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BLueSS
March 10, 2011, 12:56:37 AM - ORIGINAL POST -

ReRave is a new music rhythm game brought to you by the same people who worked on In The Groove.

Platform: iOS (iPhone and iPad), with other platforms in the works.
Basic Gameplay: Tap the notes on the screen when it matches the music.
Price: Not Released
Release Date: Submitted to Apple for Approval, so whenever Apple gets around to it (March 10th or shortly thereafter).

Open Disclaimer: I received no gifts or compensation for this review, nor for the banners on the site.

Note: This review is based on the Beta versions of the game, and I have talked with the ReRave team about issues that have changed for the final game. I am ignoring all bugs and issues from the beta versions to give you a review about the game elements, and not about the technical issues of the betas.

Overview
It's a music rhythm game. If you're on this site, you've probably played one before. ReRave's basic idea is simple: hit the notes when the "clock strikes 12".

ReRave Gameplay - Paranormal


Gameplay
This is the most important part of any rhythm music game.

ReRave already has competition from other music games on the iPad:
Tap Tap Revenge/Radiation has a lot of songs, but BORING 3 note gameplay.
Jubeat (Japanese iTunes Store) is a solid port of Konami's arcade version.
Taiko no Tatsujin (Japanese iTunes Store) is another solid port of Konami's arcade version, but lacks the arcade feel of holding sticks to beat a huge drum with. (There are sausage-like sticks for iPad, but they're lame)

Every music game on the iPad has stuck to a similar element: static placements for Note Placement.
Jubeat has 16 grid-oriented places notes can appear. Tap Tap has 3. Guitar Hero/Rock Band Mobile versions have 5 notes. ReRave places notes anywhere on the screen.

This has a few pros and cons:
+ A lot more note placement options
+ Wider screen area for notes
+ More possibilities for new patterns / note placement combinations
O Repeated Patterns are less apparent / in shorter supply. In the other games, note patterns would repeat with matching parts of the song (same exact patterns in the chorus for example). ReRave mixes it up by seeming to have a motto of "always mix it up"; which is either good or bad depending on how you like it.
- You don't know where the notes will be, so it's harder to expect them on the first few tries on harder difficulties
- Notes can overlap if they're in proximity to one another, making it difficult to read (see video above)

In addition to the Note Placement, you also have various Note Types:
Jubeat has 1 note type: Tap
Tap Tap really has 2 main note types: Tap, Hold
ReRave already has 4 main note types: Tap, Multi-Tap, Hold, Follow

Tap is your basic "hit at 12 o'clock" note.
Multi-Tap is when there are several clock hands to hit on your note in a row.
Holds are clocks you keep pressing on the screen.
Follows are Holds that move.

Scoring also takes a newer twist, as there are several elements that determine your score: the two being Timing and Accuracy. Accuracy is new to touch music games, and this measures how close to the center of the note you hit. Other games have a "hit zone" where it doesn't matter really where you hit. This gives players an additional challenge that the other games lack.

The game also features online leader boards to compare your scores against the rest of the world.

Songs
The 2nd most important part of any music game is of course the music you get for your game!
ReRave has a good song list, but it has a bit of catching up to do against the other music games.
Taiko and Jubeat has existing libraries of songs and notecharts to port to the portable versions. Granted, most of those are not new for the iPad version.
Tap Tap Revenge by far has the most well known / popular song licenses of any of the music games. They have versions of their apps dedicated to today's pop artists; and why people play those games I'll never know. 3 notes does not make for a fun game.

Inspired by Kyle Ward's music once again, this game branches out by going after some popular dance tunes. The most popular artist in the game so far is Dan Balan (Crazy Loop) with 2 songs.

Now this isn't to say that you have to have pop music to have a good game; because that's far from the truth. ReRave has a good selection of fun songs from a nice mix of genres, and with downloadable packs, there will be a lot more than what I had in the beta.

