While Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved is still a few weeks away, we were fortunate enough to get our hands on an early copy courtesy of Harmonix. While I've been throwing magical music spells in the game's central Story Mode, and helping the game's main character, Scout, rid the land of Noise, that's not what I'll focus on here today. Instead, I want to showcase the game's powerful remixing potential.
Each song on the tracklist comes with two alternative remixes. For example, Cee Lo's 'Forget You' can be mixed into an 80's remix, still retaining its melodic foundation, but changing up the instruments. The Nutcracker from Tchaikovsky, a whimsical classical tune can all of a sudden have a breakbeats drumtrack in the back, and a techno synth replacing the string section.
The magic comes from being able to make these changes to these songs on the fly. During the song, you'll be tasked with picking from one of three stylings for the illustrated instrument. That means you don't ever change the entirety of the song to a different mix, but rather, you choose specific instruments or vocals to fit that style. That's what gives you the ultimate power in deciding how you want your mix to play out.
Admittedly, there have been style choices that I made, which I didn't exactly love the results from, but generally, no matter what stylings you mix together, they'll sound awesome.
In the video, I perform The Nutcracker. If you notice, the beginning allows you to set the mix to however you like. I start off with everything original, except for the drum track. There is something immensely satisfying to hear the thump of a drum beat behind the swelling string section.
As the song goes on, I'm able to change up the song, as I mentioned before, into one of three styles. If you time it correctly, you're also awarded a score multiplier, allowing you to rack up points that would normally be in the hundreds of thousands, to reach multiple millions.
The beauty of each song having three distinct styles (the original and two remixes) is that it essentially triples the amount of content. Sure the song itself is still the same, however the note patterns change for each style.
I have to hand it to Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, it does a pretty amazing job of making you feel like the sorcerer's apprentice. I still have quite a ways to go until I unlock every song and help Scout complete her final composition. I can tell you though, the game is extremely fun. If you're musically inclined, you'll certainly be more inclined to enjoy Fantasia, but given the game's simple gameplay mechanics, you don't have to be a virtuoso to get the most out ot it.
Make sure to stay tuned for our official Review for Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved, when it hits later this month.
