Launch titles and gimmicks go hand in hand, and it was the case with the dual-screened Nintendo DS and Daigasso! Band Brothers, a rhythm game that has you button-pressing and screen touching in time with a whole load of music, from the classics of the past to the ear-worms of video games present.
That screenshot is from the sequel, as I understand it, and I can't read any of it. This might be a short one...
Frustrations
Well, this is going swimmingly. I don't think I'm playing the right game, and all the swiggles are in a foreign language. Truth be told, I don't fancy playing a music game even if it did work, but I ought to at least shoot over to YouTube to see what I'm missing...
...which turns out to be not much. A decent rhythm game for sure, with bold graphics and lots of choice for players to tap buttons along to, but I heard an awful lot of MIDI tunes, and not a full orchestra. That might have been down to the song selection, and not representative of the whole game, but I'm not really on board or entertained by pressing the D-pad in time with Mario and jabbing the touch screen to reveal new strings of notes to try and hit.
Final Word
According to the 1001 write up, you can create your own MIDI music and import it into Daigasso! for reasons known only to you, or to those who can read Japanese, and want to play music through a Nintendo DS, of all things.
I should also mention that it allowed multiple players to come together, each picking their own instrument to jam along to different parts of the track, but again, I don't see the appeal. I really don't get music.
Let's just forget this post exists and move on to the games, shall we?
Fun Facts
An expansion pack, titled Great Concert! Band Brothers Request Selection Cartridge comes on a GBA cartridge and is slotted into the DS at the same time as the base game to unlock another 30 varied songs from gaming, TV, and J-Pop. Whatever that is.
Daigasso! Band Brothers, developed by Nintendo R&D2, Nintendo SPD, first released in 2004.
Version watched: Nintendo DS, 2004 (EightBitHD)