This review was written by PN contributor, D. Crowley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BywS1A6MeNg
I personally really enjoy playing the piano. So a title like Piano Teacher initially sounded pretty appealing – Piano on the Wii U! However, I was a bit disappointed with what it had to offer. But don’t completely write it off yet; it still can provide a measure of fun. It just depends on what you’re looking for.
Piano Teacher is another educational release by Skunk Software. It contains 20 different songs for players to learn. The sad part is, that is all it contains. Admittedly, it may take a while to be fully completed – it all depends on your skill level. If you’re someone like me who’s got the basics down and plays quite often, you’ll probably completely beat the title in around an hour. But if you’re someone who has never touched a piano in your life, this will last for a while.
To play Piano Teacher, you basically just have to hit the red key, then wait until the next key turns red, and hit that one. This is all done on a virtual piano displayed on the Gamepad. By following the red keys, you’ll play out the song. The songs range from basics like Mary Had A Little Lamb, to harder ones like Fur Elise. One minor complaint I have is that you must finish the song you’re on before going to the next one. I think that being able to pick any song from the beginning would have been nice, especially because not everyone is going to necessarily like every song.
There are some more complaints I have with Piano Teacher. One would be the lack of a practice mode, where you can just practice piano without having to follow the red keys. Also, some of the sound effects are a bit abrupt and loud; tapping the back button sounds like someone jumping on a piano! It honestly scared me a bit the first time I tapped it! Another minor complaint is that the game boots you back to the title screen after each song. It would’ve been more convenient to just go back to the song select screen.
When all’s said and done, Piano Teacher is a title for beginners who just want to learn a few songs. For anybody else, though, it’s just too light on content. The fact that Piano Teacher’s song select screen is labeled ‘Learn Mode’ makes me wonder if more content was originally intended. Perhaps Skunk Software will add some free DLC containing more songs, or a practice piano mode. But as it stands now, It’s hard for me to recommend this game. Pricewise, the game launched at $39.99(!), but now has been lowered to a much more reasonable $2.99. But even at $2.99 it’s hard to recommend a game that has content on par with, or even less than, a free app. Get it only if you must have a piano game on the Wii U, or if you’re okay with the light content.
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