D-Pad Hero

07-16-11 04:01 PM

Redrunelord is Offline

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| ID: 424536 | 840 Words

Redrunelord

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The seasons fulfil the circle of life with adequacy: In spring the leaves on the trees grows and prospers and continue through the summer. Yet, when fall comes, they roll over and die, and after the blistering winter, new leaves grows and the cycle continues. This is the way of a franchise, in some respects, as well: to grow and prosper, but death being inevitable. However, rarely does spring start with a brown leaf and grow green letting the winter bury the chlorophyll saturated leaves. In this respect, it is different than a franchise, specifically video games, since many grows more complicated over time and more saturated with content with time. In a weird way, a leaf's life can be compared and contrasted to a video game series.

One series that grew and died like a leaf was the Guitar Hero series. However, like a tree, seeds have been strewn across the world and slowly trees are growing, but not all of these seeds are creating bigger and greater trees. Due to different forms of soil, different breeds are being grown, and one of these is of the NES subspecies: D-Pad Hero.

D-Pad Hero is, in the simplest rawest form, a rhythm game for the NES. You would press either the A or B button in time with the incoming buttons, and sometimes the arrow keys with the correct button on one of four songs available for playing. There is no difficulty settings, but there is technically no way to fail either during the song. This eliminates a lot of the risk that comes in playing some other games, but it allows the player to practice the whole song, and strive for higher scores without the frustration of repeated failure. While that is great in that it enables the player to truly be desiring more, there should be an option to fail during the songs available right away.

Visually, the game is competent. While it is far from fancy, it gets the job done which is the top priority. The buttons will tend to require needing to be pressed dead on the mark rather than in front of the marks as in some other rhythm games. The menus are rather plain, somewhat bland for the NES and could have had more to them, as far as design around the icons.

A music rhythm game relies heavily on two things: solid game play mechanics, and solid audio. The Game Play mechanics are fairly solid (as it is a tried and true principal and was for many years before the plastic instrument reigned), so that would leave the audio to be tested. The audio are essentially four MIDI files with the vocals changed to a melody. The MIDI files sound like they were taken from a guitar power tab, based on the tones of the MIDI and how the audio is muted if the player misses. The four songs chosen, however, are free to play whenever the player should desire, and comes with different medals/stars based on how well one is scored. These renditions of well known songs (like some Michael Jackson and Guns N' Roses) are extremely well done staying true to the originals.

While the number of songs are limited, their initial difficulty are not lacking. The best song for the player to start with would be Sweet (the game's rendition of Sweet Child O' Mine) as it gradually gets harder over time. The reason it is simple to play, but difficult to master is that the controls are the exact same: simple to figure out, but difficult to master. If the player is accustomed to similar games online, then it shouldn't be much harder to pick up and play. However, there is only two scrolling bars and the arrow keys would overlap each button for any notes they are required. This means that the brain may think backwards when one should hit the B Button (left) instead of the A Button because there was a left arrow overlapping the A (basically, the brain may be reversed at times).

It is a rather simple game with little to it, but there is a definite potential for improvement. The features provided so far are good, and the ability to play all the songs right away is a great feature. Furthermore, the ability to listen and watch the song performed before you is an excellent feature. There isn`t much more to say beyond one simple question that all reviewers must answer: is this game worth checking out? If someone is a fan of rhythm games, specifically ones that are played on the computer with a keyboard, then it is worth checking out, but keep in mind that it is a shallow game with very little to offer beyond striving for the top score for four songs. It is a sound game (no pun intended) and has a lot of potential for future growth in the gardens of Vizzed. The players will want more, and they can start their search at D-Pad Hero.

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A Lone Samurai

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07-16-11 04:17 PM

pacman1755 is Offline

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pacman1755

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The 8 bit version of Guitar Hero is pretty nice, a good challenge, and the 8 bit versions of the classic songs, especially Guns N Roses song is really awesome. I love playing it, its pretty addicting.

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Winner of The August VCS 2011, December VCS 2013, and Summer 2014 TDV

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