Daigasso! Band Brothers

I am not a musician, though I sometimes pretend to be. When Led Zeppelin or the Ramones blare through the small black speakers adjacent my computer monitor, I rap-tap-tap the desk until my knuckles sting in time with the drum beat. I sing in the shower. I embarrass the hell out of whoever is accompanying me when Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” plays through any radio. I’ve had to remind myself not to air guitar in public. I play music rhythm games.

It started with Rodney Greenblat’s PaRappa the Rapper, with its Saturday morning visuals and infectious onion hip-hop. While PaRappa wasn’t the first game to combine music with button presses, it opened two doors of gaming goodness for me. The first was the musical gaming genre, which currently manifests itself in my game-life through daily Dance Dance Revolution sessions and occasional Donkey Konga jamborees. The other was a love for quirky Japanese game titles and an interest in the import scene.

I fell in love with the idea behind Daigasso! Band Brothers the minute I saw a video of business-dressed Japanese adults playing “Melissa”, a theme from the Full Metal Alchemist anime, over eight Nintendo DS units hooked up to a standard amplifier. The descendant of a canceled Game Boy Advance project called “GB Music”, Daigasso! Band Brothers will be known as Jam With the Band when it hits stateside on an as-of-yet unannounced date. Because music games usually westernize their song selection for release in different countries, often for the worse, I simply had to import the Japanese version to hear my DS at its full musical potential.

What’s in the box?

The personality of Daigasso! Band Brothers delightfully reveals itself in the contents of the larger-than-normal black cardboard box. Inside this box lies the DS game case, shrink-wrapped, and a pair of translucent blue ear buds. There are no screenshots on either the box or the game case, which are both emblazoned with the words “SOUND COMMUNICATION SYSTEM: DAIGASSO! BAND-BROTHERS.”

Rock and Roll Bat-girl Not Included.

A small instruction manual explains the opening menu options, but three rocking full-color band flyers go in-depth into each mode of play. One of them hangs on my wall now, next to my “The Blue Hearts USA Tour 1991” poster.

The ear buds are basic, tinny, and won’t blast your eardrums even at the highest setting, but they work great for Band Brothers. Since this is a game you must hear to play, I found the included ear buds perfect in situations where I didn’t want to disturb others but also didn’t want to be shut off from the rest of the world. They let you hear the music, play the game, and pay attention to those around you at the same time, keeping Band Brothers within the realm of portability.

The Sound of Music

Daigasso! Band Brothers is a music rhythm game in its purest form. It shuns any quirky rapping, shooting, reporting, and dancing antics in favor of the musical pseudo-realism of Konami’s keyboard, drum, and guitar games. Your role in Band Brothers is as a hopeful recording artist in a dreary rock-and-roll town. Select a song, pick your part, play – turning your entire DS into a 21st century digital instrument – and rock the mic to earn fame, fortune, and a recording contract with a scantily clad cartoon bat-girl.

At its core lies a MIDI musical engine featuring forty-one different instruments and seven complete drum sets. From electric, acoustic, and bass guitars to flutes, trumpets, and tubas, a wide range of instrumentation lies at your fingertips. The drum sets incorporate snares, cymbals, congas, triangles and gongs. Sometimes I spend minutes just playing around with the drums, jamming to a beat in my head as the two tiny DS speakers blast my boom-tis-boom-boom-tis to anyone within earshot.

Being of the software-generated variety, the sounds from Band Brothers wouldn’t fool anyone, but hardware constraints and the inclusion of so many instruments negate the possibility of using live samples in the game. Frankly, Band Brothers often sounds like quality ring tones from a hi-end cell phone or music from an older computer utilizing a Sound Blaster 16. You get used to it, and it ceases to matter at all except to surprise you at times that yes, you can become completely lost in MIDI music.

The songs in Band Brothers are an eclectic and diverse lot, with forty scores ranging from JROCK, JPOP, classical, world, TV-themes, and Nintendo melodies. The selection includes some childhood favorites as well as combination pieces featuring everything from “Flight of the Bumble Bee” and Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” to “La Bamba.” Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” sticks out as the one piece of classic rock on the playlist. On the other end of the spectrum lies a melody of Christmas carols and one from old Americana tunes.

