Daigasso! Band Brothers P is the newest entry in the rhythm music series from Nintendo. The previous entry, Band Brothers DX, was universally loved by players for several reasons. You had an instant library of songs available to you from the start and you could download 100 additional songs from the internet, which were all saved to the game card. These songs could be played alone and also with up to eight players for gigantic download or local play jam sessions. For the creative types, you could even create your own songs with some very in-depth tools. How do you improve on such a strong title which had support for roughly over five years? You use the Nintendo 3DS and give the game the additional legs it rightfully deserves.

The game starts on the right note as you snap a picture of your face and record your voice for a few brief moments. You are made into a Vocaloid caricature of yourself. This figure will represent you for the remainder of this crazy ride. This is absolutely hilarious in its own right, but it also serves a purpose as this caricature will be our gateway to the rest of the game. Did I mention that you will also be wearing some crazy outfit? Luckily, you can change it if you so desire and cover up your face with even more fun stuff.

Band Brothers P is very keen on teaching you the ropes of the title and does this with a good, but short tutorial. For this, you will be heading off to the Shiroatway Muz-Muz Square and it is here where you see that the game doesn't pull any punches. Every section of the game is introduced with a fun video which tells you what the location is all about. Surprisingly enough, it features English subtitles so you can read along very easily. Once you arrive at the Square, you get dropped directly into a featured song called Starlight. You get introduced to the controls for beginners, where you have to press and hold a record button on the touchscreen. With this record button at your side, you are tasked with going left and right to catch every note that comes down from the top. This is friendlier than it was before where you were restricted to buttons which could be unforgivingly punishing on any difficulty. The touch controls feel great and although they can be challenging sometimes, they are mostly relaxing.

Does that mean that button play is completely gone? No, of course not. Now you can only find it under the harder difficulties. This is done for a good reason as the combinations you will be doing with the D-Pad and face buttons will put your skills to the test. The slider is not the only touchscreen element they have introduced. There is one where you strum a guitar and you will also be playing on the drums where you have to push eight or four different buttons on the lower screen. Both are quite challenging to master, but when you get the basics down, they are really satisfying to toy around with.

While it is nice to have some great control options, a game lives and dies by the amount of content that is on display. I have to be straightforward and honest here and say that if you are not regularly connected to the internet, you will run in to some issues. The game only starts out with a few songs and if you want more, you will have to download them from the internet. Downloading them is also not so straightforward as you will need special tomatoes to download them. For this, you need to go to the options and activate the Nintendo eShop overlay. If you are sad that it seems that you need to pay again upfront, don't worry. The game gives you 100 tomatoes for free and this allows you to download any song you want. Later on, you might have to buy more tomatoes,as you are allowed to save up to 3,000 songs on your SD card. This whole tomato system is a bit confusing at first, but you will get used to it.

The game has four modes to offer and each have their specific functions. We talked about the Shiroatway Muz-Muz Square before, but after the tutorial, this becomes your hub to play songs on your own. You can try your luck at specific instruments and try to constantly finish with a higher score. Bandyal Park is at the other side of the spectrum and here you will play songs with others locally or over an internet connection. You can play with up to nine others and the online functionalities are extremely well put together. with no instances of lag. Nintendo doesn't do many online titles, but this shows that they can get it right.

Another example of this can be found in the Kyockefeller Center, where you will discover new songs online. There is already a great bunch of songs on there and new ones are added every day. The Center is also where you can go to create songs. This can be done in two ways. You can create them on your own or team up with three others locally or online. The tools available are just as strong as before, but you now get a better overview of them and they are more approachable, thanks to the upgraded touchscreen integration.

Finally, there are radio stations where you can listen to the latest hits on various charts. There are lists for J-Pop, classic music, rock and the most downloaded songs from the Kyockefeller service. The radio stations will always be active when you are not playing and if you hear a song that you like, you can click on a button and it will take you directly to a page to download it straight to the SD Card. Sadly, you can't listen to the radio when you close the system, even if you have headphones in. It is a missed chance, but it is great that the functionality is there regardless.

Daigasso! Band Brothers P is a pretty wild music game, but one that offers quite a lot of variety. While you do need to be connected for some of the features, it does it for all the right reasons. You can download the songs you want and easily play online with up to ten people. Obtaining tomatoes for the songs can be a bit tricky at the start, but you get used to it over time. The radio stations are also a neat touch, but it is a bit weird that you can't close the system and enjoy it with some headphones. The gameplay is where it all counts and it all shines. Band Brothers P is a fine game and one of the best rhythm games released in a while.