A quirky platformer on the PSN with a unique control scheme that hits more than it misses.
Fret Nice is a new quirky platformer released on PSN last week, starring two rockers tasked with battling it out against a foe that's apparently not a huge fan of their particular brand of music. The story to Fret Nice doesn't matter nearly as much as the way the game plays, and the inclusion of a control option that supports Guitar controllers makes for a pretty unique experience.
When I first started to play Fret Nice, I went with the basic controller option, I had to wait a few days to get my hands on a Guitar controller from a local friend, so I had a bit of time to test out both options. With a standard controller the game loses a little bit of it's charm, but at the same time it's far easier to control basic movements, like moving left and right, along with jumping. Any platforming fan will know that those basics are pretty much the meat and potatoes of platforming, and to a certain extent Fret Nice gets that right. However, when you introduce the Guitar controller, well, it falls apart a little bit.
With a Guitar strapped in, you control your left and right movements via the yellow and green notes, and you'll perform your jumps by tilting the controller. I've never had a particular amount of luck or skill in pulling off star power in a Guitar Hero game every time I wanted it, and the same can be said of jumping in Fret Nice with the Guitar controller. It's not particularly precise, and while the game doesn't punish you with a lot of bottomless pits, it's still incredibly annoying for gaining a few of the elusive medals, especially if you're trying to beat the speed run scores posted for each stage. Moving left or right is likewise a little awkward, but at least that's something I found myself adapting to over time.
Where the Guitar set-up really shines though, is in the way you'll attack the little smoke cloud enemies you encounter. These guys really remind me of the bad guys from the LocoRoco games in their appearance, but here they don't end up being much of a threat unless they come at you in large groups. Each enemy has distinct facial features, whether that's multiple eyes, horns or so on. Each of these features corresponds to a note or chord on your guitar, and you'll want to propel your character into the air, and then knock out those notes to match up with the facial features on the enemy. This defeats the enemy, and if you're skilled enough, you can chain multiple enemies together in one big leap, adding to your score multiplier over time. It's a pretty unique way of taking out foes, and it's the one thing that the Guitar set-up does far better than a controller (even though the controller is fine for this).
Outside of that, there's little need for the sometimes-obtuse control set-up. I'm not entirely sure I could come up with a better solution for movement via the Guitar though, unless the game auto-scrolled your movement, so it's just an obstacle you'll have to get over if you insist on using that particular control scheme. The game is perfectly fine with a standard controller, but like I mentioned, it loses a bit of its identity without the Guitar too.
Still, I'd say Fret Nice is far from a standard platforming experience. There are not a great number of stages to overcome, but there's a lot of challenge packed into each stage. The game works on a medal system, and to unlock each successive stage you need to obtain a certain number of medals beforehand. Each stage has different goals, like beating a stage within a certain time frame, gaining a high number of points, or eliminating the majority of the enemies on each stage. It's nearly impossible to achieve each goal in one go, so you'll need to play the stages multiple times in order to completely clear them. There are also a fair number of hidden secrets to uncover, and then there are additional bonus stages that come after the regular stages too, which helps to prolong the overall experience in Fret Nice. The stage design is pretty well done, there's enough challenge to keep things interesting, but nothing feels unfair or out of place. There are even a few head-scratching segments if you're going for all the medals, which will make the platforming veterans pretty happy.
Overall, Fret Nice is absolutely worth checking out, Guitar in hand or no, and something PS3 owners should seriously consider picking up. It's a unique little platformer that's pretty much perfect for the service, and while it's ideal control scheme might have a few flaws to it, the overall enjoyment I gained from playing it definitely outweighed the bad. If you've been looking for a new 2D style platformer to pass the time with, then don't miss out on Fret Nice, it definitely fits the bill.
