Strike up the band

2008 looks to be one exciting year for Wii owners. Titles such as a new Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the unique Animal Crossing have Wii owners primed to become one with their Wiimote.

But perhaps the most innovative title for this year, at least for this gamer, is Wii Music. Wii Music is set to be the fourth installment in the Wii Series, which includes Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii Chess.
The title was first introduced at E3 2006, as it featured Shigeru Miyamoto’s main theme for the Legend of Zelda. Visitors to the demo were shown using the Wiimote and nunchuck in the same fashion that a conductor would use a baton to conduct an orchestra. The demo also showed people playing a drum set by striking different point in the air with the Wiimote and nunchuck-combo.

Although the people shown were mostly using the Wiimote to just tap the downbeats, I couldn’t help but to speculate on the possibilities of bringing this type of gameplay to rhythm-based games.

The success of Guitar Hero and Rock Band have shown that gamers enjoy rhythm-based games, but Nintendo has the chance to really offer players with another dimension of musical gameplay with this innovative title; a dimension that only the Wiimote and nunchuck-combo can provide.

While it would be great to lead a virtual symphony with classic NES themes, such as Rygar’s under appreciated soundtrack or Nobuo Uematsu’s “Flight of the Red Wings” for Final Fantasy II (FFIV in Japan), this music-lover can’t help but to salivate at the thought of conducting Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique” or Verdi’s requiem, “Dies Irae.”