Piano

Genre: Music Creation Application

Players: 1

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Review:

Piano, released on Nintendo Switch in 2020, is an Application that lets players play a small simulated 8-key piano on their Nintendo Switch using either the touchscreen or buttons assigned to each of the individual keys. The button layout here does what it can, but clearly the Nintendo Switch controller was never meant to simulate a musical instrument.

Actually… it’s a bit worse than that. Not only is this a tiny fraction of a real-life piano (players have no option to play with a larger one), but there isn’t even a way to use the sharp and flat keys (the black keys) – they’re dummies here that do absolutely nothing! I would say this is closer to a toy piano set, except even those tend to have usable black keys.

Don’t expect any recording or playback or any other options either, for that matter. And given the low production values here, it should come as no surprise that there’s no support for the Nintendo LABO keyboard either.

I should also note that the sound here has a lot of reverb (or an “echo”, if you’re a layman). While this generally makes the piano sound nicer, it’s frustrating that there’s no option to remove it if you want something that sounds cleaner.

The one and only extra that is included here are “tutorials” to play nine different short public domain children’s songs. Unfortunately, these “tutorials” don’t include anything to indicate timing or lyrics, and stunningly the notes for some of these songs are outright wrong. In other words, don’t expect to learn anything from this tutorial.

With such a limited and in some ways even outright broken simulation of a piano, the normal $10 price tag for this software is pretty outrageous, and the frequent $2 sale price still seems steep for something so limited in its appeal and bereft of features. If for some reason you want a piano on your Nintendo Switch, Piano still ends up falling short of that simple goal, and while I think that some may appreciate it for what it is, I think most will end up disappointed.

tl;dr – Piano is a family-friendly Music Creation Application that lets players play a simulated 8-key piano on Nintendo Switch using either pre-assigned buttons or the touchscreen. The limited size of the piano, the inability to play black keys, and the extremely lacking options and dreadful song “tutorials” that don’t even have the right notes for the songs all make for a piece of software that can’t even hit the low bar it aims for. Skip it.

Grade: D-

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