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AtomNodame Cantabile: Classical music rhythm game on the DS
As a fan of the manga and rhythm games like Ouendan I’ve been excited ever since I heard Nodame Cantabile was being made into a game (PS2/DS), Instead of pop songs and frantic images, you tap along classical music by Beethoven, Mozart, and Brahms. A total of over 40 pieces are featured in here. Since the game’s Japanese release is two days away, I did a little poking around on the official site and was pleasantly surprised by the variety of gameplay.
There are essentially two game modes concert and minigames. In the main concert mode you tab along the rhythm as the conductor waves his baton. When both of your notes intersect you create a tune. If you mess up the conductor gets upset and his satisfaction gauge drops. I tried a slow demo, but it was hard to catch up to the tunes by clicking the mouse. Imagine how challenging it would be to tap along fast ones such as Gershin’s Rhapsody in Blue. There are 4 mini-games in Nodame Cantabile DS: a Taiko no Tatsujin drum-hitting game, a side scroller with the Purigorota cartoon characters within the Nodame universe, a cooking game where you prepare the customers’ orders by mixing the correct recipe, and the last game has you help Nodame the slob tidy up her room.
There is also a musical dictionary with information about historical composers, instruments, and the relevance of the musical pieces to the story complemented by scenes from the manga. Character summaries and manga illustrations are found under the gallery/collection mode. You earn both as you progress further into the game. For fans a "Nodame Piano bag" is thrown in as a special pre-order bonus. Even if you are not a fan of the series, this might turn out to be another excellent rhythm game for the DS.
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7 Responses to “Nodame Cantabile: Classical music rhythm game on the DS”
April 17th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
The flash demo is pretty addictive, even though you can only play through one song. I keep going back to see if I can perfectly hit every note, but I always end up missing one! I figure that it will be easier to play with a stylus instead of a mouse, though.
I really can’t wait to play this, though. I love classical music, and I really like the manga, so I’m very excited!
April 18th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Hey, I totally don’t want to sound like an idiot…
…but…
you know how this game is in Japanese?
Would it have English language settings?
Cos it looks like awesome fun, but I know it won’t ever get released to English markets.
Thanks for any info hey.
If the writing can be turned into English I’m totally buying one today!
April 18th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Unfortunately I don’t think English setting is available (the Phoenix Wright DS re-release is more like an exception). The language barrier shouldn’t prevent one from enjoying the game as you’re only tabbing along to the tunes with the stylus, like Elite Beat Agents, except missing out on the story. I would be picking this up very soon to do a follow-up, and let you know how import friendly it is.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
The anime is being fansubbed. I actually found myself laughing out loud a little bit while watching it. Lately I’ve felt jaded about anime, so there you go.
May 7th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
I imported the game and it was jolly good fun!
The language barrier didn’t concern me, and I didn’t feel I was missing anything.
It sure is short though. It only takes about two hours to play all the songs.
But its loads of fun so I didn’t care.
The making dinner game is funny. As is the naughty dancing bear thing.
5 stars!
Gaming Map
April 17th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
It certainly does have me interested.