Wow! RCT, I commend you for being brave enough to step into such dangerous territory.
I'm curious out of the many people who constantly bash Wii Music, how many of them have actually played it in a group or even played it at all. If you approached it with an open mind and gave it some time, I think you might be pleasantly surprised. It's not for everybody, mind you. It helps a lot, if you can dance and are interested in customizing music.
The game could be better, but a lot of people have unrealistic expectations. They want anything and everything to be in it, regardless of how impractical, inconvenient, or ineffective the combined ideas are. It has to have Roland-quality sound sampling and synthesising, customizing and instrument selection that puts cakewalk to shame, and an endless tracklist, for starters. Shouldn't we at least wait for sequel, before we start expecting developers to have ridiculous budgets and quality in party games?
I'm actually glad someone tried to approach a instrument game from a different angle than GH. WM is truer to real music performance & creation, and has more variety. The GH combo-crazy approach, aka expensive Tekken plastic guitar party, is starting to get stale and is already completely saturated.
I would say Wii Music makes an excellent rhythm party game, especially for causals (All kinds of people can pick up controller and start enjoying it together. Usually, when a skilled player and amateur get together it equals pain and frustration for the noobie and boredom for the pro.) and a good solo music game for creative people that actually have full body coordination and some rhythm (Something I wouldn't expect from a game critic. Just watch the videos on the web to see for yourself. Matt from IGN moves like Elaine from Seinfeld.)
I don't know why causal party game has to be such a dirty word or why people seem to think the fate of core games on the Wii rest on Wii music failing. It's really childish. There are a lot of people saying Wii Music bombed, but I have a feeling it will end up have incredible sales in the long run. Even better than some games that came out around the same, that most think were major successes. Besides, Wii Music has already made Ninty $. Get over it. It's time for the haters to move on, to hating the next Wii game. Damn! A lot more than I was expecting to type, when I 1st started off. Next time, I'll tell you how I really feel!