It’s a somewhat awkward experience at first, playing drums to Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Seasons” and following that number up with a go at the bass line of “Oh Susanna!”

Also included are mixes from Nintendo past. Along with the obligatory but fun Mario and Zelda themes are music from Pokemon, F-Zero, Kirby, and Fire Emblem. My favorite of the lot is definitely the Famicom Mini mix which has you jamming to the classic tunes of Dr. Mario, Excite Bike, Balloon Fight, Ice Climbers and other twenty-year-old games you can now buy for twenty dollars at a local Wal-Mart.

To be honest, I wanted a lot more Rock and Roll. I wanted more songs that pump the fire of guitar, drums, and bass through my ears into the steel pistons of my brain. The song selection unexpectedly grew on me, however. I’d find Band Brothers songs playing through the iPod in my mind, in all their MIDI glory, and I’d be tapping my foot along to the jazz solo in “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The classical selections ended up being some of my favorites.

---

Button Mashing

Band Brothers, like a real instrument, begins simply and ends up extraordinarily complicated.

The game starts itself in Beginner mode. There are but two inputs in Beginner mode: the d-pad, represented on-screen by a blue cross symbol, and the face buttons, represented by red circles. As the song scrolls, you simply press any direction on the d-pad for blue and any button for red.

If you’re like me, though, it will still take a few songs before you get the hang of it.

Band Brothers songs are divided into measures that scroll vertically up from the bottom as they are read left to right. Beginner mode really exists to adjust players to this hybrid Donkey Konga/ DDR system. When playing faster and more complicated songs, one must be reading the next measure while finishing the input of the current measure to keep up. Like most music games, it becomes second nature and you wind up oftentimes amazed at the complex sequences you can play.

While the menus and characters are bright and colorful, the in-game graphics are functional, if not entirely interesting. The note icons are pretty small and will strain my eyes if I play too long. No other handheld game has had that effect on me, but no one else I’ve played with has voiced complaints so maybe I’m just an isolated case.

After Beginner mode is completed, the game sets itself to Amateur mode, where each note is a certain d-pad arrow direction or face button. Complicated sections of songs are still auto-played by pressing on the touch pad, which simply acts as another button. In the drum parts of songs, L and R are used for high-hats and symbol crashes. Since the inputs now increase from two to a potential eleven, songs become much more complicated. Each button/arrow has a color associated with it, so players eventually learn to read the colors and anticipate what comes in the next measure.

Because each button acts as a separate note on the scale, you have the potential to create some truly horrific sound in Amateur mode. My initial experiences were much like attending the first concert of a middle school band: notes squealed out of place and out of time, but my intentions were good, so my ears just smiled and thought of compliments to give after the atrocity ended.

But everyone sounds bad when first starting to play an instrument.

With instruction, practice, and time, the Music will begin to flow. What began feeling as awkward as a first kiss ends up feeling natural and beautiful. After a few hours of playtime, I became comfortable playing medium-difficulty parts. Having buttons correspond to notes really gives a feeling of playing and controlling the music. Band Brothers doesn’t penalize for extra notes played, so songs begin to allow for jazzy improvisation. My songs began to sound better than the default tracks. I could play fast drum songs and impress passersby. My musical future was as bright the platinum records I imagined hanging from my walls!

Then Pro Mode is unlocked and it all goes to hell.

In Pro Mode, no parts are simplified via touching the bottom screen, and the shoulder buttons come into play.

The right shoulder button, when pressed in conjunction with the d-pad or a face button, bumps your note up an entire octave. The left shoulder button bumps the note up a half-step, effectively giving you access to sharps. Pressing both shoulder buttons together logically raises your note up an octave and makes it sharp.

This complicates things severely.

Pieces that I could play in my sleep became difficult due to their newfound intonations and octave changes. Drum parts in Pro Mode require pressing two buttons at once, and were once again moved out of the realm of my musical feasibility.

But, with practice, I improved.

I had to discover a new way of holding the DS, since my usual stance makes it difficult to switch from d-pad to face button to shoulder button quickly without losing a firm grip on my beloved portable. Using my pinky fingers to stabilize the DS from its bottom lip, I can now gingerly hold the system and retain full access of movement with both thumbs and pointer fingers. It may be awkward, but I believe each player will have to discover which method works the best for their play style.

