Fantasia: Music-genre Evolved

"...action controlled by a musical pattern has great charm in the realm of unreality"

-Walt Disney

Harmonix and Disney have teamed up to develop a video game with the inspiration of Disney's classic film "Fantasia" titled Fantasia: Music Evolved.

Now Fantasia brings life to music and art and this combination is key to what Harmonix attempting to accomplish.

Now there is no instruments except for your hands. No plastic toy necessary. That's so 2005...

What you see on the trailer is the gameplay portion of what you do to complete songs and continue down the path of the story. There's are these areas, think of them as levels, were you enter and they start out rather lame and basic.

Like being underwater with fish and flora.

Now you see a rift which looks like a black hole and as you enter it, you play an already chosen song like Bruno Mar's "Locked out of Heaven" or Queen's "Bohemia Rhapsody".

The gameplay is quite easy, a swift move of your arm/hand towards a certain direction but gets more complicated with faster pace and multiple directions at the same time.

Quite frequently there are parts were you get to choose the style of the riff/vocal arrangement/instrument by just choosing a direction that alters the song but in such a drastic yet rockin' way. Just like the video. There's a bit more but I'll leave it at that for the gameplay.

The completion unlocks something in the world that's interactive and it slowly progresses to adding music to this plain area according to the songs you've played and more of color/animation/movement starts coming to life.

Literally using music to bring life to a lifeless scene.

Aka Fantasia.

There's no Disney characters or songs as of yet. Just worlds and music. And life.

This is definitely a game to keep your eye on. Harmonix is great at innovation and music.

Boom. Make sense. Check out the site here.

More to come,
-D.

My hands on the next-gen controllers...

Please understand that I played two of the worse types of games arguably to test out the controllers but that is because every other game was packed with smelly, excited gamers.

This was E3!

Now if you don't know what it is... I won't bother explaining it because this is a gaming site and you should know better.

First off is the Xbox One's controller while playing the game Powerstar Golf.

It feels lighter than usual but not as light as the horrible SixAxis PS3 controller. That's uncomfortably light. Like Keystone Light.

The backside feels amazingly natural to the hands.That's not an ass joke...

The trigger buttons (Lt and Rt) feel a bit lower than previous which (again) felt more natural to my hand but the bumpers (Lb and Rb) are very close to the triggers so I can see accidental inputs. Not fun. The face buttons don't feel any different but the joysticks have had an overhaul and for the better. The joysticks' rim have a grip like material that differs from the top of the joystick which feels 10x better than any joystick I've put my hands on. Yeah, I said that.

The Dpad seems to feels like the improved Dpad from the last updated Xbox 360 Controller with a bit more clicky-ness to it and the guide button is now on top but the Select and Menu button are still near the face buttons which means I'm still going to accident hit those inputs when I'm smashing every single face button in for dear life.

Now, for the contender...the Playstation 4's controller.

I say that for the fact I've never been a fan of any Dualshock controller.

The title of the game was The Pinball Arcade.

The controller is definitely an improvement for the Xbox 360 fan. It feels more natural. Now the middle "touch screen pad" thing clicks when I pressed it. I don't know if that's because mine was wired with the mechanism on top making sure that the cheap gamers don't leave with any unintended swag.

The controller felt heavier than the X1's controller I'm going to try to start using that acronym which is better. The Dpad is extended out of the controller a bit more, making it still unstoppable for fighting games and the joysticks are as responsive as ever. Buttons feel good, kinda have a more rounder edge to it. Share and Start button are not in the way as well. There's a clear distinction between the bumper (Lb and Rb) and the trigger buttons unlike the X1's controller.

All in all, I had absolutely no problem with this generation's new controllers... yet.

The X1's controller feels way more fitting for my hand but I can see problems happening because of the button layout and the new Dualshock feels improved and designed for games. That's my summary.

Catch ya' later & level up,
D.