| Platform | Nintendo Entertainment System |
| Genre | Rhythm |
| Players | 1-2 |
| Developer | Kent Hansen, Andreas Pedersen |
| Publisher | Public Domain |
| Released | 2010 |
| Playtime | 1-2 hours |
This review was originally published on my swedish personal blog.
Just in time for the swan song of the plastic instrument music genre comes the sequel to one of 2009's most talked-about homebrews, namely D-Pad Hero for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
D-Pad Hero and its sequel are, as their titles suggest, Guitar Hero clones that swap out plastic Fender and Explorer replicas for a good old NES controller as the input device. Which, admittedly, makes these games more like Beatmania clones with a GH-inspired graphical interface.
What makes D-Pad Hero 2 unique, aside from the 8-bit interpretations of classic songs, is that challenges and items have been added that make the game feel polished. Where bosses, items, bombs, and other "video game-y" elements might feel gimmicky in other rhythm games of plastic instrument nature, here they feel completely natural on the console that singlehandedly defined video games during the 80s and early 90s.
When starting the game, you unlock songs using a handful of credits, the number of which depends on the difficulty you choose. Each song represents a boss that, in true Mega Man fashion, is named after the song title or the band, e.g. Free Man after Queen's I Want To Break Free or Deth Man after Megadeth.
When the music starts, anyone who has ever squeezed a plastic, miniaturized Gibson SG will immediately feel at home. Colored balls float down from the top of the screen, and you burn them away by pressing the right button at the right time. But instead of five colors you only need to keep track of three and instead need to watch in which column the balls move towards. There are five columns representing the game's buttons: left/right on the directional pad, Select as well as the A and B buttons. Despite the lack of a strum button and whammy bar, this works surprisingly well and you'll be rocking out in no time.
Alongside the now-classic setup, other markers also appear, such as skulls that drain your life bar, POW blocks that clear all markers on screen, a clock that slows the speed down significantly, and a star that grants "invincibility" for certain buttons.
To earn credits in which you need to unlock new songs, you must complete various challenges such as reaching a certain score or hitting 100 orbs in a row, find and hit three upside-down skulls or spell out "D-PAD HERO" by hitting the green orbs. The boss character is defeated once you complete a certain number of challenges, after which you're rewarded with a piece of a controller puzzle jig.
Music, sound, design, and graphics are all top-tier and show incredible dedication and passion for both the music genre, the NES, and the marriage between the two. D-Pad Hero 2 is such a polished experience that you'd almost believe it carried an "Official Seal of Quality" on the cover. The thing is, there is no cover. Nor a manual or even a cartridge for the game. It's an entirely free game you can download and play via emulator, or preferably on original hardware using a flash cart and a genuine NES controller.
Throw away those lame plastic instruments and download without a doubt one of the world's best music games, right now!
Three fake skulls out of four.