Ancient Ninja Secret

When playing Band Brothers, you are forced to really get to know your DS. By the time you unlock Pro Mode, someone can rattle off a sequence of directions and buttons, drill sergeant style, and you can air-DS your thumbs into the proper positions with a, “Sir, yes, sir!”

Band Brothers also requires you to drop all fears about touching the second screen. Yes, because it demands constant button and d-pad input, the stylus and thumb-strap just won’t cut it in a standard Band Brothers song. I didn’t want to touch my DS, not with my thumb, but I had to… and I liked it.

I was once afraid of the touch screen – I wanted to leave it in pristine print-free condition. Well, Band Brothers, wearing a black leather jacket and smelling of cigarettes and beer, leans over and screams, “Don’t be a friggin pansy! Touch that screen! ROCK and ROLL!!”

The DS screen cleans up quite nicely with a few swipes from the bottom of a t-shirt. While it’s strange at first, touching the screen becomes a fun part of the game play challenge because it causes you to use your thumbs as a resource; choosing the appropriate thumb to touch the screen and be able to carry on into the next measure. Soon, I was using my thumb to navigate the Band Brothers menu options as well. Each menu uses large, easy-to-touch buttons. So I stopped fiddling with the stylus and used my god-given fingers.

It’s a Zen thing. The DS, like a musical instrument, can become a physical extension of one’s self. Press thy thumb onto thy touch-screen and obtain gamenlightenment.

Remember, touching is good.

Game of Modes

Single player is split between “Single Play” and “Recording Ticket – Special Event” modes. In Single Play, you select a song and one of its instrumental parts, which are rated in difficulty by stars. The game saves the top score for each part. Also featured is a space that lets you practice the song in Beginner, Amateur, or Pro modes as well as adjust the tempo from hyper-fast chipmunk-punk to slow-as-molasses lazy-day blues.

The meat of the single player game lies in Recording Ticket Mode: each level presents you with three random songs that you must complete in order. Each mistake shortens the fuse of a bomb on the bottom screen and when the fuse runs out, you’ve lost. Not only is the bomb working against you, but each level also has a total score that must be reached, so it is possible to survive the three-song gauntlet but still lose. Pausing the game forces you to start over with a new set of songs.

Recording Ticket mode is how you progress from Beginner to Amateur to Pro modes, and it becomes increasingly more difficult as modes progress. Because the song selection is random, Band Brothers really encourages practice. If a player is, say, stuck on Amateur Recording Ticket Level 4, she’d best learn up on the four-star parts in Single Play and practice hard. In my experience, at the harder levels, I’d usually play until I lucked out with three songs whose parts I knew already, and even then sometimes I’d finish the set with merely one percent of the bomb fuse keeping me alive.

After completing a level, you get to listen to a recording of one of your performances and maybe sign a contract that unlocks a new difficulty mode. There are a few songs to unlock as well, but most of the song selection is available at game start. While scores and presents are being tallied, a host of little skull-babies waddle out and roll around the bottom screen. These can be poked, smacked down, and knocked out. After seven tries at a Recording Ticket level, only to have the last attempt thwarted by a heinous drum solo at the end of the final song, a little skull-baby-punchin’ feels good.

---

Jamming with the Band

A band requires members, and Band Brothers features excellent multi-play. Up to eight people can play wirelessly off of one game card. After an initial download of about twenty seconds, the leader chooses a song, players may practice their part, and then the band performs its number. Any parts not chosen by players are automatically filled in by the computer. After the piece is played, players are judged individually and the band is rated as an average of those scores. Other songs may be selected without further download, making the wireless play quick and hassle-free.

Click image for your new desktop background.

Band Brothers is a truly cooperative multiplayer game. Each member chooses a unique instrument and everyone must play together for the music to unfold. The band must work together to stay on time – if a member chooses to play the drums and is off beat, everyone will be off and the sound will be painful. On the other hand, when the back beat is clear and the soloists do their job, the harmony that arises out of the wirelessly connected Nintendo units is a beautiful thing.

