“Stage Tour” Is More Than Just Hitting Notes
Gamescom’s Opening Night gave me a personal highlight in the form of Stage Tour. For those unfamiliar, Stage Tour in short is “the new Guitar Hero”. By no means is that an inaccurate statement as it’s at the helm of RedOctane, who partnered with Harmonix to produce the very first Guitar Hero controllers back in 2005. Stage Tour looks to be a joyous love letter to the timeless combination of video games and music.
If I sound like I’m holding this game up on a pedestal it’s because I am. I simply adore Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It’s the kind of music I’ve been drawn to my whole life. Music itself just has a manner of providing timeless memories and feelings especially among cherished ones. Music is a virtue for many, myself included. After Stage Tour’s newest trailer, I decided to fire up my plastic instruments and get some much needed practice in.
My dominant console to play Guitar Hero was always on the Xbox 360, and it was a choice I didn’t think would benefit me years later. In fact, there are still ways to rock out today. 360 guitars are easy to connect to a PC using a wireless adapter or directly if wired. I could also just use the console itself since I have the discs (cough).
However, this is where points of contention start to arise. “What’s the point of Stage Tour if you can just play Clone Hero? Why not just play World Tour Definitive Edition? Why would I pay for music? Why would I buy new guitars if mine are fine?” In short, Stage Tour is an official return to form to bring the joy of rhythm games to those who never stopped while also attracting those who always wanted to try.
In case you don’t know, Clone Hero is a free program you can download where you can play custom tracks created by the community. It supports all kinds of plastic instruments and it is as straightforward of a setup as can be.
Mind you, I adore the likes of Clone Hero, World Tour: Definitive Edition, BetterGH3, and YARG to name a few as they’ve kept this game and this genre alive for so long. Without these predecessors, Stage Tour would not have a foundation to build off of. Clone Hero in particular proves that rhythm games will pique curiosity for audiences and players alike. The impact Clone Hero and streaming has had is the modern day word of mouth. It’s simple, people just love music and watching people who are really good at playing.
The problem stems from the fact that Clone Hero and the likes all require a lot of user based tweaking and patience. Installing any of these modern day Guitar Hero-likes are not inherently difficult. Nevertheless, there are just people out there who upon being told to follow instructions messing with config files or to join a Discord, that much is too much. The illusion of time spent not playing the game is enough to disregard those from ever trying, and rightfully so your time is yours to use as you please.
Clone Hero for example and its songs are very easy to set up. It’s just none of these experiences (CH, YARG, or World Tour: DE) are going to be feature-complete, or sometimes function, right out of the box. That’s what Stage Tour is for.
Those dedicated enough are going to take the time necessary to get the aforementioned programs working. However, these only exist on PC especially due to the pain that is copyright law. With Stage Tour, this is the closest we’ve ever been to a new official Guitar Hero for anyone to partake in, even those on console. We are going to be receiving over 90 licensed songs and the setlist that’s been revealed so far has just been banger after banger.
Does that mean Clone Hero will be obsolete? Absolutely not, the ease of installing custom tracks will always be a selling point. As long as someone’s playing, someone else is charting. Although, Clone Hero is just a note hitting simulator as opposed to a whole “game”. You don’t have a career mode in Clone Hero, you don’t even have backgrounds unless you set them up. Clone Hero is what you make of it but it’s never going to be the living room party staple Guitar Hero was as it was never trying to. It’s purely hitting notes for the love of the game.
Stage Tour is a complete experience meant to bring back that ease of access while also bringing brand new peripherals for purchase. Newer guitar controllers have been made for the likes of Fortnite Festival and Rock Band 4, and soon Stage Tour guitars will also be available in the modern mix. There’s going to be cross play across every system and you can have any combination of 4 instruments playing. Seriously, it’s all coming back and I couldn’t be happier.
If you want custom tracks to add to your heart’s content with generous hit windows and infinite strumming then by all means Clone Hero is there and isn’t going anywhere. Stage Tour is not just a brand new rhythm gaming experience created by not just icons of before. It’s being oversought by the hands of savants who’ve mastered these games such as the wonderful Alec Castillo, who you may know as Acai.
The people making Stage Tour know what they’re doing. They know damn well that Clone Hero exists. Hell, that right there is the motivation to make Stage Tour the game worth playing. Come December 10th, you can already bet I’m going to jam the hell out and I hope you do too.
