Rock Band 4 brings the structure of a familiar music rhythm game from last gen onto new consoles, albeit leaving a few things behind.
Rock Band 4
Developer: Harmonix Music Systems
Price: $60 (PS4) $80 (XB1 w/adapter) $130 (new guitar bundle) $250 (band bundle)
Platform: PS4, XB1
MonsterVine was supplied with XB1 code for review.
If you have ever played a Rock Band game you already know what to expect from Rock Band 4. Guitar, bass, drums and a microphone can all be used in an effort to simulate what it’s like to play your favorite songs in a band made up of your friends. Harmonix crowd sourced opinions from the fans to bring over some of the most requested features to a new service on the XB1 and PS4 consoles. Firstly, the old wireless, plastic instruments will work. I played through the entirety of the game without issue using an old Guitar Hero Aerosmith controller I found in the garage.
The legacy adapter is a pain to use sometimes with the Xbox One, but things seem to have improved thanks to frequent Xbox dashboard updates. Once you get your instrument synced, things just work; the adapter will remember your instruments. If you have the PS4 version, your wireless instruments will just work without any adapters, because both PS3 and PS4 use Bluetooth.
While the having the legacy instruments working is great, Rock Band 4 is missing a lot of elements of previous titles. The band member creation tools are lacking a lot of customization options; no sliders, just prefabricated faces and body types. For me, the biggest gap between RB3 and RB4 is the lack of advance instrument support. In it’s current condition, RB4 cannot be used for learning how to play or practice a real instrument. The advance controllers (Ion drums, real and pro guitar) are currently incompatible. Harmonix also dropped support for their keyboard controller. This is a regression to the franchise and feels a lot less fleshed out from RB3. Hopefully Harmonix makes an effort to update Rock Band 4, bringing it up to the high standards that RB3 set back in 2010.
Gameplay is almost identical from previous Rock Band games. Players follow the colorful button prompts as they come down a highway at the right time, in parity to how they sound in the song selected. Songs use master track recordings so when a band member misses notes or mess up a portion of their song, that instruments audio becomes absent from the song. The actual playing of a song feels as good as it has since the first Rock Band, and Harmonix has included some great calibration options. Easy to use calibration options are present, allowing players to reduce the natural input lag introduced by modern entertainment equipment. One new mechanic added to the gameplay is a freestyle solo mode. Most songs have a portion when a single instrument plays extended notes that differ from the normal repetition of a song. Completing these solos in previous Rock Band games awarded players with bonus points depending on performance. In Rock Band 4 these are replaced with freestyle solos. Players strum the guitar in the correct rhythm and notes/chords are systematically produced to be in the same key and tone of the song. While this can be fun to just strum frantically and mash buttons randomly, the freestyle solos never sound as good as what was written for the song. Luckily Harmonix included the option to turn this feature off, and conversely they even included a mode where an entire song can be played in freestyle.
Rock Band 4 is an especially attractive proposition for those who purchased a lot of Rock Band song DLC over the years. Unfortunately bringing over that DLC you’ve previously purchased isn’t as simple as it sounds. On Xbox One I had to go individually through the store and find songs that were listed as “purchased” then select that track and download. This needs to be done for every single song. There was even a point when a song I knew I had purchased on 360 was listed in the main page for sale. It wasn’t until I attempted to buy the song did the system alert me that I already owned it and was able to download. Harmonix needs to work with Microsoft and Sony and come up with a quick way to redownload all previously purchased tracks. Going through the process once might be manageable, but being a party game means that it won’t always be played on a “home” console, and having to repeat the tedium at your friend’s place will surely sap the party’s energy.
Harmonix has restarted the DLC machine and is releasing more tracks to buy on a weekly basis. There is even plans in the works to bring over most “on disc” tracks from previous Rock Band games. This is great news because most of the tracks bundled with Rock Band 4 didn’t strike a chord with me. Specifically, out of the 65 bundled songs, less than a dozen caught my interest. Thankfully, the catalog of Rock Band songs will continue to grow.
The Final Word
Rock Band 4 is a feature-lacking iteration on Rock Band 3. While it has the potential to become great, it will take continuous update support from Harmonix to bring it back up to standard. The vast library of tracks available via DLC is incredible, especially so if you’ve already purchased a big chunk of songs you enjoy. If you’re on the fence about RB4, I recommend holding onto your money until more features are added. You might even want to check out that other instrument game if you need your itch scratched in the meantime.
-MonsterVine Rating: 3 out of 5 – Average
