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Given how near the Switch launch is and how Nintendo is talking about paid online, I decided now would be a good time to pick up a few Wii downloadables I've been meaning to pick up. I got MUSHA (which is great), Super Air Zonk (which isn't bad) and Muscle March (which... well...)

To anyone unfamiliar with the game, Muscle March is a download-only title for the Wii from Namco in which the player makes gestures to correspond with a hole in the wall that their character can fit through. You hold a nunchuk and Wii remote and put either hand up or down, depending on the shape of the hole. You do this enough times without failing and you beat the stage. And that's really it.

But no, of course that's not really it, because the presentation is half the reason to play this game. It's got a very Katamari Damacy-esque esthetic and soundtrack, and is basically one giant visual gag. It's colourful and there's a lot going on, but if the idea of watching a mostly naked muscle-bound man running after another muscle-bound man doesn't strike you as funny, this is not your game. That's because this is one of the shallowest experiences on a system known for shallow experiences. There is absolutely no strategy, no meta game, no progression, no anything. You just make the shape, if the controls let you, and then waggle once you finally get to the target. There's the single player mode, which has three levels that are all functionally the same, just with different themes, and an endless mode (which sadly lacks visual humour). The characters also are somewhat lacking in variety, which is understandable given the theme, but this doesn't matter much because if you have any taste you're going to pick the polar bear every time anyway.

The critical flaw with this game is the difficulty curve. When playing the single-player mode, each of the three levels is split into three sub-levels. The first two are very, very easy and the third is ball-bustingly hard. You can beat each level in just a few minutes, which makes it great for quick playthroughs or some party gaming with friends, except beating the last sub-level is a very tall task. This is because the game design is often self-defeating -- if you blow one of the shapes, you knock this big part out of the wall, which can sometimes obstruct your view of the next hole. You also have to flail your armsonce you're near your target, and you get pretty tired of that quickly, so who wants to keep doing that until you win?

I had been meaning to get around to playing Muscle March pretty much since it came out and now that I have it, it's pretty apparent why I kept passing on it. It's just $5 and if you're having friends over and you're a big fan of Katamari Damacy, or you're nostalgic for the motion-centric glory days of the Wii, I'd say it's worth a shot. Me, I wish Namco fed the game a little of that creatine to beef it up.

I have incredibly fond memories of this game.

I would love a sequel.

Muscle March was great 10/10 would march again.

Fun game to play with others.

I'll admit, the extent of my exposure to the game is whatever zany previews and trailers made the rounds back when it was first released, and then the soundtrack given that every single song in the game made its way into Taiko no Tatsujin (though they were all remade versions for some reason?).

Using the Katamari games as a point of reference pretty much lines up with what I've seen from the game. For me, Katamari is very much an audiovisual showpiece in which the majority of the appeal comes from visual gags and great new music. I recognize the gameplay certainly has its appeal as well, and I don't mean to say I don't enjoy it, but the aesthetics are a huge deal to me and the main factor that drives me to play new games in the series. Muscle March seems to offer a similar proposition, only with a much less solid base and a much, much smaller package overall.

Still, the soundtrack is nice and done by resident Katamari composers, so it's worth a listen if you haven't heard it before imo.

The Bankslammer said:

I'll admit, the extent of my exposure to the game is whatever zany previews and trailers made the rounds back when it was first released, and then the soundtrack given that every single song in the game made its way into Taiko no Tatsujin (though they were all remade versions for some reason?).

Using the Katamari games as a point of reference pretty much lines up with what I've seen from the game. For me, Katamari is very much an audiovisual showpiece in which the majority of the appeal comes from visual gags and great new music. I recognize the gameplay certainly has its appeal as well, and I don't mean to say I don't enjoy it, but the aesthetics are a huge deal to me and the main factor that drives me to play new games in the series. Muscle March seems to offer a similar proposition, only with a much less solid base and a much, much smaller package overall.

Still, the soundtrack is nice and done by resident Katamari composers, so it's worth a listen if you haven't heard it before imo.

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The big difference is Katamari Damacy has some deep mechanics and a lot of built-in replayability. For something that looks and sounds so similar, it falls way short of that series in terms of gameplay.

jholmes said:

The big difference is Katamari Damacy has some deep mechanics and a lot of built-in replayability. For something that looks and sounds so similar, it falls way short of that series in terms of gameplay.

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The scope, and therefore the price, were markedly lower than Katmari Damacy's, however, so I would say expectations should be ratcheted to a different level. To be fair, it's a throwaway curiosity for the proper price -- Muscle March is the McDonald's Quarter Pounder compared to a high-quality steak.