In the advent of games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero, one would imagine that music-based games would both be picking up more speed and improving in quality in order to beat out their competitors. I've found the former to be true, but the latter... not so much. (It's becoming like the cooking game franchise: a dime a dozen, and most of them are mediocre.)If you judge games by their covers, you might think this game has some potential. The Japanese usually know how to make pretty good games, right? It appears to be animated in anime style. A winning combination! The promises made on the back of the box also seem appealing:
- A Tale of Music and Love - A great family story of teenage proportions, will our girls pick love, or their love of music?
- To Trade or Not To Trade - Using local wireless connectivity, players will be able to trade items, outfits, and instruments they unlock with friends and family!
- Fame Is All You Need! - Earn your audience's love and watch your girl's appearance change!
- On The Road To Stardom! - Perform your heart out at eight tour events, ranging from basic open-mic nights to stardom arena venues!
Upon booting up the game, you'll be greeted by four colorful girls: Mio, Mai, Kara, and Reena. Like the Powerpuff Girls, each girl has an assigned color. You'll also be treated to the following prologue:
This town first grew to prominence as a center of international trade.
The city planners saw its potential and designed the city to be a bustling metropolis. As it grew, more and more businesses moved in, and the city became a center of culture and commerce.
Every year a contest is held in the center of town where bands from all over the U.S. compete at the "Rock of Fame" to be the best band in the country.
The contest is called "Rockin' Pretty". It is also known as, simply, "RP".
The band that wins gets a record deal.
Not only that, but the fame of the contest guarantees several hits for the band, and total stardom.
Winning Rockin' Pretty is the dream of musicians the country over.
One of those musicians is Mai, who dreams of one day winning the Rockin' Pretty contest.
Today, Mai is in the lobby of Rockin' Hits Studio, watching the DVD of Rockin' Pretty with Kenneth, who works at the Instrument Center.
With a prologue like that, who wouldn't be lulled into a false sense of expecting something great here? I mean, this game has a storyline! That's more than Rock Band or Guitar Hero can really say for themselves! Unfortunately, the game is a disappointment. Not only does it play right into the hands of the American Idol mentality (read as: you don't need real talent, just so long as you're popular!), but the execution of this game is just downright poor.
Level 1 is performed as an Open Mic Night. Your girl, Mai, is sitting watching the Rockin' Pretty contest, and wishing that she could someday compete. The shopkeeper, Kenneth, just happens to have a younger sister (Kara) who has a band already formed who are just short a guitarist, but ready to rock. Without much consent, Mai gets shoved into the group and expected to play, same night, no practice or anything. In the real world, this would no doubt spell out disaster, but in the video game universe, it works out okay.
You find that your first song is entitled, "See You Again". Now... I'm certain I'm not the only person who expected to hear the Miley Cyrus song of the same title when I saw the name of the song, right? Well, it's not the same song... It's not even remotely similar (which I suppose is good for copyright reasons), but the song - as well as ALL the songs in the game - sound as though they were thrown together with cheap MIDI software.
You have the option of either playing guitar, bass, keyboard, or drums. There's three difficulty levels for each song, which comes in handy when you're saving up points from each song you perform for outfits, hairstyles, and instruments, but otherwise becomes nothing more than a pain in the neck to continue playing through over and over when they're not even good songs.
Just like in real life, to play each instrument, you must play in a different way. Choosing the guitar, you'll see 3 colored rectangles on a guitar neck (I'm suddenly having a feeling of deja vu back to Guitar Hero....I don't know why...). Unlike in Guitar Hero, however, these are not buttons. As your song progresses, you'll see colored boxes sliding up the guitar's neck. When they line up with the rectangles of the same color, strum in the same direction that the boxes are coming from. Oh? What's that? Direction?? Ah, did I forget that you're apparently playing a double-necked guitar? They're parallel to each other, but the boxes appear on the necks at different times, which makes it trickier to keep up with when you're still learning how to play.
Choosing to play bass is incredibly easy. It's the same concept as choosing the guitar on here, except that you have a single neck, and the only other real difference is that occasionally, you'll be tapping the boxes instead of strumming, sans for boxes that have diamonds in them. You'll strum those. The problem is that the controls are a little wonky in this game, and it doesn't ALWAYS register when you hit the notes.
The keyboard is my most loathed instrument in this game, which is quite a turn around from how I feel about them in real life. With this, you have lines coming from either end of the screen, aiming towards one another on specific keys you're meant to hit. When they come together, you hit the note, or notes if there's more than one. The problem here is that it's virtually impossible to get the timing right! If you wait until the lines come perfectly to the center of each key, you've waited too long. If they're just hitting the top and bottom of the key, you have some shot of it telling you that you got the note(s) right, but especially in cases where there's multiple keys involved, it will still tell you you're wrong.
The drums in this game are alright, I suppose. You have four circles, which are meant to represent your drum kit. With the exception of the yellow one, which is very obviously your cymbal, good luck telling apart what's supposed to be what in actuality. So you get colored circles you need to hit when they line up with the matching drum of yours, and on occasion you'll find a circle with an arrow in it. Just swipe your stylus in the direction of the arrow at the right timing, and you're good to go! It's not very hard, but much like with the bass, it will occasionally not register your notes.
You will also take notice that, regardless of what instrument you're playing, that on the top screen will be two lines dividing up your screen into 3 horizontal sections. In reflection to how well (or badly) you play, you'll have stars fall from the ceiling whenever you hit a correct note. If you play well, you'll have a big pile of stars up to the top of the screen by the end of the song. As long as your stars hit anywhere in the top section, you'll get a quick bonus at the end of the round: shooting stars flying in every direction! Catch as many as you can for that many additional points. The more points you have at the end of the song, the more cash you've earned for that gig. Pretty straightforward, right?
As you progress through the different venues and complete the songs, you'll unlock things to buy as well as watching your story unfold. Unlike in real life, no matter what you do, you're going to end up on Rockin' Pretty and win it. You can't fail. At worst, you might have to replay a song to get through it on a passable level, but there's no real options in anything that change the outcome of the ending of the game... which seems a little odd for something that's based on a competition.
At the end of the game, after the credits roll, you have the option of re-playing any song in the game that you might have enjoyed and want to play again, as well as hosting a photo shoot for your girls. You can set them up in different poses in different locations, but it's all fairly limiting, and if you're above the age of, say, about 5, you'll probably find this pretty boring. I'm glad I only had to waste a few hours on this game to complete it... I'd of been pretty upset if it had taken me weeks, only to discover that.
Overall, I found this game to be a snoozer. Even though it's rated for everyone, I'd say that the ideal target age range that should play this (that would get the most out of it, anyway) would probably be about 5 through 8 years old. Any younger and I think it would be too difficult for them to play, and any older and I think they'd be bored with it. I'm rating this game a 6 out of 10 Japanese pop stars.
