Let's Tap was one of the two nuggets of inspiration that came to Yuji Naka(creator of Sonic) with the word 'Let's' in them, the other being a Wiiware game, Let's Catch. Tap manages to attract the public eye and the interest of many gamers because of the unique never before seen control scheme, which involved the Wiimote being face down on top of a cardboard box while you tap away at the sides. The Wiimote would pick up the minute vibrations and there's your game control. Innovative indeed.
Alas, it was innovation wasted on a paltry four (that's right, FOUR) minigames. The Visualizer mode doesn't count. It's about as much fun and pointless as looking at a lava lamp, except you control it by tapping. So no. Though each real minigame aside from the visualizer had some degree of depth to them, you can't help but feel that more could be done.
The running minigame has about 20 stages and each one had you relying on the same tapping tricks over and over again. The rhythm minigame takes a page out of Taiko no Tatsujin but never manages to feel as much fun due to the lack of challenge and that all 30 songs aren't even real songs. All sounded techno-like and parped out of a synthesizer no matter what 'style' the song is. And P rank (yes, one step higher from S Rank, P meaning Perfect) is one of the stupidest sounding grade ever given to any game.
The Jenga-like minigame which has you pulling out blocks from a tower is surprisingly quite a fun way to burn an hour or so. Alchemy mode is strangely addicting, combining like-colored blocks to create one of an even higher value, and so on and so forth, while the aerial shooter minigame?....Nah, the controls are naff for this sort of thing, and because of it some projectiles cannot be dodged. Broken, then.
But I did all this while being alone. Let's Tap is a depressing affair when you're playing solo. It's almost pointless to slog through all those minigames with no specific reward at the end. So I thought I'd bring human company to the mix. It is, after all, a party game. But four minigames don't last a whole lot either, even with friends, and we exhausted the lot of them in two hours or so(laughter in between), and popped in another game instead.
What a waste. Let's Tap reeks of wasted potential for the clever use of the Wiimote because the compilation of games lacked any real substance. What I wouldn't give for more variety in modes, more different games, and a better use for the tap system. What I wouldn't give to see this control scheme on anything other than this throwaway piece of junk.
10 points for the creativity, 2 points for the game. 6 out of ten then, but only because of that one spark of genius. Yuji Naka, make a better game involving this and I'll be happy as a mole.
Score: 6.0/10
