Major Minor’s Majestic March

This will not make kids want to join their High School Band

Posted 4 years ago By - Marko Djordjevic

Ever wondered what it would be like to lead a Marching Band? Masaya Matsuura and artist Rodney Greenblat, the same people behind the classic PaRappa the Rapper are giving you that opportunity with Major Minor’s Majestic March for the Nintendo Wii. In what should be a cool concept rhythm game ends up being an extremely short affair that doesn’t give you any real lasting enjoyment.

Gameplay

The game’s story revolves around Major Minor, a young lad who comes from a family of Marching Band leaders going as far back as his own Great-Great Grandmother. One day he finds this Baton in his home and discovers that it contains the spirit of said Granny, referred to in the game as GGGG. With her help and your best friend Tom, it’s up to you to recruit band members and become the greatest marching band in the land. 

You have to pay attention to the markers above their heads

In order to become that great leader, you need to recruit band members and keep them playing across seven stages. The controls are extremely limited with you only having to move the Wii-remote up and down in a steady motion. As your character walks around each stage, there will be people standing around waiting to join. If you time your motions correctly and toggle them, they join in and begin playing an instrument. Keep it up and you’ll have a massive band and complete the level with ease.

The game is all about tempo; if you swing the remote too quickly or too slowly will cause you to lose members. Each group of performers has a marker hovering over their heads that changes color depending on how they feel about the tempo. If the marker is green, you’re good, but if it turns red, eventually you will lose those members. If you lose all of your recruits the level ends.

It may seem pretty simple, but the controls in the game are actually fairly inconsistent. You will often be swinging the remote at the same speed only for the game to tell you you’re not. There is a meter on the side to help you with your tempo, but even that seems to be inconsistent as even the slightest of moves of the remote can change the rhythm.

The game is all about tempo; swing the remote too 
quickly or too slowly will cause you to lose members

Controls hurt this game further when it comes to recruiting members. While moving the remote in a steady pace, you need to flick it left or right at specific moments in order to enlist members and collect pick-ups. The responses of said flicks often lag or is completely unrecognized making you easily miss a potential band member or valuable pick-up. 

The game tries to mix up things by forcing you to speed up or slow down your tempo at certain points of the game. Again, because of the inconsistent recognition in the controls, you will be doing exactly what you think you should only for the game to tell you otherwise. It would seem that because of the controls you would likely fail a stage, but with the abundance of available pick-ups available to collect, you can pass every stage with no rhythm what so ever. 

Graphics and Sound

The game is not shy about pointing out the game was designed and drawn by the same duo that gave the world PaRappa the Rapper and UnJammer Lammy. While you can see the same style here, this seems to be their tamest effort. There are no real memorable characters as the designs of Major Minor, Tom and even the game’s antagonist Eggplant Fox don’t really have the same effect as the designer’s previous efforts. The game attempts to offer some cool character designs with Dogs, Cats, Fish and even Cacti, but they too do nothing to stand out. Even the many cut-scenes fail to impress. There is no actual animation; each cut-scene uses static images that don’t really offer much to a person’s imagination. 
 

The cut-scenes fail to offer any extra enjoyment