I’ve thought for a long time that Wii Music is a platformer in disguise – (see this post for example http://kotaku.com/comment/8784899/), which makes it interesting in different ways from other music/rhythm games.
Even more so now that NSMBWii is out. In particular, we get the same sort of fun from multiplayer in the two games – that joyful mixture of helping or hindering each other through a familiar-feeling landscape.
It isn’t an exact match of course, especially as one is done in graphics and the other in sound. But the overall feel is very close indeed.
I can’t help but feel that the biggest problem with Wii Music was not so much the user-generated content aspect – as I don’t see that the content is any more user-generated than are the NSMBWii level designs – but the fact that Wii Music does not have a good and accessible single-player mode. Anything you try to do in single-player is either in the company of computer-generated dolts, or you have to painstakingly construct through several runs.
It is as if in Mario, you were obliged to play with computer toads/Luigi to complete any level. It just wouldn’t work.
That aside, they seem to me to be pretty much the same game – or at least very closely related.
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