Test your ability to play catchy piano chops in this compelling music game!Guitar Hero became a cultural phenomenon. It even had repercussions on musical education worldwide and spawned a wide array of clones in its wake, with some variations.Magic Tiles 3 might not be the most original franchise, but it pushes many right buttons, along with some off-key ones (no pun intended). Amanotes is still one of the most renowned music game developers on mobile, and Magic Tiles 3 promises to deliver. But does it?

We will first delve into the more positive aspects because, trust me, the negatives are plenty. Before we do that, let’s describe the gameplay first, shall we?As you launch the app, it will first prompt you to choose a genre. As of this writing, you can only select four at this early stage: Hip Hop/Rap, Dance/EDM, Rock, and Pop. Each genre offers a handful of tutorial songs to choose from. 

Once you pick your piece, the core gameplay starts. The concept is pretty straightforward: You have to hit the tiles as they appear on the screen, and you can only fail a certain number of times before losing. The tiles scroll considerably fast, and the reaction time is not very generous, so you need to be constantly on guard.

After you pass the tutorial (as in, you reach the end of the song,) you’ll be shown a longer list of songs, but you’ll be asked to unlock them by watching ads or buying the full version (which I’ll get to very shortly, trust me!) 

You’ll be interacting with two types of tiles. The first ones are what I would call “single tap” tiles, which essentially play a short note. The second ones are the “hold” or “sustain” taps for more extended notes. 

You can notice the difference immediately, as the “sustain” tiles have a kind of bar in the middle (similar to a volume bar). Failing to hold your finger over the “sustain” tile for at least a fraction of the note's duration will be counted as a failure.

The game can get pretty challenging and almost unfairly so. In various instances, you’ll encounter two simultaneous “sustain” tiles, followed by a quick succession of black tiles. You may also come across white tiles, which should never be touched! Avoid those white tiles like the plague!

This segues into my first positive, which is (you guessed it!) the gameplay. To be honest, it was highly entertaining, and the fact that you can measure your speedy thumbs against other players in a custom match is a huge plus, in my view.

On another note, this game’s presentation is largely decent and flashy, though it may look outdated in some places. I’m not attempting to be nitpicky here, but I believe the game’s interface and design could be improved in some areas. I’m not particularly a fan of the plain black tiles over the boringly static background, but this is just a personal observation.

My final positive concerns the number of tracks available. According to the game’s developers, you have access to over 50,000 songs, which is a lot more than what other alternatives offer. To put things into perspective, Guitar Hero 6 (Warriors of Rock) only has 93 songs! Though in all fairness, Guitar Hero mostly focuses on rock music, and you get some actual music videos to play along with.

Now we get to the negatives, which, as you may already imagine, involve monetization. This growing (and disgusting) trend of proposing monthly subscription plans for a game, especially games that don’t seem to merit them, must stop immediately. 

This business model might have been justifiable in games like World Of Warcraft because of the high costs of keeping such gargantuan servers running smoothly (even then, it was a bit overkill.) Here, you are charged a whopping $4 a month, which is way beyond what these types of games used to charge for the full version of a game (a one-time purchase).

Perhaps I should be thankful that at least I get the chance to somehow play for free by watching ads. The problem? You’ll spend more time watching ads than playing the actual game. Plus, you only get access to a measly portion of the tracklist. Hardly any consolation!

Magic Tiles 3: Piano Game is a genuinely superb game mildly spoiled by questionable monetization. It’s probably not as offensive considering what you can do for free, but you’ll end up wishing you had a cheaper alternative. As it stands, it’s not really recommended unless you have the spare change to pay the hefty monthly fee and all that jazz!

If you wish to “change my tune” (pun intended) about this game, do that in the comments section!