Sunday 17 Sep 2006

This was a launch title for the DS in Japan, but it’s never made it into English speaking territories and it’s such a shame since it’s a really good rhythm game with fantastic multiplayer features. Supposedly it was originally being made for the Gameboy Advance but was languishing in development because it wasn’t considered ready yet. Then along came the DS and the idea fit the new system like a glove. If you enjoy music you’ll love this game.

Like most rhythm games, this one requires pressing buttons in time with the music. A kindof musical score shows on the top screen with symbols for what to press when. In beginner mode all you have to do is press the D-pad or a button - left or right. Once you’ve mastered that, you move on to having to press a particular direction or particular button at the right time. In Professional mode, you have to also press the right shoulder button at the right time to select a different octave, and the left shoulder button along with other buttons select a sharp note. When all is said and done the DS has become a full-fledged instrument with a two octave range!

There are thirty pieces of music in the game, ranging from Nintendo theme tunes (Hello, Zelda!) to classical to anime theme tunes and J-Pop. Each piece of music has between five and eight parts, so in freeplay you select a song and then a part to play. Each part is graded in difficulty from one to five stars. To unlock the harder modes you have to play the ticket mode, and progress through level one to five in that. When attempting to earn a golden ticket you are given three parts to play one after the other, and you must score a high enough average to pass the test. This gets pretty tough on the final levels of Professional.

The single player is great and all, but the true charm of the game is the multiplayer. With one copy of the game you can have up to seven other musicians join you with their DS’s, each playing a part of the song you’ve selected. You hear their playing come through on your speakers (or better, headphones), and this is just so cool. The pleasure of playing the bass line of the Zelda theme tune while a friend plays the clarinet melody line is fantastic. And the other great part is that, since beginner mode is really simple, anyone can join in, no matter if they’ve played an instrument before, but there’s still a sense of playing in the “band.” Unfortunately, all the song names and instrument names are in Japanese so you have to guess at what piece you want to play since it doesn’t allow you to preview the song in multiplayer mode for some reason.

Daigasso! Band Brothers is not a game that will age quickly, so here’s hoping with the DS taking off in the west that Nintendo bring it over, possibly revamping the song list for us in the process. There’s an expansion GBA cartridge out in Japan that adds an extra thirty songs, and I didn’t even mention the music authoring tool built in where you can set up your own pieces to play together. Like music, this game is all about the fun of participating, or playing, not really about score or achievement, and that’s what gaming’s all about in my book.

Pros: Single-cart multiplayer; large selection of songs.
Cons: Japanese text; no preview of songs in multiplayer (which is only necessary since the song names are Japanese).

You’ll like it if you like: music, rhythm games, Donkey Konga.

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Contributor:	Peter

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