I was first exposed to the concepts laid out in this game when I was a kid and had lego rock band on the ds. rather than going the guitar hero ds accessory route (a wise move, as those were rendered obselete once the gba slot was removed from the dsi on), harmonix's handheld rock bands followed in the footsteps of the original amplitude, where each instrument was given a separate track of notes, and the game encouraged you to switch between tracks at the end of each measure (or phrase). since I really enjoyed that rock band game (heavily compressed and truncated tunes aside), I was eager to give this title a go after getting it as a ps+ freebie.

after playing it.... it's fine really. I was a little surprised that this wasn't a remake of the original but instead a reboot of sorts, with a concept album about neuroscience(?) serving as the solo campaign and half of the tracklist. there are flashes of brilliance in the music here but it has an oddly anachronistic mid-00s electronic sound to much of it, which I suppose is fitting for a reboot of a game from that era. regardless, while I found it interesting on a first playthrough, I quickly realized I had no intentions on going back for more if I could help it. on the gameplay side, it's again fine but feels somewhat shallow. there's certainly much more time I could spend practicing to get up to higher difficulties, but given the shallow nature of the mechanics I didn't feel pushed to after a few hours of play.

certainly not a terrible game, and it accomplishes what it sets out to do, but nothing really phenomenal here either. there are another set of songs beyond the main campaign as well, but these aren't any better than the normal tunes, with no big licensed tracks as in the original. I don't see myself redownloading this to try it out again anytime soon.