored blocks in the Guitar Hero games.
Pitch Perfect, in which players are quizzed on distinguishing different sounds from one another. This mode is similar to
Find Mii in
Wii Play, and allows the user to pick up Miis and place them in the correct positions. Multiplayer is a hot-seated version whereby one person of the group will get picked to answer a question.
Music
Wii Music features 50 songs that consist of a combination of Classical and Traditional songs, 7 songs from Nintendo games and 15 licensed songs.
Development
Wii Music was also first shown, along with the
Wii Remote, at the Nintendo press conference at the 2005
Tokyo Game Show. The two minigames briefly featured were
Drums and
Orchestra. The game was also the first Wii game ever to be demonstrated during Nintendo's
E3 2006 press conference, where
Shigeru Miyamoto came up to the stage to perform the
The Legend of Zelda Overworld Theme for the audience using the
Orchestra game. Both
Drums and
Orchestra were also made playable to attendees. Additional details of the game were released in conjunction with a Nintendo press conference held on October 11, 2007.
Wii Music was showcased during Nintendo's press conference for E3 2008, revealing much more information, including support for the Wii Balance Board to play the drums. It was revealed later on that the game has lessons for the drums programmed in. Miyamoto later announced that over 61 instruments will be playable in the game, and explained the control scheme that uses the Wii Remote's buttons to play notes on various instrument while holding the Wii Remote in a similar fashion to the actual instrument.
Reception
Critical reception to the game was mixed, with a 62/100 aggregate score at Metacritic. Wii Music was given a score of A- by 1UP.com by Jennifer Tsao, who believed the game has a "surprising depth and flexibility" that rewards players who have mastered the controls (This review greatly contrasted the reviews of other editors on 1UP, who complained about a lack of depth and content). She also felt that the game's four-player custom jam mode was addictive, but lamented the abundance of public domain songs in the soundtrack. It was given 80% by Official Nintendo Magazine who praised the surprising depth of the game. GameSpy, who gave it 3.5/5, called the game an "odd duck" and something "more akin to a tech demo or social audio experiment" with little to interest adults, but is simple enough to be accessible to everyone and believed it would be a hit with young children and their families. Wii Music also got a 6.5/10 from GameSpot, who said that Wii Music, while fun and easy to pick up and play, is hard to recommend because older children and adults would only get a few hours of entertainment.
The game received a 5/10 from IGN, who called the game "a noise maker tied to a series of gestures" and cited "gimmicky" controls and poor sound quality, in addition to a "fundamentally flawed" soundtrack. However, they also felt that children may enjoy the game much more than adults, who they believe may "grow bored of the experience in a matter of hours, if not minutes". Game Informer gave the game a 3/10, calling it "a poor solution to an imaginary problem". GameTrailers gave it 5.8/10, criticizing the "ancient" song list and emphasis on video creation.
The game sold 92,000 copies in its first week of release in Japan. It is the 30th best-selling game of Japan in 2008. In North America, the game sold around 66,000 copies in around the same period after release. Shigeru Miyamoto has stated that the game's sales had not been as strong as originally hoped, with a possible reason for this being competition from established music and rhythm games series such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band which are dominating the market. Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing, suggests Wii Music will be an "evergreen" title that will see continued sales in the long run. and the 11th best-selling game in the following month in the United States with more than 480,000 copies sold, and has sold 865,000 units in North America in 2008 according to the NPD Group. As of January 2009, Wii Music has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide.
Sequel
In an interview, Shigeru Miyamoto said "Wii Music was a really unique game, and even today, we are receiving several different offers from people in the field of music education. I think it still has great potential." Asked about future plans, Miyamoto could only drop hints. "Unfortunately, we don't have any news we can talk about at the moment. But like Wii Fit Plus, it's not really a sequel to the original Wii Fit – but we have added some features to improve the overall experience. It's kind of an enhanced version."
References
External links
Official website
Wii Music at Wii.com
Singing with your Wii Review at TechCentral
Category:2008 video games
Category:Wii-only games
Category:Music video games
Category:Touch! Generations
Category:Shigeru Miyamoto games
Category:Wii Wi-Fi games
Category:Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection games
Category:Wii games
Category:Wii Balance Board games
