Band Hero is a game that shouldn't exist.
If there was ever an actual marking point of the downfall of a franchise, Band Hero is probably the nadir of the series, the moment everything broke in a way that is irrevocable. Neversoft, in their ever ending quest to try to innovate and spearhead the Guitar Hero series, drops the ball hard with a game that really is a grave miscalculation.
Band Hero is, as you figured by now, the trademarked "Band Hero" name finally coming to fruition after Activision trademarked the name a few years back. The premise of Band Hero is not a bad one really, the idea is to make a more family-friendly, party based version of Guitar Hero. Focus more on popular pop-songs of the day, less on hardcore punk, alternative or metal acts, and you have a game with a different flavor to it that can appeal to a different audience. The idea, on paper, is sound if a bit redundant.
The problem though is simple. Why does Band Hero exist when Guitar Hero 5 does the exact same thing it tries to do?
Guitar Hero 5, for all of its faults with the weaker setlist and slightly updated visuals, was already seen as being more commercially viable and family friendly because of its song selection. Even the more hardcore tunes found in Guitar Hero 5 would be tuned downwards to be less difficult to play, and less controversial than past series. Yet, they tried the same trick, with an even more saccharine presentation with Band Hero, and it just fails miserably to really capture any attention.
Band Hero is essentially Guitar Hero 5 wearing a slightly colorful filter over its standard presentation. Replacing the lifeblood of a Guitar Hero game with honey and hoping no one noticed. In one respect there is some more vibrancy with the visuals and camera direction, more attention on the band and dynamic camera angles that give a bit of energy to the songs. There is a sense of fun with what the game is trying to do, but it just comes across as so unnecessary, and a lot of factors get in the way of Band Hero being anything but a massive distraction to itself.
For starters, the setlist in the game is smaller than what was expected from the Guitar Hero franchise, sporting 65 songs on disk instead of the near 80+ seen in previous games. The song-list is specifically designed to be family-friendly, so each song's chart is less challenging than usual. You are not getting tough or blistering guitar solos, hard lyrical matchups, or blazing drum sections here. Instead, we get a lot of pop and pop rock songs, to the point where that was a selling point for the game; having top 40 hits of the day on the soundtrack.
This hurts the diversity of the games setlist, but surprisingly more so than usual. A game like Encore: Rock's the 80's was able to find some variety through a specific lens, or hell, even the band-specific games were able to have unique flavors to them despite similar tones. Band Hero though falls into the trap that Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits has, the songs are repetitive chart wise and don't really do much with the musical instrumentation. I don't know if that is a statement regarding how modern pop music in the late 2000s sounded so similar to everything else, or how the breakneck pace of development of all of these songs led to more basic charting just to complete them. Either way, it is a condemnation of the setlist itself, which is very weak here.
There are some bright spots as always. "Walking on Sunshine" by Katrina and the Waves is a dose of high energy that is really fun to play through. We also get David Bowie's "Let's Dance", "Dirty Little Secret" by the All American Rejects, and "Honky Tonk Woman" by The Rolling Stones as other standout songs. There is some good stuff here that would be perfect songs for a setlist anywhere else. Here though, they share space with several duds for guitar, bass and drums, like "So Yesterday" by Hilary Duff or "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls. Taylor Swift is a major part of the game with three songs and herself being an unlockable character, but the songs chosen just feel off and definitely needed a bit more work on them chart-wise, especially "Picture to Burn".
This is not to disparage the artists included. A game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band should have the Spice Girls and Taylor Swift in it, it is good diversity for the music in any game. The problem though is that all of them at once in a base game flattens the whole experience down. One song on the game disk with three more for DLC would have been fine for Band Hero. Heck, a lot of the songs feel like filler choices that could have been DLC at any time for Guitar Hero, which leads us to the next problem; the fact that this game could have been DLC.
Much like Smash Hits, you can't help but feel Band Hero is an attempt to milk the franchise down some more. Unlike Smash Hits, it's harder to really justify it, as Smash Hits at least had a gimmick to it; songs from the first games in full band format. The elephant in the room is this; Guitar Hero as a franchise simply struggled to maintain an audience because it could never lock down DLC in a way that Rock Band effortlessly did. Each game would carry with it songs exclusive to that game due to licensing, and Activision had a hard time locking in songs that can be transferred over to multiple games.
Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero are lucky in this regard at least, as all but 4 songs from Band Hero can go to Guitar Hero 5, and most of the Guitar Hero 5 soundtrack can be found in Band Hero. Almost all of the DLC for Guitar Hero 5 was usable as well, so that cross play was implemented in a way that finally made sense. Of course, this highlights that Band Hero could have literally been a DLC experience instead of a full-fledged game, which is a problem that it can't really shake off of.
Compounding this all is general fatigue, as Band Hero was the sixth out of seven games in the franchise released in 2009. DJ Hero was released a month earlier to good reviews but lower sales, and two months earlier, Guitar Hero 5 was met with a lukewarm reception. In a month's time, Activision would shadow drop Guitar Hero: Van Halen, and let's not forget Rock Band coming in on the same day with a similar concept as Band Hero.
To say the least, Band Hero really had no shot at ever reaching any major status. Nothing gameplay wise was changed, the setlist has some good moments but feels like it is sleepwalking through pop rock songs that are not challenging or technically interesting, and the game struggles to justify its existence. Throw on top a controversy with the band No Doubt who, while also being digital avatars in the game, were used in a way similar to Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5 leading to another lawsuit, Band Hero had no chance really to shine.
To me, if Band Hero became the band-centric title while Guitar Hero was always the guitar-centric title, I think that the franchise would have more of an identity. Keep the Guitar Hero games like they were before World Tour, that allows the franchise to carve out an identity that can be powerful over the amorphous shape it has become. As it stands, Band Hero is a mostly forgettable mess. Yes, it's playable and competent, and it is more kid friendly if that's a route you care for, but being forgettable as a rhythm game is a death knell for any long term success, making Band Hero one of the worst in the Guitar Hero franchise.