Band members can message each other in the lower screen via a PictoChat-like drawing interface. While this allows members to congratulate each other after a song well performed, it also gives devious players an opportunity to send crude drawings of human anatomy to the bassist, completely throwing off the song and ruining any chance to preserve stage face. Be warned.

Also included, though relatively untested, is the Infinite Mode. This mode supposedly allows infinite DS systems, each equipped with a Band Brothers game card, to play together as a symphonic orchestra. Unlike all other modes of play, the only sound pumped out of the DS is that of your chosen instrument. The idea is to get as many people as possible playing together. I imagine a horde of DS fans in the parking lot of a Best Buy (or the Staples Center at E3) arranged in sections – winds, strings, percussion, and making it in a 5-second shot at the end of some local news broadcast:

Nintendo Fans Unite at Best Buy and Play “The Entertainer” for Great Justice

Music Composition, the Ninja Way

Forty songs are nothing to scoff at, but Band Brothers also gives players two ways to create, store, and trade up to eight of their own musical masterpieces. The basic music editing utility is called “hanauta de gakufu,” affectionately known as “hum into the mic” mode.

While a metronome ticks a beat to the tempo of the player’s choice, the microphone records the notes it deciphers as a song is hummed, whistled, sung, or played near the DS. Since I didn’t know how to read music at the time, I was eagerly awaiting this feature and first put it to the test by slowly whistling a version of “Bankrobber” by The Clash.

The results were unintelligible.

I tried whistling an even slower and more basic song, “London Bridge is Falling Down” and this time it recorded something recognizable, but it didn’t match up with any of the canned background music sets that can be added to mic-recorded tunes.

Mic mode does indeed pick up some of the notes it hears. It tends to decipher whistling better than humming, unless you are some stellar hummer of great magnitude. It has trouble picking up note changes, especially short, sharp notes, so it really fares much better with slow and basic songs. Basically, the mic mode is pretty useless as a music creation tool. The times I could get a recognizable song recorded, the pre-made backgrounds and lack of options severely limited what I could do with it. The verdict: mic mode is a cool idea, but a flawed execution, and it is best used to capture notes to take into Score Maker Pro.

Ah, Score Maker Pro.

Upon completing Amateur Recording Ticket Level 5, the game advances into Pro mode and unlocks Score Maker Pro as a result. SMP is basically a powerful handheld MIDI composition tool. Using the complete assortment of instruments, the standard staff, and musical notation, you can create songs from scratch with eight separate parts and up to 120 measures in length. Set up a chorus line using guitars, brass, or stringed instruments, add some bass to round out the sound, and put it all to a catchy drum beat of your own design. Expanded versions of the pre-made background tracks are also available, if you’d rather not write out every part to a song, and it allows you to set which chords the background instruments should play.

SMP’s interface makes excellent use of the d-pad, buttons, and touch screen. The numerous buttons and options labeled in Japanese look pretty daunting at first, however, if you aren’t very familiar with the language.

Aside: Dear Lord I Don’t Speak Japanese!

Most menus in Band Brothers are easy to navigate without Japanese knowledge. In fact, the main menus have English equivalents that appear for a second before the Japanese takes over. As with many import games, trial and error, basic katakana knowledge, and mental problem-solving powers can work wonders towards giving you a great game experience. All of the instruments are labeled with katakana which directly match their English equivalents and can easily be looked up through a number of websites.

While narrative segments are in Japanese, there isn’t really much of a story to miss out on. Barbara Bat says a lot of stuff to you before and after you enter any mode for the first time, but it isn’t anything you wouldn’t figure out along the way by yourself. The basic premise of a drab rock and roll town with a shady music shop and recording studio is presented clearly in English during the opening scene, and really, the rest of the narrative comes from the experience of playing the game itself.

The most difficult menus are the Japanese-heavy ones in Score Maker Pro.

My Japanese 101 and 4th grade music theory failing me, I played around with SMP for a few confusing minutes before deciding that I’d better leave it until someone posted a translation guide. The next day, I played Band Brothers with my girlfriend for the first time. She is a pianist and was very interested when I told her about creating songs using standard sheet music. I handed her the DS to mess around with while I left to attend a meeting.

