Every so often a game comes along that manages to blur the boundaries of two genres. Jet Car Stunts did this with platformers and racing, and Maestro Green Groove is an exceptional combination of music and platforming. The two genres work very well together and are successful in both the DS game and in its new iPhone derivative.

The game is set deep in the jungle where musical birds run along ropes, creating tunes as they go. You control a pink bird by strumming the ropes in time with the music. Depending on whether you strum up or down, the bird will either jump into the air, or fall down below; with your main intention to keep the bird on the ropes. To help you achieve this goal and pluck the strings in time, a golden glow surrounds each part and you must pluck just as it fades away. Fruit is also scattered throughout each level and as you pick them up a note or beat is played. The jungle is a dangerous place so you’ll also have to look out for spiders which will obscure your view if you don’t hit them in time!

You start out playing through the story mode which will unlock tracks in the two other modes: Tracklist and Free Play. To move to the next song in the story you must achieve a B+ or higher which proves to be quite a feat in the later levels. Even in the early levels we failed at least a few times before we passed, but once you get used to the platform elements it becomes easier. In Tracklist you can play any song you’ve previously unlocked and in Free Play there is the extra feature of choosing which instrument you play the track with. We did find it a little disappointing that there are only three songs in total, but with the multiple difficulty levels you do get a decent amount of content for your measly 99¢.

Where Maestro Green Groove does fall down is in its blocky visuals. The game is obviously ported from the DS and it looks like the developers made no effort to optimise it. The iPhone is capable of amazing graphics and it’s a shame that Maestro Green Groove wasn’t altered to account for this, instead a simple frame has been put around the game to try and keep its aspect ratio. The controls seem perfect for the iPhone, but at times we found them to be slightly unresponsive. This is probably due to the fact that the DS’s stylus is much more accurate and the sensitivity wasn’t changed to match the size of your typical finger.

The gameplay is definitely enjoyable and it’s great that you are actually playing the music yourself, instead of just tapping along to a song in the background. Unfortunately the game is essentially a lazy port and the lack of optimisation does ultimately let it down. If you’re looking for a music game with a difference then Maestro Green Groove is a good contender and playing Beethoven’s 5th Symphony is a lot of fun. We hope that the developers will upgrade the graphics in an update and even if they don’t we’re still hoping that the other worlds from the DS game will be ported across.

Media gallery

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Why not try...

---

• 

  Thumpies

• 

  Auditorium

• 

  Beat It!

• 

  Riddim Ribbon