Mad Maestro!

"Adventures of Takt and Wonder Fairy"

Mad Meastro is one of the few, but the proud musical genre based games that populates Japan (and Asia in general), but not here in America, so it was a breath of fresh air when I heard about this and became a bit engrossed in it. Out comes a playable demo in an OPM issue and I found myself hooked to it. My goal was simple, I must find the game and I did about a couple of months back and my, what a wonderful game it is.

STORYLINE:
The city of Bravo Town is at a crisis. Seeing as how their town needs to be modernize,the suits decided to destroy all the old buildings and probably replace it with a McDonald's. One such place getting destroyed is the Symphony Hall where the fairy, Symphony needs, posing as a statue, where she guards over the church-like area. Hearing of the plans to have the place destroyed that she guarded for God knows how long, Symphony gets out of her petrified mode and flies to the young conductor of the Youth Orchestra Band, a boy (assuming he's about teenage age) named Takt. Asking for his help to recruit people and perform classical pieces like no other in the Symphony hall to save the day, Takt agrees and the game begins.

I like to keep in mind that compare to most music games, this one is pretty well thought out. It's not the best story, but it fits well with the overall theme of the game. It's not as good as Gitaroo Man's story, but even that can be qualified as a cliche (the whole save the world thing, not that I hate Gitaroo Man, I don't,it's a brilliant game), and this story isn't all cliche from what I seen.
9/10

GAMEPLAY:
First off, you can do either child mode or normal mode. Doesn't matter, but normal mode is what the main deal is, so I'll talk of that.
In normal mode, there will be four circles with colors of either red, green, or blue. Blue means you press the buttons softly, red means the hardest, and green is stuck in the middle. So, this game is basically button pressing in where you must press the right way or suffer bad music. Sometimes arrows are necessary and depending on where it's pointing, you must push it or suffer more bad music. There is a trophy-like bar in the right where it shows how hard you pressed. You do this throughout the entire game. There is an angel/Devil meter in the left and depending on how well you do, you can either do Angel or Devil. This affects the background of the game. Good play means colorful, happy backgrounds. Bad play means more moody, dark ones.
It does get tedious, especially for so many songs (which is a lot compare to most music games which only have about 10 levels and songs), but it's addicting and fun. There is also Medley Mode in where you play on the Hard version of some sort. If you keep in Angel mode by the time Medley mode comes, then you play that song. There will be no green, red, or blue circles, just black ones and you must make the button press that you think is approriate. Once you win, you get mini-games. The mini-games involve mostly helping out the main heroes you see in the level previously. Two involves a sorta Parappa style of button pressing and one involves lots of arrows, so these mini-games are fun in my opinion and very diverse.
In short, if you don't mind the tedious-ness, this system works in solid form and it's awfully fun, too. If you wanna see the animation rather then the four (or sometimes three) circles (because you'll be seeing that a lot), then you can always do replays and watch to your heart contents (you can also save them for future watches.)
9/10

SOUND/MUSIC:
Of course, as a music game, the sound of it is perfect. I'm aware that they did not use real orchestra to make the over 30+ classical pieces, but seeing as this was game was done entirely in CD and not DVDs like most games, it's quite impressive. And they manage to add in voiceovers, too. Most of the main characters speak (and most have funny accents), and they annoy me, but not overally in that I hate it. The most annoying would be Smyphony (who has a weird habit of talking to Takt like he has the attention span of a 5 year old). Speaking of Takt, his character design appealed to me, but unfortunately, he suffers from what I hate the most about games, ''silent Hero syndrome'', meaning he's mute. Well, better mute then getting annoying voice. Overall, the music outweights the voices and it's all well and good. I must also comment that the FMV music are VERY well done.
9/10

GRAPHICS: Compare to most PS2 games, the graphics are simple, but it's a music game, so I expect that. Seriously though, they still manage to make it very clean looking and very fluid, and secondly, they made great details on each main characters. From the lines in Takt's shirt to his facial expression to the little white lines on the Youth member's outfit to their facial feature to the colorful onsets of Luna the clown, they actually put in quite a lot. It's even more amazing that when Takt moves, his tie moves with him, and bits of his hair, too. I like those extra added touches. Wonderful. The FMV (though VERY few), are simple compare to most, but clean enough to see. Still not ''The Bouncer'' quality, but I'm more gameplay over graphics person.
8/10

EXTRAS:
There's tons to do after you beat the game. You can go to concert play in where you play four songs in one concert. here are about 15 total concerts, making for long play. You can go to replays and see the game and enjoy the music without those circles. You can replay mini-games (and those are fun), or just go to the Music Room and listen tothe music. It's all good. I believe this music genre game has a lot of extra compare to other music genre.
10/10

OVERALL:
I enjoyed this game personally. The game was good, the characters appealed to me (especially Takt), the FMVs (though few) were really enjoyable (the ending had me smiling in delight), and I enjoyed the gameplay, despite it's tedious nature. I think you should rent it if you feel a bit relunctant, but I enjoyed it and if anyone likes classical music or music games in general, they might like Mad Meastro.
-Neo

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03