When I returned a half-hour later, she had created a version of “Up with the White and Gold,” a Georgia Tech fight song, and was playing it on my DS.

Go Jackets! Right click and “save as” for video (.wmv)

She might not know a lick of Japanese, but she speaks the language of music and had quickly unlocked the secrets of Score Maker Pro. I hurried to grab a sheet of paper and diagram the menu options based on her findings.

Translation brought to you by MS Paint

Through the language of music, Daigasso! Band Brothers for the Nintendo DS, like the wailing power of Rock and Roll itself, breaks down all barriers of gender and nationality.

We soon added other parts to our school-spirited rendition. We decided to go for an island-theme and added bongos, xylophone, flutes, and bass. I then began editing other compositions. There are two complete songs on the card that can be loaded into SMP as example files, and Nintendo has given fans the sheet music for a few game songs in an easy-to-enter form on the Japanese Band Brothers website.

My longing for more Band Brothers songs meant it was time to get serious. I reviewed basic music theory, searched the interweb for cool TV and game MIDI files, and installed an application that converts MIDI tracks into sheet music. Then I applied some creativity, my own drum track, a little musical ninjitsu, and wound up with a killer version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song on my DS.

Now you’re playing with power. Turtle Power. Right click and “save as” for video (.wmv)

This is a game of which recordings are meant to be made. Music is created to be heard, and Band Brothers inspires a need to show off. From the early videos at 1101.com to import players uploading recordings of custom songs; creations and performances long to be shared. While songsmiths can transfer their masterpieces to any nearby DS, unfortunately there isn’t a good way to share them over the internet. Internet Band Brothers song sharing is a great idea, but I’m not holding my breath. Nintendo is, however, promoting the game in some cool ways in Japan at the moment – from downloadable sheet music to a TBS broadcast HOT’n HOT DS competition in which winners will appear on television, jamming with their own digital band. Here’s hoping that the game gets similar support when it unleashes The Music on the rest of the world.

And my hat is already off to the individual who discovers a way to share Band Brothers songs over the interweb.

---

Journey

No other game has turned a portable video game console into a musical instrument and creation space like Daigasso! Band Brothers has. It lets you in on ground level, playing Beginner songs and fooling around with the microphone recording mode. Its progression ends with full access to Score Maker Pro, which allows for infinite variations of songs, wireless multiplayer, which binds players together in musical cooperation, and Pro mode play, which turns an average game player into a bon-a-fide digital musician.

So why does Band Brothers lock up Score Maker Pro, which is its coolest feature and a major selling point for many gamers?

Band Brothers is a game of musical discovery. When you start it anew, it doesn’t care if you are musically illiterate or the next Mozart. You are a beginner and must play through the beginner stages.

When you’ve proved yourself, the game recognizes you as an amateur. More difficult song parts are slowly unlocked as you complete challenges, and Barbara Bat speaks to you from behind the wooden stain of the music shop counter. In multiplayer mode, you set up your gig bags next to where you are playing. Play well enough and stoner furries toss change your way.

When you finally land that pro recording contract, the game scenery changes to a cold concrete gray. This is for real, now. Barbara Bat addresses you in a back dressing room. She expects more from you and challenges are hard. There is no hand-holding touch-screen. As an amateur, the best you could do was play good cover songs, but now you have earned the respect to write your own music. By the time you hit pro mode, you know what does and does not work in terms of the game-play. When you play multiplayer now, it’s on a stage in front of a screaming crowd. The other members in your band, unless they own their own card and have also unlocked Pro mode, are just your back-up members, stuck in an Amateur wasteland. But not you; you’re a star now and there is no going back.

The Living End

Nintendo calls Band Brothers a Sound Communication System. That may be a little lofty for a portable game, but it fits. Music is organized sound and a form of artistic expression. The performing and sharing of music builds community; on a small scale through the cooperation required to play together as a band, and internationally through teaching, learning, and sharing music and recordings. I expect more Band Brothers communities to pop up on the internet when the game reaches other countries. A few real-life groups are already starting bands that play and record live performances using only Nintendo DS systems.

Band Brothers is game. It is software. It is tool. It is instrument.

