Rhythm Parade

From Fit Game Wiki

Object of the Game

Your Mii has been recruited to lead the Wuhu Island Marching Band. You march round the fountain in the town, carrying a drum-major(ette)'s staff, in time to the music, doing tricks according to icons that drop from the top of the screen.

Equipment required

This game requires use of:

Wii Balance Board
Wiimote
Nunchuck

MET

Rhythm Parade has a MET of 3, meaning that it is a moderate intensity activity.

Time

This game takes 3-4 minutes to play. Like Advanced Step, it is a "tape following" game and merely requires you to play through the whole tape.

Levels

This game has two levels, Beginner and Advanced

Beginner

105 scoring opportunities on the tape
Simple patterns
Relatively few long sequences of consecutive movements
About 3 minutes

Advanced

265 scoring opportunities on the tape
Complex patterns full of pattern and rhythm breaks
Numerous long sequences of consecutive movements
About 4 minutes - although there are 2.5 times as many scoring opportunities as in Beginner, they are more densely packed on the tape, so the tape is only slightly longer

How to play the game

This is a relatively simple game in concept: you march in place on the balance board "in time with the music" and use movements of your hands to control the movements of the Mii's hands to do tricks with the major(ette)'s staff.

Marching in time

In fact, you march in time with your Mii's feet. The music does not lend itself to synchronised marching, especially in one part of the Advanced level, where the music becomes chaotic. However, the Mii manages to do it just fine, and it is reasonably easy to march in time to the Mii's feet. If you are correctly in time, you will see a blue "splash" around your Mii's feet and you will hear a tinkly sound.

Failing to keep your feet in time with your Mii's feet will cause you to score poorly.

Hand movements

You hold the Wiimote in your right hand, and the Nunchuck in your left. Hold your arms down, with your elbows by your sides and your forearms horizontal in front of you.

There are two blue circles on the screen, one in each lower corner. A series of "icons" falls from the top of the screen. There is a stream of "Wiimote icons" that fall on the right-hand side, and a stream of "Nunchuck icons" that fall on the left-hand side. When an icon touches the blue circle, you give a flick of the wrist of the appropriate side.

Scoring

Points

You score:

5 for each hand movement made in the correct time with your feet in time
1 for each hand movement made in the correct time with your feet NOT in time
0 for each requested hand movement not made correctly
- Moved the wrong hand
- Did not move the correct hand
- Moved at not the right time
- Moved both hands when only one icon fell
If two icons fall together, that counts as a single hand movement for scoring purposes

Surplus hand movements made when there are no icons by the circles are not penalised.

Getting 5 for all the requested hand movements will get you a big announcement of "Perfect" at the end of the game.

Perfect Scores

Beginner: 525 points
Advanced: 1325 points

The Band

As you play well, various members of the band will join you. There are three rows of musicians, and all the members of a row will join at the same time. They will come out one row at a time if you play well enough for long enough. Messing up a hand movement will drop the rear-most row, and you will have to regain them normally.

Hints and tips

At the very beginning of the game, there is a short time where your Mii is just marching, with no icons visible. Use this time to get your feet in time with your Mii's.
It does not matter for scoring purposes whether your feet are moving in "same side" time with your Mii's or in "opposite side". "Same side" time means left with left and right with right. "Opposite side" time means left with right and right with left. Which you use is up to you.
If you play multiple games of this "back-to-back", you can work up a good sweat. You do not have time to wipe the sweat out of your eyes, but a sweat-band will help reduce this.
To approach the elusive "Perfect", you must concentrate equally on the timing of the feet and the timing and correctness of the hand movements. To achieve it, you must get to the point that the timing on the feet becomes fully automatic.
Big Top Juggling can help you develop restrained hand and arm movements, as small tight movements are far more important in that game.
Try to avoid devloping a wrist flick where you flick outwards as well as down, as the Nunchuck seems to be less sensitive to this than the Wiimote is, and you may find that you miss left-hand movements.
Your hands will tend to "catch" bad habits from each other, and this will reduce your score. Work on keeping both hands under close control. Especially prevalent is a tendency for the "off" hand to "echo" the movement of the "dominant" hand when it should remain still.
The advanced tape is filled with pattern and rhythm breaks. A pattern break is when the pattern changes, e.g. from RLRL... to RRLLRRLL..., while a rhythm break is when the timing changes, e.g. from RLRLRL to R.L.R.L.R.L. Both will throw off your score if you get too deeply locked on to the pattern and rhythm.
Once you start getting the feel of the game and the movements, you will find that you have more time to look at the tape directions before you have to carry them out. Work on this skill: looking in advance will help you to keep yourself from being too locked on the pattern and rhythm.
Practice. Practice. Practice.

Silliness

If your Wii is set to French, this game is called Majorette!

In Real Life, the music marches in time with the band leader. In military bands, he waves the big stick around to give instructions to the musicians.