I applaud Nintendo's attempt to make a mark in the music game genre while maintaining a kawaii touch with Wii Music. Using the Wii remote to play different instruments in a 6-person band is novel, especially when you can be an adorable Mii character donning a cat suit meowing to the song every time you paw the air with the remote. Moreover, even if you're not amused by animal suits, you can still enjoy the game's myriad of instruments, ranging from harp to sitar to rapper to bagpipes. You can also play more standard instruments, such as the guitar, drums, and violin.

Most of the fun comes from experimenting with the remote to figure out how to play various instruments. For example, pressing a button shortens creating staccato on the piano while the same button produces single notes rather than chords on the guitar. Moving the remote up increases volume, while moving down decreases volume for the woodwind and brass instruments (e.g. clarinet, trumpet) while for the string instruments (e.g. violin), volume control is typically based on how quickly you move the remote left and right (in the motion of a bow). Nintendo has incorporated many real life musical techniques into the remote, which were delightful to discover!

In contrast, the actual band performance portion of this game was lackluster. Those less-familiar with the music can turn on a beat indicator, which instructs players when they should be playing notes if they are interested in playing the song in its original manner. Without this indicator, I found it hard to play along to the music, because no explicit instructions were given. There was metronome to keep the beat at the bottom right corner, but that was a confusing string of shape- and color-changing notes that bounced to the beat. Consequently, I ended up being offbeat for most of the song. If that weren't embarrassing enough, the performance was recorded and ready for playback.

Aside from simply playing the instruments, you can actually focus your performance on different components of the song, such as the melody or percussion. The skilled musician can even utilize the metronome as a cue to add solos and improvisation throughout the song. Needless to say, I never made it that far, but having the potential to do so is a nice addition to the already layered presentation of the mode. The game also includes a separate drum kit mode, which is even harder to learn to play.

Regardless of my success (or lack thereof) in the band mode, I did like the editing features of Wii Music. I was able to go back and record different components of the song with different instruments to make a one-man band. Furthermore, I could send my recorded performance to friends so that they could alter or add to my work. My final recording was then played as a cute (but cacophonous) music video with portions of the scene changing according to the music.

In short, the learning curve for this game is going to be quite steep for the novice gamer, but if you desire to be in band but for whatever reason cannot, Wii Music makes for an entertaining starting point.