It might not be the perfect rhythm game, nor a professional music tool, but as lines of code on a DS game card, Band Brothers stands as a unique and challenging piece that turns gaming into a whole new medium. It opens up music as a viable portable gaming possibility.

Band Brothers has universal appeal. Who doesn’t like music? Its interface becomes a keyboard simulation, a guitar simulation, a drum simulation, whatever interests the player. Someone who really digs dropping the bass can team up with a virtual guitarist and rock the Kasbah. Another player might be content playing flute to “Swan Lake.” Want to recreate simplistic childhood tunes? Religious and ethnic songs? Classical masterpieces? Rock and Roll?

When I discovered the inclusion of a cowbell in one of the drum sets, I decided that my next song will have to be the Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” I also found a treasure-trove of Ramones MIDI files that I’m itching to try.

The possibilities are endless. Not only do I want to keep playing, but I want to play with others, and I want to learn more about music and write my own. Band Brothers has satisfied the gamer and creator in me and opened an easy and non-threatening window into an entirely different art form. When I imported this game, I thought I had merely signed on for some simple music-rhythm fun, but what I received is a doorway to a community and to music itself. I am not a musician, but when I play Daigasso! Band Brothers, I feel like I could be.

Another Take, by Jeff Rivera and Matthew Whitehead:

Is Band Brothers, as a game, fun?
Jeff: I love it, it’s the most fun I have had on the DS so far.

Matt: After seeing the videos of Band Brothers that Shigesato Itoi posted on his website I knew I had to have the game. It just looked fun, especially with a group. After actually getting the game and playing it, I have to say that it lived up to what I was expecting. Since I don’t know anyone else who owns a DS (besides my Japanese teacher at school) I haven’t been able to experience the multiplayer aspect of the game, but the single-player game is plenty fun for someone like me who enjoys music.

How far are you in Recording Ticket mode?
Jeff: I’m on the gold ticket sessions (unlocked after beating Pro), it’s beyond brutal.

Created any songs? Was the experience a success?
Jeff: I haven’t played around with song creation, but once I do I’m going to try some well-known rock songs (U2, Pearl Jam, STP, Led Zeppelin) to see how those sound.

Matt: I haven’t utilized the “Hanauta de Gakufu” feature of Band Brothers at all, really, mostly because I can get better results using ScoreMaker Pro. ScoreMaker Pro is an exceptionally easy tool to use to make your own music. I find it much easier to use than some popular desktop music publishing programs that I’ve used to write my own compositions (I compose a bit on the side, mostly game music, actually). I haven’t really finished anything up yet, but I have started working on transcribing Maaya Sakamoto’s “Platinum”, Nana Mizuki’s “innocent starter”, and “Tina’s Theme” by Nobuo Uematsu from Final Fantasy VI. I figure SNES songs should be a good fit for Band Brothers since it has 8 channels much like the SNES sound chip did and the instrument samples are similar. There are limitations in ScoreMaker Pro — the only time signature is 4/4, you’re limited to keys up to 5 sharps/flats, each instrument is limited to two octaves, each channel can only have one instrument, you’re limited to 120 measures — but I haven’t run into those yet, mainly because those songs above are 4/4 and work within those limits well. Inputting a song that’s not 4/4 into the 4/4 of ScoreMaker Pro would probably cause a bit of a headache, though.

Now that you’ve had the game for a few weeks, do you still play it?
Jeff: I still play the game at least once a day. Sometimes I only play once through a song, but usually I play for at least 20 minutes.

Matt: I haven’t been able to play much recently due to school, but I’ll occasionally whip out the DS while waiting on a bus or between classes and play through a song or two.

Plan on getting the U.S. release?
Jeff:Yeah, I’m getting the US version the day it comes out for sure.

Matt:If the US release includes features or songs that I must have I’ll think about getting it, but since no details have been released I can’t say right now.

Are you a musician? What do you think of the musical element of Band Brothers?
Jeff: I’m not what you’d consider a musician, I do play the guitar and some piano, but I think the musical tracks are VERY well done and I can feel depth of the compositions as I play. The available instruments are great as well.

Matt: I’m a former music major and still enjoy performing music in band, so Band Brothers was a game very much suited for me.sss