I kind of really rejected Fortnite Festival, the music mode, when it was launched last year. Which feels kind of surprising because I really like Rhythm games and am a huge DDR fan. I never was super into Rock Band though, and Fortnite Festival.is basically the latest iteration of Rock and, it’s just, built into Fortnite. Harmonix, makers of Rock Band, was bought by Epic and folded in to create this game mode.

Anyway, I have decided to give it another try lately and it’s not that bad. It’s not DDR, but it sort of scratches that itch. It doesn’t replace it and I still want to get my dance pad set up again, but maybe Fortnite Festival can spur that along. I know Rock Band is arguably more popular than DDR, but DDR will always be my baseline for rhythm games.

I think a lot of my hang-ups with Festival stem from that baseline too. I really dislike the downward fall of the notes vs the upward push. I hate that there are not arrows, though not too terribly. I have been using the same arrows based key binds I used to use when I did Stepmania on the keyboard, as in using the left, down, up, right, arrow keys, in that order. Even though every lane has a little bar in it, I still have muscle memory of which key is which lane.

Though this throws me way off on expert level songs, which are 5 lanes. Frankly, even if I were a Rock Band pro this would be frustrating, it’s literally like playing an entirely different game. Which is made worse because in theory, working up through difficulty trains you on how to hit note of increasingly more complicated patterns. Adding another lane is like moving from DDR to Pump It Up (which uses diagonal arrows and the center), and expecting to be an instant expert.

Another “it’s not DDR” annoyance, the songs are soooooo long. Most DDR tracks are like, 2 minutes, tops. Probably partly because DDR is a very physical game. Yeah, you can play it with a controller or keyboard, but if you are playing it the proper way, you’re standing and moving. Even if you use instrument controls in Fortnite Festival, you aren’t moving that much. It uses a lot of popular music and it’s always the full track, so some songs can be 5-6 minutes long. Which really starts to drag on a bit when pushing these sometimes repetitive note sequences in.

I also really dislike that there doesn’t seem to be anyway to adjust the fall speed of the notes. Some of them move way too fast and I would much rather slow them down into a bunch so I can pre-read them, or speed them up entirely so it becomes entirely single note reactions. This isn’t help that all the notes are the exact same color. In DDR, half steps, quarter steps, etc, all had slight different colorings, which made them easier to read.

This feels like it’s just turned into a bit of a random about why I never liked Rock Band. DDR is so full of perfect visual queues, and everything here is just so, flat and identical.

Like, as an example, there is this Billie Eilish track, and the notes are very clearly this sort of back and forth between two notes, and a third that is a regular rhythm. Like left, up, left right, left, up, left, right. It would be a fun pattern in DDR. But in this game, because everything is so samey visually, my brain can’t quite process the changes fast enough. Eventually I could probably memorize it, but I really hate playing rhythm games based on memorization. I want to play based on learning skills and techniques so when I recognize a pattern even in a new song I can get it.

Another one in that same song I think, I am pretty sure it’s a standard “front/back/front back” step pattern from DDR, but once again, it’s all visually identical so it just clutters up.

Or maybe I am just out of practice.

Whatever the case, I am really enjoying the mode.

Rocket Racing is still lame though, and I will stand by that forever. The tracks are boring, the cats are boring, everything in it is just, “like other racing games but way worse.”. They should have just stuffed Rocket Racing into Rocket League and it may have helped make RL actually worth playing.