When I initially heard the game described to me, I was picturing something that combined Elite Beat Agents, Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, and Kirby: Canvas Curse. To my surprise, Maestro isn't all the far off from these highly regarded titles and it still managed to be an experience that felt brand new. To get a better idea of just how this game works in practice just take a look at this trailer I snagged from YouTube...

The game packs 25 songs that range in style, but mostly fit under the classical heading. However, instead of being the same old, boring tunes you've heard thousands of times before, Maestro updates each tune with new instrument arrangements. My favorite track of game had to the Ravi Shankar inspired take on Madness' "Our House" with the vocals replaced with a chorus of sitars. Some nitpicky audiophiles might whine about the fact that the soundtrack uses MIDI arrangements, but the sound quality featured here was great to this reviewer.

The game's cheery soundtrack is heightened by some great looking artwork. Maestro, Staccato, and all the creatures you meet along the way are rendered with bright colors and animations that are full of character and life. With art direction that I would describe as a modern take on the mascot platformers of the 16-bit era, the title does a fantastic job mixing 2D sprite work with refined 3D elements. With only one other title under their belt (a scary looking game called Baby Life); the sophisticated visuals displayed here are to compete with and even exceed some of the DS' biggest heavy hitters.

Just like any other music game released this millennia Maestro gives players three difficulty options: easy, medium, and hard. Easy seems designed to teach the player how to play the game with abbreviated songs and more lenient scoring, but those looking for a challenge will find it here. It's not as difficult as most challenging parts of Elite Beat Agents, it will still require a lot of practice clear those levels with elusive A-star ratings at the hardest settings.

My time with Maestro was absolutely delightful, but upon completing the title I was saddened by the fact that this will likely never get a North American release despite already being localized for English, Spanish, and French speaking audiences. It may not have a huge toy/tv show brand behind it, but I would like to think that there is still room on our local retailer's DS shelf for new games that offer engaging gameplay and fun character design. Any fan of music games on handhelds should be used to importing games at this point, but unlike other imported genre staples like DJ Max Pro, Maestro isn't a port of a larger experience and couldn't be executed on any other platform. This is the type of DS game that we need to see more of.

9 out of 10