I actually like the way the drums work in this title. Although I concede the use of the balance board as the bass pedal is an expensive albeit clever gimmick.
I don't mind the shitty dog samples and stuff -- that harkens back to the music composer on Mario Paint really... I hope there's a meowing equivalent in fact. Some of the other instrument sounds are truly terrible though. My old underpowered PC could still output some decent MIDI sounds using Yamaha SoftSynth, I had it using VST plugins. Its not like the Mii visuals are all that taxing on the Wii, they should be ploughing some system resources into Digital Signal Processing or something. That guitar sample especially... thats just not good enough.
Having said that, the instruments sound like shit on Daigasso Band Bros. If a compose tool could be unlocked in this game, as was possible in that game, that would increase the potential of this game. The casuals aren't gonna wanna do that shit, and for them - this game is happy to play random notes from the correct scales, make percussive noises that make sense etc... but it'd be cool if you could compose your own music / backing music, and actually set up something to jam to.
I just think this game needs something like that, because its missing something people can show off. People show off in Wii Sports, by having fun and feeling immersed as they do so. My parents were nearly smashing the living room up in joy the first time they played Wii Tennis. That generates word of mouth. With Wii Fit, people show off their intent to get healthy, and if they do alright, they can show off their progress in the graphs. That generates word of mouth. In Guitar Hero or Rock Band people show off their reflexes and skills, their ability to speed-read colours and translate them into button presses. Playing well also ensures that what comes out of your TVs speakers is accurate to the source material. Whether its people just talking about the game, or YouTube videos of some kid going nuts to Through the Fire and the Flames... thats good word of mouth.
Daigasso, sadly, didn't get the worldwide push it deserved. But that game could be a collaborative thing, you could jam with a bunch of people, and as I mentioned - create your own songs, the principles are more or less the same as GH and RB at the heart though. If you go all the way back to Mario Paint -- there were limitations there, you couldn't do notes above or below the stave, you couldn't do flat/sharp notes -- but go on YouTube today and you'll see how creative people can be with it. There's something to show off in all these games. Thats their draw. Wii Music seems like it has the jamming element of Daigasso Band Bros but none of the skill, and lacking the option to compose tracks.
I'm not seeing the draw here yet. There's a video around somewhere that demonstrates the drums -- that DOES look good. Everything else, so far, does not :/
