Nintendo has had the Midas touch with casual gaming in the last four years, having experienced runaway success with Nintendogs, Brain Training, Wii Sports and many more. Some gamers have started to become a little vindictive towards the publisher, feeling rejected due to Nintendo’s focus on the new market at the expense of producing more traditional gaming titles. Inevitably Nintendo had to slip up some time, and Wii Music is its first major mistake.

The concept behind Wii Music is admirable; make a music game that anybody can pick up and play. Nintendo has brought together a list of tracks that should cater to most tastes; classical music (Four Seasons: Spring, Carmen), classics from the public domain (Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star), popular music (Material Girl, The Loco-Motion) and a few Nintendo classics (Zelda Overworld Theme, Super Mario Bros. Theme). Only five of the songs are initially available – the rest are unlocked through playing the game. Each tune is presented in MIDI; a necessity for the way the game operates, but a process which hurts some of the tracks.


Over 60 instruments are available in Wii Music; piano, drums, violin, guitar, bass, saxophone, flute, maracas and even a cowbell. Instruments are played through one of four gestural procedures that are explained by the Wii Music Maestro at the start of the game. Piano has you bouncing the nunchuk and remote like you’re playing keys on a piano, guitar has you holding the nunchuk out like the neck of a guitar and using the remote like a pick, violin is similar but has the remote acting as the bow, and finally the trumpet style control has you holding the remote downward, and using the 1 and 2 buttons to play the tune. Different motions and buttons can be used to alter each note, for example lifting the remote in the air while playing the trumpet will make the note louder.

Wii Music’s major mode is the Jam Session, where you pick an instrument and a piece of music to play. What separates Wii Music from the rest of the music game crowd is that you don’t tap away at pre-defined note charts; instead, your motions basically cue the next note in the sequence. In a way, it’s almost like a child’s music box, but you move the remote rather than turning a handle. There is some potential for improvisation, as you can make your own arrangements of tracks with different instruments and doubling up or skipping notes, and share videos of those with your friends over WiiConnect. It just doesn’t remain interesting for very long at all.


Beyond the Jam Session, there are a few mini-games. The Drums mode lets you hook up the balance board, and use the remote and nunchuck as sticks and the board as pedals. Mii Maestro lets you use the remote to conduct an orchestra – something with a lot of potential, but a sadly limited implementation that only really judges the speed at which you randomly move the remote around. Handbell Harmony is a more traditional rhythm game that has you jingling two bells in time to a note path. Unfortunately, Mii Maestro and Handbell Harmony only have a line up of five songs each. Finally, Pitch Perfect puts your ears to the test in a series of questions that have you determining notes and sequences.

Wii Music comes across as Nintendo’s first major failure on the Wii. I think that they’ve really underestimated what the casual market demands from their music games; while Nintendo taken its sweet time getting Wii Music out, these people have been lured by Guitar Hero and Rock Band. There’s some minor potential for fun with the arrangement tools, but Wii Music really lacks any sort of long term appeal for the older market. Younger kids could have a lot more fun with Wii Music, but are you really prepared to pay a hundred bucks for a glorified music box or noisemaker?