I just read an article from CasualGaming.biz quoting Nintendo President Saturo Iwata:
“Currently, I think that the appeal of Wii Music has not yet been fully conveyed and accepted by those who could be interested.”
I’m not sure I agree with this statement, and as one of “those who could be interested”, I’m going to take a critical look at Wii Music and try to discern why it fails to appeal to its target audience.
I love playing music and I love playing video games, so naturally I am drawn to music-based games, and if the sales figures of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have anything to tell us, so are many other people. I have witnessed “non-gamers” play Guitar Hero side-by-side with the most hardcore gamers. Chances are a friendly neighborhood pub near you even has a “Rock Band Night”. Now Wii Music is definitely not the same kind of gameplay experience as Guitar Hero or Rock Band, and I don’t want to simply make comparisons between GH/RB and Wii Music, but I believe it is useful to analyze some of the differences between the successful franchises and Nintendo’s offering in order to better define the possible points of failure in WM.
| ? | GH/RB | WM |
|---|---|---|
| Player Goals | Clearly defined goals; more of a “game”; player can “win” or “lose” | Vague goals (except in mini-games); more of a “toy”; player cannot “win” or “lose” (but you can make the song sound REALLY bad) |
| Musicianship/creativity | Low; with the exception of slowing tempo in Practice Mode, there are no built-in devices for controlling musical qualities | Moderate; player can control arrangement, tempo, and instrumentation, but cannot change melody |
| Song List | Popular music; limited in genre | Mostly public domain, unpopular music; spans mutiple genres |
| Player Persona | Makes you feel like a rock star | Tries to make you feel like a musician, but really makes you feel like a beginner student in music class |
| Audio Quality | Excellent; either original recordings or high-quality covers | Varies; some instruments have really poor-quality samples |
| Instrumentation & Implementation | Simple set of instruments; playing the guitar feels like playing a real guitar, playing the drums feels like playing real drums; peripherals enhance the player “rock star” persona; instrumentation is tightly tied to the music | Lots of instruments, but implementation varies significantly — some feel right, others completely wrong; no instrument-like peripherals to enhance the player persona; some instruments feel like they were just included to “fluff-up” the game |
So what is it about GH/RB that works? The gameplay follows the “easy to learn, difficult to master” philosophy; the player persona is clearly defined, and more importantly, attractive to the player (who doesn’t want to be a rock star?); the music is popular and of high-quality. GH/RB focus on doing one thing and do a damn fine job of it.
Wii Music is pretty easy to learn, but once you get the hang of it there is no clear path of mastery; you unlock all the songs and instruments by following the lessons and then that’s it. Of course the lessons progress from simple to more complicated songs, and as a musician I’m going to be somewhat less challenged that a non-musician, but working through the lessons takes a couple of hours, after which you are left to “play” with everything you’ve unlocked, with no further challenges or rewards. The player persona of “musician” is fun for a while, but with a lack of escalating challenge there is little to encourage the player to keep playing. The song list in WM is a collection of pretty unpopular songs (not too many people get excited about playing “Turkey in the Straw”), which are totally hidden from the player. At least in GH/RB you can look forward to unlocking a song, since you are made aware of what songs are unlockable.
Now it isn’t entirely fair to compare GH/RB and WM, since they have different agendas, but I think the successes of GH/RB can help point out the failings of WM. WM is just not enticing enough to really draw the average player in. While there is some depth to being able to shift tempos and arrangements of instruments, the melodies remain unchanged. Sure, I can play “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on any of the 66 instruments, but what notes I can play are pre-determined and unchangeable. For each song, the melodies for each instrument are set in stone — all the player is doing is triggering the playback of the preset sound at that particular time in the song, effectively turning the Wiimote into a really fast volume control. Where this stands out the most is on the drums, where you will not be able to play the kick drum “whenever you want”, which takes a lot of the fun out of playing. Now in a sense this is more like classical musicianship, encouraging skill in peforming a pre-written composition, rather than composing original music. But with the song list WM sticks me with, I am dying to make my own melodies. At least if there was a composition mode, where I could arrange note sequences and make my own songs, it wouldn’t feel so shallow. Or maybe allow me to mix the parts from one song with the parts from another.
Wii Music actually doesn’t do too bad a job making playing music accessible, and I found myself exercising my musical muscles in regards to internalizing tempo (as I tend to get sloppy about keeping time). Most of the instruments are pretty enjoyable despite the inconsistent quality of the sound samples, though some instruments are clearly filler (seriously who thought the turntables were good enough to ship?). But where it really falls flat (no musical pun intended) is in the music. The songs limit the experience. Consider this: swap the song list from Wii Music with the song list from Rock Band. There, that’s better isn’t it? What about forgetting the idea of using existing music altogether? Look at Garageband: take a few AppleLoops that go together and arrange them, now you have a song in a particular style that isn’t an already existing song. If this was the approach in WM, it would be trivial to allow players to re-arrange the loops to make new compositions and really add a huge amount of depth to the experience.
So I’m not coming to much in the way of conclusions here, but one thing is clear: Nintendo didn’t learn anything from Donkey Konga.
