Jam With The Band

[chuddy_2001uk]

By Chuddy

Definition of Fun, Fun (band brothers).

A source of (high) enjoyment, (extreme) amusement, or (more than standard) pleasure. Enjoyment; amusement: have fun at the beach (or playing 5 hours of Band brothers). Playful, often noisy, activity (you can say that again).


Definition of Music, Mu-sic

The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition (usually being red and blue stripes, mind), as through melody (melody being cheesy Japanese pop songs), harmony, rhythm and timbre.


Definition of Game, Ga-me

An electronic or computerized game played by manipulating images (little strips of colour) on a video display (make sure it has two screens and has Nintendo omewhere printed on the lid) or television screen (forget that).



Your probably sitting there thinking “what an idiot”. “Why the hell did he just put down a random of selection of definitions down without starting the review properly, you know the usual introduction”. Well I’ll tell you why; by putting those three “random” definitions together you’ll see that I’m talking about a very special game. A game that is so simple, so easy to grasp but oh so challenging. A game with hardly any outstanding and eye-meltingly good graphics, a game… called Band brothers. I’ll take this moment to tell you that I’m basing this review on a Japanese copy of the game as (typically) there has been no solid date announcement for either a US release or quite frankly, a UK release.


There hasn’t been a previous Band brothers game but it was infact in the making way back in 2001 for the cranky GBA. But there has been a few rhythm based games like Dance Dance Revolution, Donkey Konga (1,2,3) and even that
weird looking maraca game for the Dreamcast. Well put all those behind you
because Band brothers is different, not totally different, but different. First, it’s on a handheld. Second, you don’t play along with the song you play THE song by this I mean you play an instrument which makes the song. And third? It’s a whole lot better than the games I mentioned above. Well enough of the rambling lets get going.



What’s it about?

From what I’ve gathered and the numerous times I have restarted the game to try to understand the Japanese text this game is about “you“. You take the role of a manager for a musical instrument shop who has to make enough money to run the only shop in “wow wow town” (I‘m not joking). You’re seen taking quick instructions from a girl that resembles a bat who’s position that you will be taking over, That’s basically it really but in this game, you don’t take much notice to the story. I mean it doesn’t have bosses or puzzles like an RPG or any frantic “shoot outs” like FPS, this is a music game, not the average game where you walk around killing a few monsters there pushing a block here, open door, push button, shoot that marine, collect that key, find out that it’s the wrong colour key, go back, blah blah and even more blah. Play the songs, get money, unlock stuff and complete the game and all the good stuff in-between.



But what does it look like?

If your looking for halo 2 graphics or Metroid Prime’s smoothness then look elsewhere, actually stop reading. Sorry to disappoint, but this game flaws in the graphics department and makes no real use out of the DS’s power and fails to show much (if any) 3D graphics but it does like presentable nonetheless. It’s naturally quite colourful and styled in a way of a sleek and graffiti-ish like cartoon comic strip. The back drops for the menu screens are pretty sweet to look at and are easy to navigate with your trusty stylus and finger. The in-game graphics is much the same and isn’t something you’ll want to show off to your mates because all they will see is blue, red, yellow, green and purple lines scaling across the screen, but then again it’s doing it’s job and quite frankly it’s a joy to see that Nintendo haven’t over complicated things. Going into further detail, bat girl’s outh opens and closes with one movement, bat girls colleague fly’s around the screen in a number of short cut scenes. The two screens are used quite well in Band brothers. For example in the menu selection screens the top screen is showing the song selection list while the bottom “touchy” screen gives you the full low down on the different instruments and levels of hardness which is shown by cute little sstars. In-game screen involvement is obviously different with the main action being displayed on the top screen and the song name and a cool spinning CD spinning on the touchy screen which if you looked at would result in a failure and the sack so I advise you not to. The notes that you play are shown by a coloured starting panel and if it has the same coloured trail going in front of it that means it’s a not that you have to hold e.g. For a short “tap” note it would look something like this “+” but for a note that is longer it would resemble something like this “+=======“. Pretty standard stuff but the lack of mind blowing, outstanding and out-of-this-world graphics is quickly made up by what matters the most, the gameplay.


And the gameplay?

