Disaster Band

Assuming this isn’t your first day on the internet, you’ve no doubt heard that out-of-tune flute rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On that has been memed to death. If you enjoyed that, then maybe you should check the new game Disaster Band from German developer PRODUKTIVKELLER Studios. It’s a whole game built around a stick figure band whistling, drumming and even kazooing their way through some of the world’s most famous classical compositions. And with a silly sense of humor and fun multiplayer modes, this is a game guaranteed to charm. But does that mean you should buy it? That’s what we’re about to find out when I review Disaster Band.

With a name like Disaster Band, I went into this game expecting a farce. With the stick figures and silly set-up, I knew there was at least a small chance that I would be farting the notes to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Thankfully, that is not the case. While certainly goofy, this rhythm game does a good job of walking that line between serious and parody. It offers just enough depth to keep most players satisfied, yet has the ability to keep the whole band giggling in delight.

Simply put, this is a game where we play along with a wide variety of wildly popular songs that are all in the public domain. I’m talking about some of the most popular compositions of all time, like Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries, Pachebel’s Canon, Amazing Grace, In the Hall of the Mountain King and two holiday classics – Silent Night and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. There are twenty songs in all, most of them you will have heard in TV shows, commercials, cartoons or just going to high school orchestra concerts. Even if you don’t know all of the names, you’ll definitely know most (if not all) of these songs.

The gimmick here is that you can perform these songs with fifteen different instruments, that range from completely normal to absolutely absurd. You’ll start off playing along with a bunch of instruments you might find in an orchestra, like a violin, cello, trombone and choir, only to graduate to sillier sound-makers, like a recorder or a kazoo. Before long you’re whistling to Mozart and controlling cat meows to Bach. Just as history’s greatest composers would have wanted.

One thing I really like about this game is that it takes the time to introduce people to each instrument and lets you play around with them. Is it weird playing Silent Night on a thousand-year-old Chinese erhu? Absolutely. Is a pipo a lute or a guitar? I have no idea. Is there anything cooler than the theremin? No way. This game does such a wonderful job teaching players about different instruments from around the world and how they complement (or completely ruin) the timeless music.

From a gameplay perspective, Disaster Band isn’t all that different from what we’ve seen before. This is a game built around you dialing in the right pitch and then pressing a button when prompted. You’ll also have to hold and even adjust the pitch for the sustained notes, which mostly means following the path up and down the screen. As long as you hit the button at the right time, the game is pretty good about snapping you into the right pitch, making this one of the easiest rhythm games for beginners to pick up and play.

It’s worth mentioning that there are a lot of different ways you can control the game, with at least one of them making the game substantially harder to play. I chose to use the analog stick to dial in the pitch, but you can also use the motion controls to do the same thing. There’s also a mode that will take away that part of the gameplay all together, making it so the only thing you have to do is hit the button at the right time. There’s also the opposite of that, which gives you no aim assistance, forcing you to be as precise as possible when playing the notes.

For a game that could have easily been a joke experience, Disaster Band kept surprising me. Sure, the gameplay is a bit on the simplistic side, but the game goes out of is way to give each song four different parts to play. That not only gives solo players a lot more bang for their buck, but also opens up the four-player mode, giving each person something different to do.

And just when you get sick of playing through Silent Night and Canon for twentieth time, the game reminds you that it supports user-created content. Although it’s not obvious at first, there’s a whole mod section tucked away inside Disaster Band that allows you to download a wide range of songs, including some recognizable compositions. Although this part of the game feels like it’s practically hidden, it offers the potential for near-unlimited music. And maybe even different styles of music, which is great news for anybody sick of playing through three-hundred-year-old classics.

Unfortunately, as of right now, there aren’t a lot of songs to download. That’s a shame, because there also aren’t a lot of songs packaged with the game. And to make matters worse, the twenty songs that come with Disaster Band are all annoyingly short. Most of the songs tap out at just two minutes, with at least one dipping down to a mere sixty seconds. What’s frustrating is that these are small clips from significantly longer songs, so every song feels weirdly anticlimactic. It’s a shame that there’s not a longer version of some of the more famous songs.

Another problem is that the game is simply too easy. Although you can adjust the difficulty by using the motion controls, I didn’t find that to be challenging enough to keep me playing the songs more than a few times. And without a way to see how my scores compared to the rest of the world, there wasn’t a lot of incentive in earning more points. The multiplayer mode does make up for some of these problems, but the simplicity will keep this from being a party favorite.

One minor complaint I had about the game was the weirdly sterile presentation. While the pitch highway is presented well and is always easy to see, I wasn’t a huge fan of the video clips playing under it. Sometimes it’s an animated Santa Claus, while other times it’s elderly women dancing or men playing violin while wearing a VR headset. None of this connects to what you’re playing, and it looks like the kind of stock footage you can buy on royalty free websites. I wish there was a way to turn it off.

Even with a few problems, I find myself wanting to recommend Disaster Band. Not because it’s particularly funny or challenging, but rather because it’s a great introduction to the wonderful world of musical instruments and classical compositions. This would be a great game for a kid just starting out in the orchestra or band, yet adults will have fun with the multiplayer modes and the downloadable music. I don’t care what the name is, this rhythm game is far from a disaster.