Quick Look: Disney Fantasia: Music Evolved

Jason, thanks for making this much easier to watch.

What are you talking about? What's not there? The melding of visual art and music? If it's 100% out of the picture from seeing this small portion of the game do you mind explaining what this game is supposed to be, but missed the mark?

It's a rhythm based music game developed under the Disney license (who own a large number of major entertainment brands across the industries), I don't think they're trying to be any more or less. It's obvious this game was in a way developed as a test to see how a licensed harmonix kinect game would fare. Disney because everyone loves Disney brands, Harmonix because they seem to be the only developers that have managed to strike gold when it came to a kinect only title, and kinect because of those two reasons combined.

I think you're trying too hard to make Fantasia seem to have like this incredibly important image amongst Disney licenses, when it really isn't that big of a deal anymore. So trying to make someone ashamed for actually doing something with what they have to work with, and coming as close to possible getting to the feeling of Fantasia. A movie that they're obviously fans of (why else do you think they would agree to develop an exclusive title?), I dunno, seems kinda petty.

Good job Jason, you are a funny man.

lisztomania refers to the guy you guys were talking about guys

In regards to Hungarian Rhapsody, I guess Jeff and Dan never watched Loony Tunes.

I thought the game looked pretty awesome. Sucks Jeff isn't into it.

Joe Dirt is a GREAT stupid movie. It's not a good movie, but it's a great dumb one.

I have no idea how Jeff knows Xuxa, but the reference made my day.

Going to miss these kinect quick looks.

Maybe if you had to make hand movements at the same tempo with more "notes" as the music this would be fun to play, otherwise this look like junk.

it looks like the Kinect is picking up on Jeff's jacket and thinks it's a background or something? i wonder if a different color or no jacket would have helped.

Way to throw an uneducated cheap shot at Walt Disney there Jeff....

O how I've missed Kinect Looks

Jason's control room magic is better than any Disney-related visuals showing up in the background. If Jeff and Dan showed up in sync with every song with the same level of flare that DJ Oestreicher is throwin down in the mix this game would be a "must buy" in my book

Most apt description for a video in awhile, also this looks booooooooooring.

I was playing Mordor with this going on the laptop. Every time I looked down and saw Dan, I thought of this:

I really don't know why they would show the tutorial of a game in any QL, with the possible exception of maybe a fighting game to show the basic mechanics. It's obviously going to be the most mundane aspect of any game. Now, I'm not suggesting that GiantBomb only show the most interesting parts as they aren't running advertising for the game, but it should be something representative of the final product. Looking back at that E3 2013 video, it looked way more interesting there. I wish they would have played a bit more of it before recording the QL to show off some of the improvisation stuff.

I YouTube'd the title after Jeff mentioned it. My immediate thought was "Oh shit, it's that song I thought was a Police song that I had missed when it played on the radio."

It looked like Jason had the most fun during this quick look :)

@cornbredx: There was more than one point to Fantasia. Yes, part of it was to push the idea of animated film as an art form but there were at least two other goals. The first was to create something that would teach children about classical music and the working of an orchestra. While this may not have a conductor explaining how music works in between each song, I have to imagine this is the only way a kid these days is going to listen to a classical piece of music from beginning to end. So in that second goal the game is a success.

The third goal was more technical in nature. Despite Jeff saying he saw the "original release", Fantasia actually came out in 1940. At the time theater speakers produced mono sounds from a single track which wasn't going to work for Fantasia because individual notes in each song were being used as sound effects. In essence, Fantasia pioneered the modern surround sound and stereo music setup and also pioneered many of the track layering features seen in audio mixes today. In fact, Fantasia won an Oscar for its pioneering development of audio in film, one of the only "unique" Oscars ever given out in the history of the awards.

While that third part isn't something that can ever be replicated exactly, I do think the use of Kinect to create real time remixes of songs is a fascinating technical achievement that while obviously nowhere near as great as the creation of stereo playback, at least in my mind shows a studio that had at least some reverence for the original film.

