Disaster Band Review (PS5) – Vivaldi Would Never
Ah, the violin. Such a delicate, intricate, beautiful instrument. Capable of the utmost relaxation, the highest grade of emotion, the ultimate in orchestral intensity. At least it would be, provided it was kept out of my hands at any and all cost. There’s a reason I failed to get past four basic notes when I tried to learn guitar. Disaster Band proves exactly why I was justified in never pursuing a musical career.
Despite stamping the seal of rejection on any and all harmonical illusions I may have had, Disaster Band is a delightfully hilarious party game. Got up to four friends you want to butcher Ride of the Valkyries with? Look no further. Desperate to spoil a family occasion by having a cat, trombone, flute and orchestral band blare out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? This is the game.
What it lacks in content and longevity it somewhat makes up for in short-term laughs and and slapstick presentation. Realistically, what more could you ask for? Drum up your best brass band and disconnect the microphones, it’s time to ruin some classical music.
Moz-fart’s Finest
Disaster Band is a straightforward rhythm game, with a small selection of some of the most famous classical tunes handpicked from human history. Pick a song, select your instrument and off you go. During any given song, you’ll match the pitch of the notes (e.g move up or down) and then hit X or R2 (on PS5) to match the length of the note itself.
Easy peasy, right? Sure. About as easy as mastering the trumpet with nothing but your little finger and a VHS tutorial… for a harmonica. Faster paced songs with spring all manner of wild sequences at you. Pitch in particular is a tough melodious beast to tame. There are four settings to pick from, two of which effectively auto-manage pitch, and the other two require inputs from either moving your controller, or the analog stick.
I stuck with the “wobbly controller” choice. There’s something amusing about four separate people flinging their £50 controllers up-and-down furiously to Silent Night that’s just so appealing. Aside from pitch and input however, the gameplay is minimal. Unlike other rhythm games, Disaster Band doesn’t feature any modifiers, trick notes or variety to the basic inputs.
It makes the rhythm mechanics themselves fairly basic and straightforward. Not easy, definitely not easy, but rather repetitive, rather quickly. The 30 minutes or so is a good laugh as you chuckle at each fart noise erupting from missed notes. Seriously, when me, Josh and Kat played, it might as well have been the day after an egg and beans appreciation convention. Immaturity rules, folks.
Vincent Van Gogh-awful
I also had a couple of problems with the calibration of the DualSense controller. Often as songs progress, the sync would fall out of place and having to hammer triangle to constantly reset it isn’t ideal. I probably looked similar to how I would as an actual conductor in front of a live audience. All limbs and flailing with very little finesse, or success.
However, find your groove and Disaster Band will start throwing out “exquisite” and “delicious” to describe your stunningly ear-drum bursting melodies. Even when playing “well”, these stick figures still sound like a dulcet disaster. You’ll be scored for every performance, but I found it ultimately doesn’t amount to much. There’s no leaderboards, so it’s only tracked for yourself. A fart count probably would been funnier, in earnest.
Then there’s the selection of tracks. There’s roughly 20 songs and 15 instruments to try your hand at. Most are between 1-2 minutes to ruin forever, meaning I got through them all within about 30-45 minutes. To its credit, Disaster Band has a mod system where you can download community tracks super quickly, and getting the Imperial March played on a cello is… a heralding event, shall we say.
As of right now however, the mod songs available don’t do a whole lot to bolster the roster. Coupled with the simplistic gameplay, Disaster Band runs out of steam before it even reaches the main crescendo. Like taking a punt at the trumpet only to run out of breath mid-blow. I’m sure there’s an innuendo in there, but I certainly wouldn’t acknowledge it.
I’ll (maybe) Be Bach
Disaster Band isn’t an expensive title and that’s reflective in what you’re getting in return. It’s a crackers-at-Christmas kind of game, fun for an immature laugh at the bad joke and the colourful silliness of the hat, but it doesn’t compare to the main event. It’s a bit like if I snuck into a Hans Zimmer’s orchestra and played the triangle. I’d fit in, in the sense that everything better would cover for me.
As such, I wouldn’t encourage thinking of Disaster Band as a rhythm game competitor. It isn’t. Instead, it’s the laid back, goofy off-shoot of the genre. It’ll provide an ample laugh amongst friends and family, and there’s something to be said for that. Games are made to entertain, and Disaster Band entertained us for an hour or two.
Everything from the presentation (stick-people and pencil-and-paper style), gameplay systems and repertoire reflect that this is a simpler, smaller rhythm experience. It won’t stick in the mind for an especially long time, but just like a decent fart joke, it’ll hold a belly chuckle note for a drunken evening with friends.
Lacking the intensity of a full orchestra, Disaster Band delivers an altogether brief and mildly entertaining rhythm game. Slapstick presentation, horrifically amusing instruments and ample fart noise for failure will provide a good laugh with friends or family, but there’s little to keep this musical party jamming for a very long.
Disaster Band is available now on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 (review platform), Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.
Developer: Produktivkeller Studios
Publisher: SunDust
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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