Drum Pad

Genre: Music Creation Application

Players: 1

.

Review:

Drum Pad, released in 2024 on Nintendo Switch, is a Music Creation Application where players can set up drum loops on a grid to play back using various different types of drums. I should note that this Application is only usable via the touchscreen, though some control options do have gamepad button assignments.

I should also note that this Application is from everything I can tell a copy-paste of Music Box, which came out a few months earlier in the same year. The only thing that seems to have been changed here other than the name is the color scheme. As such, since they copy-pasted the game, I’ll be copy-pasting most of the review.

On that note, this Application uses a clean and fairly accessible interface, with players able to use one of eight types of drums, each having alternate forms based on genre: acoustic, rock, jazz, funky vintage, electro pop, dance, “ethnic”, and two types of hip hop. Players select the timing for the beats they want before or even during playback, can change the tempo on the fly, and can save up to 14 drum loops for later use.

While it’s not a bad set of options, there are definitely some notable features that are not included here. You can’t change the pitch or octave of any drum beat, cannot use multiple instances of the same instrument in different styles, can’t set this to play any more or less than sixteen notes, and cannot change that it plays on loop. This really limits your creative range here, and means you won’t be getting any complex drum beats using this Application.

I suppose that for only $6 (and frequently going on sale for $2), Drum Pad isn’t a terrible Music Creation Application, but it’s disappointing because it seems like it’s so close to being a great one. Work in full controller support, give players more flexibility to change the length of the drum loop, and give them more options to switch up each of the instruments, and you could have had a truly excellent music tool here, with a simple interface and good variety of instrument types. Alas, without this it has to settle for being merely decent.

And it would be a lot easier to forgive all of these omissions if this wasn’t the second time in a year this game was released under a different name. This is some pretty naked greed that goes beyond RedDeer.Games’ disgusting practice of releasing multiple versions of the same thing packed with different DLC to flood the eShop (which, of course, this game is also doing), and it will result in people unwittingly buying the same game twice (as I technically did). As such, I’m giving this game an F, and its makers should count themselves lucky I didn’t go a step further and make up a lower grade just for this shameless money grab. Do not buy this.

tl;dr – Drum Pad is a Music Creation Application where players can enter in notes in a wide variety of drum types to create custom drum loops. This is just a re-skin of the game Music Box, and a shameless one at that. Do not buy this game – this sleazy, greedy, harmful practice should not be encouraged.

Grade: F

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Homer Simpin, Johannes, Francis Obst, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Jared Wark, Kristoffer Wulff, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}