Since people keep replying to me (which is 100% A-Ok- although I wont respond to you I am reading it and was expecting it) I just want to make ya'll aware that it has been brought to my attention that there is more to this game that we unfortunately don't see in this quick look.

So, I probably over reacted a tad, and mostly it's just an awful tutorial which is basically all this quick look shows.

That's all I'll say about it, as I haven't and can't play it. I recommend people look around and not just accept my comments, or anyone else really, as facts. I am as prone to knee jerking as anyone and often suffer from "foot in my mouth" syndrome.

I do appreciate the replies, but just know not to take what I say to heart. =)

Jason or Drew, whoever was running, the Jeff and Dan overlay, deserves special recognition for their efforts. ESPECIALLY when it comes to making them fly away during Rocket Man.

I can see this maybe being used for like physical therapy. Kind of like a low intensity work out. I'm not interested in it though.

I'm not really a disney fan either, but mang Yen Sid is a dope wizard name. It really is.

And I'm sure 500 people have said it by now, but that 'night on bald mountain' tune is sampled at the start of beastie boys 'Intergalactic planetary'. The film clip at least.

Oh cool, I'm glad Jeff addressed at the top of the video that they know guys at Harmonix.

You know, because #ethics.

This does not look like something I would pay money for.

That narrator guy is doing his best Stephen Fry impression, shame it's a dreadful one though.

@hippie_genocide said:

I think Jeff playing and finishing what he thought was the tutorial and then bringing the game in for the Quick Look only to find an hour more of tutorial is representative of the final product. Should they have finished recording this and said "That was a boring hour-long video, let's make a more interesting one that's twenty minutes long now"?

I went to Twitch to see what the game is like at higher difficulties, but nobody's streaming it right now and all of the archives are muted because it's a music game. Good job, Twitch!

@eccentrix: Yeah, how dare they protect themselves from potential lawsuits.

@likeassur: I protect myself from theft, but I don't do it by smashing up all my stuff.

Man, look at that fancy editing.

Game looks great, which I've said about 0 rhythm games I've ever seen in action.

Edit: Wait a second...

You create music, and your job is to fight "Noise".

...Symphogear?

Great job Jason.

The Noid???

HAHAHAHA

@mooseymcman: You might want to check out the Theaterhythm Final Fantasy games. They might scratch that Elite Beat Agents itch for you. This recommendation assumes you do not hate all Final Fantasy music with a passion though.

AVOID IT!

This looks like some hot garbage

Now I see why John Drake got the fuck out of there.. OUCH!

I wonder why they had to block out Jeff's t-shirt with the Nike logo on it?

@wallee321: That's how it's printed on the shirt.

I love Jeff, but he's the type of person I hate playing Kinect games with. Plant your feet, do the absolute bare minimum of movements... It's so boring. Be a little flamboyant. Have a little fun. Emote. Move.

The noise? Is she talking about that Taylor Swift "song" that topped the iTunes chart?

"No foot stuff, ever."

Man, Disney: Fantasia has more in common with my ex than I expected.

My mind almost broke when Jeff name-dropped Xuxa at the 30' mark. I'm sure he knows of her for different reasons... *cough cough*, but here's some OG Xuxa:

@eccentrix: Bad example. The music in Fantasia is not owned by Twitch, so they may or may not be legally allowed to host it. That's the end of it. Like Jeff said a long time ago, if you want to do things your own way, host your own video sharing website. Otherwise, it's their rules.

@likeassur: Bad argument. None of the music in any game is owned by Twitch, so they should just mute everything. According to them, nobody watches the archived versions of streams, anyway. Plus, if they didn't allow any audio at all, they'd be covered for live streams, too. Win-win.

I understand that this game is basically made for kids and hardcore Disney fans, but Jesus they just evolved music into a tutorial. It seems like it would have been better served to move all the tutorial steps into the first couple songs and then just called the rest a story mode instead of turning it into a giant story tutorial meatloaf

I loved Jason's flourishing with the overlay in-time with Bohemian Rhapsody.