Fight For The Top 50 2014 – Fantasia: Music Evolved

It’s no secret that Microsoft’s Kinect failed to find the audience it was looking for. Despite two iterations, neither developers nor players ever seemed to completely connect with the motion-based peripheral. Earlier this year, Microsoft effectively abandoned the Kinect by releasing an Xbox One that didn’t include the motion camera, ensuring that the few developers who might otherwise try and use it will now be much less likely to do so. However, even after Microsoft’s abandonment, there was still one big Kinect-exclusive yet to release, and it’s from the same company that capitalized on Kinect’s potential in Dance Central. Harmonix’s Fantasia: Music Evolved is a breath of fresh air and innovation in the gaming world, and it deserves a home in Game Informer’s yearly accolades.

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Fantasia is an odd experience. It is inspired by a classic Disney movie that has always felt a little off-kilter, and follows through in that tradition with a game that is unlike anything else on the market. As a new apprentice to the imposing but friendly sorcerer named Yensid, you must learn the magic of music as it exists throughout the cosmos. Through a combination of song performances/remixes, and the explorations of fantastical realms of sound and art, you bring creativity and life back to a world overcome by noise and confusion. 

Right off the bat, the game is endearing with its simple themes and childlike, but high-quality storytelling. The Fantasia game speaks to the nature of distractions and clutter that are a daily part of modern life, and the way that creative work can pull us back from the brink. The beautiful incidental music and well-produced voice work for fellow apprentice, Scout, help to communicate a narrative as you progress through the realms, and give order to a progression system that would otherwise feel haphazard.

The motion-focused song performance is undoubtedly the real joy of Fantasia, allowing players to inhabit an entertaining middle ground between magician and orchestral conductor. The motions may make you look a little crazy, but the actual sensation of performance is impressive, and the motions themselves are often perfectly evocative of the songs at hand. 

Fantasia embraces the broad nature of music, both with its song selections, and the remixes that further expand the way any one song is perceived. Pop songs become dance hits, symphonic classics become 8-bit chiptunes, and rock standards take a turn into jazz or electronica. The music mixes meld in fascinating ways. Sometimes it’s beautiful, and sometimes it’s raucous and weird, but it always leaves me smiling at the end of a song.

In between performances, the realms of Fantasia are a joy to explore, filled with colorful art, simple mini-games, and a genuine sense of discovery. I found myself eager to enter a new realm, not just for the songs I would find there, but also for the strange creatures that might hide behind a tree, or the creative ways in which I would be able to shape that world’s soundscape. 

As I mentioned in my review, Fantasia doesn’t always excel at basic game progression and scoring systems, but that’s because the game isn’t really about those things. Instead, I loved Fantasia for the sense of creative freedom and musical exploration it provides. I realize that a Kinect game is a hard sell, especially to players who have become jaded about the absence of meaningful experiences on the motion-camera device. But Fantasia is a rare exception, and an engaging and rewarding game, true to both the traditions of the film franchise and Harmonix’s expert music game legacy. It’s a worthy entry in Microsoft’s list of exclusives, and I hope more people discover its charms in the months after launch.