Rhythm 'n Notes

Rating Everyone Genre music Publisher Agetec Inc. External Links Official Agetec Inc. Website

Rhythm ‘n Notes follows the recent trend by game developers to actively involve the gamer in learning about music through repetition and mini-gaming. Guitar Hero introduced thousands to rhythm, note placement, and the construction of melody, Karaoke Revolution taught pitch, Dance Dance Revolution taught beats, and Rock Band could very well spawn a new generation of drummers. Unfortunately for DS owners, Rhythm ‘n Notes provides no foreseeable foundation that these other titles show in spades.

Rhythm ‘n Notes is basically only two separate mini-games, a rhythm game and a note game. The rhythm game has a little ladybug character banging on a drum to a metronome beat while the touch screen is tapped along to the beat. The note game has the ladybug rocking and rolling on a piano to teach chord and note recognition. Both games suffer from a number of problems.

The rhythm game doesn’t seem so bad at first, but the beginning rhythm patterns are very easy while latter patterns are needlessly difficult. There is no tutorial section and no help offered, so any real advancement in rhythm needs to be done by grinding out the sections over and over again until 100% success is achieved. Many of the failures are the result of not being able to synch right up to the metronome or the overly complex beats. The game moves away from rhythmically centered drum beats into drum solos after only a few lessons. Very little is really impressed upon the player of what rhythm is, how to count it, or why it is important. It plays more like a means to an end; a silly incentive inside of a learning game.

The notes section doesn’t help the game either. It is certainly more interesting and more challenging, but only infuriatingly so. There are two different options: chords and notes. The chord menu shows three different piano rolls with different keys highlighted. A chord is sounded and you have to pick out the correct key configuration. Unfortunately for you, the chord only sounds once, there’s no way to have it play again. You also can’t hear how each of the pianos sound, so the game turns into a ton of guessing, missing and restarting. Because you need 100% to pass each section, after doing a few lessons you are undoubtedly bored.

Interestingly enough, the chords are broken into inversions, although there is no consistency in the roots. Rhythm ‘n Notes makes no attempt to explain what an inversion is or how those might be helpful to solving its complicated puzzles, but the thought was there at some point. The game could have taken an easier and more informative twist by focusing on roots and the inversions of those root notes, but instead they arbitrarily pick chords and force a lot more guessing. A little more thinking and planning in this section could have yielded some more interesting, helpful results. The single note lesson suffers the same difficult fate, but cannot be unlocked until much of the chord lessons are beaten. You have to identify single pitches and pick out the correct one on a piano. Again, tears will flow, as that million dollar record contract could never be bestowed on someone so inept at this simple exercise.

Rhythm ‘n Notes also advertises teaching different time signatures within the game. Although this section of the game does include different time signatures, they are not explained or incorporated in a way that makes them understandable to a musical novice. This title makes the bold claim that it can “improve your music skills” and fails in that attempt. In the face of good games like Elite Beat Agents, Electroplankton, or Jam Sessions, Rhythm ‘n Notes comes off as a coulda/woulda/shoulda/didn’t title. There are some good ideas packed in this game and using the DS as a learning tool is another critical step forward in video game marketing. However, any real attempt to learn music from this game will leave you sorely disappointed.