Fantasia: Music Evolved

The Kinect is a wonderful idea and yet there never seems to be that many games that utilise it fully, if you have the next generation version you will be aware of its advanced capabilities and how much more integrated it is than its predecessor, Ok it’s not reached the Minority Report type interface that we would have all loved to see but it gets better with age.

Disney and Harmonix have just released the latest Kinect game called Fantasia: Music Evolved based on the classic 1940`s animated movie Fantasia.

Harmonix are responsible for games like dance Central and Rock band both huge titles and very popular still.

First of all you need a bit of space to move around, luckily with this one it’s all about hand gestures so there’s no jigging about required.

The Kinect scans you into the game and the fun begins, the object of the game is to gesture towards the arrows and dots on the screen in time with the music, now this is not the only thing this game does it actually reads your movements and changes the visuals accordingly, you score points for accuracy and at the end the player collects these points and they can be used to unlock other items for use in the game.

Fantasia: Music Evolved relies entirely on the Kinect for everything and even though the navigation can be a bit of a pain it generally works well, as you would expect this is based on the Disney fantasia movies so movement is conductor based, with the player waving his(or her) arms around.

The story is that you are the sorcerer’s apprentice guided by Yen Sid the sorcerer who appears in the movies, to be honest the story is pretty weak and it’s all about the game at the end of the day.

This is a great game for kids as you can`t really fail to complete the song no matter how many cues you miss and the visuals on the Xbox one are quiet striking.

Now what makes Fantasia: Music Evolved unique is its mixing and composition elements, you can acquire what are called composition spells which enable the player to create their own beats, rhythms and phrases, which you can then integrate into a song, this for me adds a personal touch to the game and takes it away from the run of the mill music interactive games we are so used to seeing.

The remix cues allows the player to bring in elements (usually one or two remixes) of that song to change the feel of the song which is a great idea and works well if you get it right.

You can bring another player into the mix and this works well allowing you both to create all kinds of crazy mixes, yet I found that the competition element soon kicks in as you are both really competing for high scores.

There is a nice mix of songs available (33 altogether) and range from Hendrix to Lady gaga so I am sure there is something for everyone on here.

Summary

Fantasia: Music Evolved does take a step forward in music interactivity and works well with the Kinect, OK there are some issues with controls but the gameplay itself is good and works well, the graphics are spot on and with the composition and re mix elements thrown in makes for a great family game.

Fantasia: Music Evolved

Developers: harmonix

Publishers: Disney Interactive

Xbox 360/ONE

Genre: music interactive

Release Date: 24th October 2014

Gameplay: 5/5

Graphics: 5/5

Story: 3/5

Overall: 4/5