[quote name='daroga']
EDIT: Looking at your Sig, how is Band Brothers compared to Ouendan/EBA?[/quote]
I love it! It's wonderful! Equally as great as Ouendan, but a completely different thing.
I wrote a bit about it
here, since it came up during the last CAGcast (which I didn't listen to).
There's no story and it looks like a GBA game, but neither of those things are the point. It's all about the music.
There are 35 songs, which range from J-Pop to classical to Nintendo/Gameboy music. Each of the songs can have up to 8 tracks, each of which is an instrument, like guitar, bass, trumpet, flute, brass, or drums. There are a lot of instruments.
Your job is to play along with the notes in the track. The notes are represented by button or D-pad presses (U, D, L, R, A, B, X, Y) and it indicates how long you have to hold the button. You don't need to be able to read music. It plays a bit like DDR, but it really feels like you are making music.
Because you are. The music playing in the background is the mix for the song minus the instrument/part you are currently playing. Eventually you get to play every part in the song. This is really cool.
Each instrument's part is unique, and songs can have instrumental parts that range from very easy (1 star) to very hard (5 stars).
You play the game by practicing tracks and then taking a test. The 1 star test, for example, takes three 1 star tracks at random and you have to perform them all in a row. You need an average of 80% for each to pass.
Once you beat the test for a star level, you unlock the tracks for the next star level. It's a comfortable difficulty curve, very much like Ouendan. The 1 star tracks are ridiculously easy, but the 5 star ones are tough and will seem impossible when you start the game. But as you play, you get better. You can practice tracks, or sections of tracks if you want to.
This is already quite a lot, but there's more. Once you beat the game on easy, you get Hard mode, which is much more difficult. In addition to the D-pad and ABXY buttons, you have to use L for sharps and flats, and R to change octave. This is tough, and the Hard mode 1 star tracks are the equivalent of easy mode 3 star tracks.
You also unlock a score editor. If you can read music, you can make 8 of your own songs, each of which can have 8 tracks. It is a powerful music editor and you can make real music with it. This uses the touchscreen and it's so intuitive and well-designed. I'm currently entering all four vocal parts of Brahms' "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" and it's been easy to do.
Then there's multiplayer, which I haven't used. 2-8 players. I think each player plays a part in the song simultaneously.
It's a huge game. The music is very good. Ouendan fans will recognize Ready Steady Go and the Policemen vs. Robots songs, though these are actually the weaker songs (they're better on Hard when they're faster). The other J-Pop songs are actually more fun to play along to, and they're addictive.
There are plenty of tracks where I'd play it, do very well, and then go back and play it again because it was just so enjoyable. I really like playing along with the harmonies and rhythms. Tracks that are favorites of mine are Point of No Return, Namonaki Uta , Sora mo Toberu Hazu, Zenbu Dakishimete, Choo Choo Train, Sakuranbo, Yeah! Meccha Holiday, Russian Medley, Way of Difference, Classical Medley, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, Fire Emblem, Zelda Medley, and the Smash Brothers theme. All of these are wonderful, and consistently fun to play.
There's some weirdness, of course. A "World Music" medley consisting of Hava Nagilah, La Cucaracha, and La Bamba. A Christmas Medley. A medley of children's tunes that I call the "Barney Medley".
Downsides? The musical instruments are all synthesized. This makes some things sound a little cheesier (imagine muzak Policemen vs. Robots). And Hard is very hard -- it's extremely difficult to pull off some of the L + R + button or D-pad combinations and some of them just fly by. And while the music editor is powerful and easy to use, it's hard to get a sense of the whole song at once.
But really, this doesn't matter much. I'll gladly take the trade of the synthesized sounds for the number of tracks you get. It's amazing to me that this is a DS game -- for the $40 it cost, I got one of the best and biggest music games ever, a music editor, and it's portable.
If you've ever been in a choir or band and liked it, or if you enjoy listening to the different parts of a song, this game is perfect for you. I'm pretty musical -- I sing and play instruments and occasionally arrange music -- and this game is just awesome for me. But you don't have to be a musician -- although you might be when you've played it for awhile.
As with Ouendan, the only regret is that I waited as long as I did. I'm very cheap and I don't import much, but I would gladly pay twice what I did without a second thought. Definitely in my top 3 DS games, and I wouldn't sell or trade it at any cost.
Also as with Ouendan, should this ever get released here, the track listings will probably be mostly different. I can see them keeping the classical, kiddy, and Nintendo tracks, but all the J-Pop and TV themes will be gone, replaced by Western music. Fire Emblem isn't as big a deal here, either, so I bet that would go, which is a shame. So probably 75% of the tracks would be different.
For more, including a list of all the songs included, here's
the wikipedia page on Daigasso.
. Ready Steady Go on hard is so unforgiving. I get all 300s, a couple 100s and maybe 1 or 2 50s and I have no energy left by the time I get to the first spinner. I'm about to get a freaking game genie for this shit!