Few Expert Chart Reviews
Most Fun: Sweet World - the chart is laid out very well, elements repeat to give the chart a good theme, and tricky timing keeps you alert. "Land of the Lost" is also fun
Challenging: Paranormal is a good, fast paced challenge; although this difficulty is TAME compared to brutal charts Jubeat can kick out. The chart for "Something Freaky" is also hard, but mostly for the fact that all the notes are overlapping and it's just hard to read right now.
Disappointing: Crazy Loop (Ma Ma Ma)'s expert chart does not have enough loops. Yes, I'm complaining about this. Smiley  When it does use follows, it has them in odd zig-zag patterns that don't make much sense, and you won't see many of those zig-zags repeated twice.

Overview
ReRave is a new entry for touch gamers on their personal mobile devices.
New innovations in gameplay and game styles will give music gamers a fun time that they won't find in other games. Song selection does not feature as many hits as the other big games, but it doesn't need it. Some note charts are good, while a few are just bad but I'm sure as the game matures the charts will only get more refined and mature.
Innovations such as accuracy and nice score leader boards (with customizable profile) make it personal.

Recommended? - Yes (Assuming reasonable prices)
The guys that make this are music gamers, and they made this because this is what they'd want to play. Some of the note charts do not have repeating note placement that is common to other music games (to my disappointment) but it's still a recommended pick-up for music game fans.

Feel free to ask any Q's! Smiley

« Last Edit: March 10, 2011, 09:12:12 AM by BLueSS »
 
Davyn
Read March 10, 2011, 04:45:36 AM #1

Do you know how pricing is going to work?

Also, there are a lot of other music games to compete with. Rock Band Reloaded, DDR, and Tap Sonic are a few. These all have big songlists and apart from DDR very frequent updates (Tap Sonic gets a new song every four days on average).

I guess a good payment system, frequent updates, a large facebook presence and leaderboards will help it from being sucked into the abyss of forgotten music game apps. Having more well-known music always helps get new people interested (at this point the songlist would only appeal to ITG people or european techno fans, or something). Then again they might get featured on the app store homepage and get a ton of purchases from that.
 
BLueSS
Read March 10, 2011, 09:02:33 AM #2

I do not know what the prices will be.
If it's a similar pricing system to Jubeat and Taiko, then my recommendation stands.
They may have changed it a bit, but there will be a base set of songs that come with the game and then you will download additional song packs like in Jubeat or Taiko.

DDR isn't really made for the iPad and it plays odd on the huge screen. I tried Tap Sonic but there was only so many free songs before having to start paying for more with a Korean iTunes account (Unless I'm doing it wrong?). I wanted to play Tap Sonic more but their "pay per play" system turned me off and I was stuck with a set of 6 songs. (Davyn, if you have tips for how I can better get Tap Sonic working, send them over!)

I briefly looked at Rock Band Reloaded, and it looked the same as the home versions except you tap for the 5 rows and the starting song list was really crappy.

- The Payment system is in-app so it must(?) use iTunes payment.
- They have said they plan to update frequently with new songs, so I'm hoping for that to be true.
- Why is Facebook presence needed? Do any of the other games have good FB presence?
- The leaderboards are better than other Music games that simply have a "top score" for the song. Game Center is integrated as well.
- and yes, the less famous song list will be harder to get casual people in at the start, but we'll see if they can overcome that or not.
 
Davyn
Read March 10, 2011, 09:45:35 PM #3

FB/twitter (or any social media) is one of the easiest ways to gain support for an app. You can keep people notified of app updates, song additions, take polls for what songs they want next, ask them directly what features they want, etc. It kind of just goes hand in hand with apps nowadays. Tap Sonic uses FB like this and I believe the jubeat staff are really active on twitter.

It's fairly easy to add in FB integration to game apps, so you can, say, publish your accomplishments directly to your feed. Technika is going to do this in arcade soon too.
 
BLueSS
Read March 10, 2011, 10:11:01 PM #4

ReRave does have Twitter and Facebook integration to post your scores and accomplishments to your feed.  With those and the social score ladders, and the already active Facebook Page, it seems similar to what Tap Sonic is currently doing.
 
BLueSS
Read March 17, 2011, 07:57:35 PM #5

ReRave is in the App Store now.

$2 purchase.

How many songs do you get for $2?
 
Davyn
Read March 18, 2011, 03:52:36 PM #6

3
 
 
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