Oct 11 2009
Is Wii Music too hard for the hardcore?
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Wii Music, despite selling over 2 million copies is considered by most to be a flop. Miyamoto has gone on record admitting that he is disappointed with the sales, and as a Nintendo flag ship title during last years holiday sales, it most certainly needed to perform a lot better.
Not only are sales disappointing, but the reaction from the game community was extremely hostile. For some reason Wii music became the preferred target for the assault on ‘casual gaming’, even though the other Nintendo title during the holidays, Animal Crossing, was a much more casual game.
In reality, Wii Music is a fantastic accomplishment in game design. The infinite replay value of being able to customize every song in the game, to the insane levels of depth in the balance board enabled drum set mode, the game can and will be played forever. That the game can somewhat mimic the complexities of arranging music is a technical accomplishment that is probably unique in video gaming history. Yet, despite the excellent game design and beautiful finish, the game was universally hated.
I think a lot of the fall out against Wii Music was caused by the disappointment that a certain Kid Icarus game was not released for the 2008 holidays. A certain member of the gaming press was made to look like a fool when his inside scoop on Kid Icarus turned out to be nothing but hot air, and lo and behold, the same individual proceeded to rip Wii Music to shreds in a now infamous review. In retrospect it is hard not to see that the review in question is a total miss when it comes to assesing the game, but that is only of academic interest. The rage against Wii Music soon caught on and became the rallying point for the hardcore.
If you have invested any amount of time in Wii Music, it becomes obvious that the game is incredibly difficult to master. Hardly any game will punish you harder if you lack skills, frustrating for traditional gamers who were presented with a way to interact with a game that requires a totally new way of looking at video games. In stead of realizing that their own lack of skill produced terrible results, the quick and easy answer was that the game must suck. Ironically, in a generation where the hardcore gamers whine constantly about games not being hard enough, they have completely turned their back on the hardest game to master on the market. How much of this is self deception, and how much is mass suggestion I don’t know. What I do know is that Wii Music is one of the most impressive games released this generation, and that it deserves a lot more credit then what the hardcore is willing to give.
