Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.

What the Game's About
Guitar Hero is such a well known gaming franchise that it almost needs no introduction. This version of Guitar Hero only needs a little bit of introduction because it appears on a platform you might not expect, the DS. Using a peripheral to capture the essence of holding a plastic guitar while you strum on the touchpad, you simulate the living room rock star experience anywhere you want. Guitar Hero: Decades captures the sounds of prevalent to each epoch of music starting with modern times and works its way backwards on a musical odyssey.

What's Hot
This is the second offering of the Guitar Hero franchise on the DS and with that, there have been some improvements over the last game. You basically get more of what worked so well the first go-around. Things like better tracks and more options are always a nice thing to have when a formula works and you don't need to mess with it too much. The basic layouts and structure to the game haven't changed but that isn't a bad thing in light of how much fun it was to play Guitar Hero anywhere you wanted. The music sounds good, the gameplay is still the same fun as the consoles and you can pick it up and play a few songs without spending hours mesmerized to the screen.

If you want to play multiplayer, you can either play with the first DS Guitar Hero or with another copy of Decades. Like the box says, you can share songs using the wireless capability of two DS systems. It is a neat feature that will make you want to see if anyone else wants to play a game with you.



The touch strumming worked better this time around, compared to the first game, which is a good thing (or it could be my imagination from a few hours of sleep I get each week) as it makes your job less about worrying if you hit the touchpad in the right spot and more about trying to twist your fingers in knots as you try and hit the right buttons. The overall package feels tighter and more refined.

What's Not
It is a novelty to have a peripheral plugged into the DS but you'll quickly discover that it isn't that comfortable to hold. Plucking at a few songs each day won't give you any problems but if you were to play for hours on end, you'll feel discomfort in your wrists. Buttons are very close together and it can cause you to hit multiple buttons at the same time or your fingers will get in the way of each other.



The added bulk makes the game not as portable as you might hope. Overall, the game is short and to the point, which may leave you wanting more songs to master. Also take into consideration that when the DSi releases sometime in the future, that you won't be able to play Decades due to the fact you need a GBA slot to hook your add-on into.

Final Word
Decades does a fine job at bringing another set-list to the DS. The developers slightly tweaked things while leaving alone what didn't need to be fixed. A solid addition to the Guitar Hero family.