Band brothers’ gameplay, in a nut shell, is rather simple. You are given a song, a random song and a random instrument to play with. If the symbol is RED button like symbol you press A, B, X or Y depending on your own comfort but I personally go for A. If a BLUE symbol crops up then you can head straight over for the D-pad and tap either UP, DOWN, LEFT or right (left is for me). You see, the object of the game is to play an instrument to help make up the final song and to do this you have to press the corresponding buttons. It really is as simple as that but it does get harder as you progress through the game. Further on in single player you don’t just have to press one button all of the time depending on the colour, you have to press the ACTUAL button it says e.g. the first songs maybe go like this:
RED, RED, REDREDRED, BLUE. But later on those might be replaced by X, X, YBXA, UP which is so much more difficult it might result in a few sore fingers. Aswell as pressing the buttons you will be required to poke the touch screen with your greasy thumb when part of the song will be lit up with a big column of yellow and red saying “TOUCH“. By doing this your DS will play the lit up area for you which is usually a complicated range of notes that seem impossible to play. Touching the bottom screen seems to be quite a chore when you’re a beginner but with an hours practise it will come naturally and you and your DS will feel more connected than ever. In the main game scenarios you have to go through five stages of hardness. The fifth is extremely hard and took me hours to complete but when you finally crack the main game you are rewarded with a music making program which is excellent for those rainy Sundays which I’m sure will come to good use for people who live in the UK. To be honest it’s hard to right about a game which is so linear and when compared to Wario Ware: Touched you’ll think
that this game is far from varied and out of this world different, but stay with me on this. Wario ware had an extremely varied selection of gameplay styles (see my other review) which kept you going back but with Band brothers it’s only pushing buttons to make up a song. The thing which keeps the gameplay up to high standards is the feeling of accomplishment when you beat your mates high score and when you complete a section of song which made you think “I don’t have 20 fingers”. Band brothers is one of those games which you have to play and once you do you’ll be hooked.

The gameplay sounds good but what about the sound?

Judging the nature of the game it’s kinda obvious that sound in this little beauty is crucial, which it is. When you start the game you are given a quick narrative voice over of where this whole is going to take place. The voice speech is exceptional but it’s a shame there isn’t more of it but then again this a music game not a dictionary. As I said earlier, Band bothers gives you the selection of 8 instruments. These range from strings to guitar, windpipe to drums but what I really like is some of these instruments change depending on the song that you will be playing along to. The quality of these instruments is sheer joy to hear and you won’t be afraid to have your DS on full volume when your playing along to the Hungarian Dance or the Can Can. I’m no tech head but I can tell you that the quality of sound is nothing to be sniffed at and it’s on par with the best polyphonic ring tone you’ll find, if not even better. Like most DS games, if you have your headphones plugged in, you’ll get a much more pleasant trip through music land as it’s all stereo which is amazing when you have headphones playing their part. Headphones or not, the sound is still top notch.



How long will I be playing Band Brothers?

I’m not going to lie. I’m not trying to sell this game. I’m not trying to get you to waste your money but this game is addictive. It’s hard to explain why but I seriously haven’t put this game down since I got it and I’m not planning on doing so either. The game is also very tough and will get you practising for hours even if it is in multiplayer because in this game practise DOES make perfect and you will soon realise that. You get all the songs on a plate for you to practise with, preparing for the next stage in single play and it comes in use when your stuck on a tune. It takes roughly 1 and a bit hours to go through all the songs put when you consider that each song has 8 different rhythms for each of the 8 instruments applied to the song, that’s a very long time and that’s not even unlocking anything! Then there’s the main game. Because of the difficulty, it took me a month to fully complete because it’s so god damned hard but I got the biggest sense of achievement once I saw those heavenly credits but that wasn’t over. Once you’ve crushed the main game your given the option to switch the whole game into “pro” mode and there’s me thinking “and I thought the easy option was
rock hard”. Two words; good luck. There’s the only minor problem though, some may find Band brothers too difficult but you have to realise that your given the practise mode for a reason, so use it. Finally there is multiplayer. Multiplayer is simply “gaming magic” and with eight people playing at once, you’ll will instantly fall in love. You get that goosebump skin when you play with your music which is quite rare in a video game. You basically choose your instruments and you all make up the tune together through all your DS’s, get the score at the end (individual score and your performance of a band) and play again. Repeat this many times and the
results will be sore fingers, grubby touch screens and knackered brains but it is worth it I can assure you. One other thing to note about multiplayer is the DS’s ability to play the other instruments for you if you haven’t got enough people to complete the instrumental composition. Oh and you only need one card!




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Graphics - 7 / 10

Nice menu layout and crisp visuals but the in-game graphics are virtually non existent.

Sound - 9.2 / 10

Flawless. All the instruments are crystal clear and sound very much like the real thing. Everything moulds into one complete musical masterpiece. Some instruments may become slightly annoying to those around you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.


Gameplay – 8.9 / 10

Once you get the hang of it you’ll be hooked. Simple but fun although not varied in any way.


Lifespan -
Couple of months…

… At the very least. The main game will take a lot to beat and once you do your faced with PRO mode which is far from easy. Multi-player will make you come back for more and so will playing through the whole song list.


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Well there you have it, Dai Gassou: band brothers split apart to its bones, played until the early hours of the morning and I still do a short review. Personally I think this game is well worth importing as there hasn’t even been a release date announced for the US or the UK which is a really shame. As you might of seen (or haven’t as the case may be) there is no track list. I haven’t forgotten, its just that I know the US and UK versions will have different songs implanted but I can tell you that the JAP version is stunning in the track department and you won’t be disappointed. Also, some classical songs are in there and some good old school Nintendo remixes as well