Fantasia: Music Evolved Preview - E3 2014

Harmonix Music Systems are best known for creating some of the most hugely popular music games of the last generation. From Rock Band to Dance Central, the company has a clear knack for designing great gameplay and combining it with stellar audio. It's no surprise then that their next major release will be a similarly themed Fantasia: Music Evolved. The title seemingly combines the Dance Central technology of Kinect with the audio mechanics of Rock Band, while creating its own unique experience. We had a chance to see and play Fantasia at E3 this year.

Described by the developers as a musical motion video game, Fantasia allows players to perform various movements (mostly with their hands) to match the on-screen prompts, which are in turn matched to the music. If you were hoping for a classical dance experience, Fantasia is certainly not it. There's a distinct focus on arm and hand movements over any other parts of the body, and the Kinect itself is mostly concerned with keeping track of your shoulders and arms rather than body or legs.

The basic gameplay, as mentioned, involves the player watching the screen and as prompts appear, swinging their hand in the direction indicated. Your main goal is to keep in sync with the prompts, and should you succeed, it does begin to look like dancing of sort. We had a chance to play through a couple of songs, and had selected "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes as our very first experience with Fantasia. The song was rated as a three star difficulty, out of five, so we figured it was good enough to start. We were wrong.

Surprisingly, the song was quite difficult. Even as an experienced Kinect player, the game was throwing motion prompts very quickly, making it challenging to keep up. And this was three stars! All said and done, it was more akin to a spazztic workout than a dance. The score at the end of the seemingly lengthy song said that we performed OK, but there was little joy in this unexpectedly demanding experience. We then attempted a different song, rated at one star, and also featuring a slower beat. This was clearly how Fantasia was envisioned to be played and enjoyed - at a slower, almost relaxing pace where you can actually keep up with the prompts. Perhaps more importantly, the Kinect was finally able to keep up with the motion tracking as well, something it notably failed to do on a few occasions during the previous track that required fast player movement.

So while the gameplay is a bit uneven and questions linger about the difficulty balancing and lackluster Kinect tracking, at least the soundtrack is great. Harmonix are known for selecting the best tunes they can find, and Fantasia (which by the way shares little in common with the Disney property, except perhaps for the visual style) features a solid lineup. The game will contain about 30 tracks from over 25 artists, from Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody and David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust all the way to Royals from Lorde and Super Bass from Nicki Minaj. It's an interesting mix, though one that will perhaps leave the game lacking a musical identity. Notably though, each song features two unique remixes in addition to the original recording. The songs that we performed to during our hands-on session were remixes, and they sounded very good and original takes on the songs. During the gameplay you can even live-mix the music, by selecting which instrument you want to focus on for the next section of the song.

Fantasia also supports two player gameplay, and this is perhaps the best method for tackling the higher difficulties. Here two players stand side by side, and attempt to perform the songs together. With the high amount of motion inputs demanded by the game for the difficult tracks, it was definitely more manageable when you only had to concern yourself with one side of the screen, and thus half the prompts.

Visually, the game features various interactive scenes, however during our gameplay demo we were treated to fairly simple, effect-filled screens on a black background. It looked pretty with the various particle effects and a wide gamut of colors, but this isn't a game that will exactly push even the Xbox 360 to its limits.

Disney's Fantasia: Music Evolved is an interesting experiment for Harmonix. They have been lacking any major releases for the last few years, and this their next project is an odd hybrid of gameplay mechanics and audio design. Rather than being a readily accessible and easy to pick up and play experience like their previous franchises, Fantasia may need some player understanding and practice before you can simply jump in and experience unique song mixes found in the game. Look for Fantasia: Music Evolved to release on Xbox 360 Kinect and Xbox One Kinect this October.