On one hand, as someone who literally only listens to video game OSTs, this was a great introduction to lots of different types of music!

On the other hand, I suck at rhythm games.

I guess I liked it fine enough though.

Coming from a lifelong Guitar Hero/Rock Band fan, this is incredibly frustrating.

Mechanically the game is just a watered down version of previous titles, the standard instruments don’t have HOPOs, whammying, chords are relegated to exclusively two notes split across a line, and overdrive has been significantly simplified as well. But whatever, it’s a more casual version of the real instrument support that we always knew was coming, and that was supposed to satisfy fans like me.

I am NOT impressed… holy shit how did they fumble this so badly?? It’s only guitar, which is already a big downgrade from any of the Rock Band series. The vast majority of controllers ever produced for the series aren’t compatible. The engine is pretty wonky with awkward strum mechanics. And worst of all, the calibration is damn near unusable. I have no idea what happened but I have NEVER had to spend so long tweaking settings to get a setup that’s even remotely playable in one of these games.

Besides the mechanics, the game is a soulless husk. Fuck Fortnite and its bland ass corporate artstyle, its ugly animations, its total lack of identity aside from sucking up things that people already liked. Fuck this games as a platform bullshit where everything it has to offer is just a lesser version of something else. There’s SO much lost here from the older games in terms of personality, charm, and unique memorable moments.

And I haven’t even mentioned the worst part yet which is this god awful live service bullshit that it forces on you. There is NO base setlist! No modes other than quickplay either! Instead you have a selection of 15-20 songs that rotate like they’re Splatoon maps, making each one frustratingly impermanent. And plenty of those slots will inevitably be taken up by boring picks that aren’t fun to play on any instrument. But don’t worry, take a quick detour to the in game store and you’ll see dozens of songs you’d much rather play, for $5 each!!! Rock Band’s dlc songs were $2 by the way, and that was after an expansive and diverse catalog of fun songs included with the game.

And to whoever wants to tell me “the old games will always be there,” that’s not true!! Rock Band is dead! The servers and music stores for the first three games have been offline for ages, it’s only a matter of time before the same happens to 4, they’ve already stopped adding dlc specifically because they’re focused on Festival now. Any chance I had of getting a real Rock Band 5 is completely gone now.

This would be a 2/10 if the charts weren’t admittedly very good. Nothing else about this game works, it’s a much MUCH worse version of the guitar/bass parts of Rock Band 4 which was already a worse version of Rock Band 2/3. I’m so mad that I had expectations for this at all, I will continue enjoying these charts in Clone Hero.