Games You Don't Play #4: Mad Maestro PS2

Hi friends, yes it's that time again! Time to review another game!
While I am still working on beating Odin Sphere (yeah yeah, I know. It's taking me a little too long..!!) I still have some extra time somewhere to play other games.
This time I'm going to be reviewing the game "Mad Maestro!" for the Playstation 2. This is yet another Japanese music/rhythm game that no one has ever heard of or played. It was released under the "Fresh" line by Edios Games who's sole purpose is to bring you games that you've never heard of before. I have a few other games under this "Fresh" title; "Mister Mosquito", "R-Type Final", etc.
In the game you play as a character named Tackt, a young conductor. A small fairy named Symphony pursues your help to bring music back into the hearts of the townspeople before they tear down the symphony music hall! Of course, this building is also the fairy's home, so her wanting you to save it is not surprising.
This game is very "quirky" which is used by many in the game industry; but I wouldn't say it's the best kind of quirky. The story is quite strange but not engaging or engrossing and definitely not funny. There are all sorts of things happening in the background as there usually are in most rhythm games but of course you cannot pay attention to these things as you are trying to play the game, which brings me to:

The in-game play.
There are a lot of different factors involved with this. Some things you might want to note are timing, tempo change and volume. Yes, volume. Not something I, personally am used to in a rhythm game. I sometimes forget that the Playstation 2 controller has pressure sensitive buttons as not many games use this function. Circles which you must watch to time your action also show a color to tell you what volume to use. If it's blue, you press lightly. If it's green, you press medium. If it's red, of course you press hard. Light and Red are easy, but Green? For some reason I always mess this up. I was playing the game on a Logitec Wireless Controller and thought this might have something to do with it, and yes, it did. I switched to a normal controller and it made the game quite a bit easier but I still sometimes messed it up.
Then you have your "life gauge" to the left of the screen, which will pretty much make or break you. There are two ends to this gauge, "Angel Mode" and "Devil Mode". You must have "Angel Mode" by the end of the song or you will lose the game. If you get "Angel Mode" before the song is over you must keep it at "Angel Mode", because if you mess up, you will get "Devil Mode" and that can sometimes be very difficult to come back from. If you do not have "Angel" or "Devil" mode by the end of the song, you will lose the level. If your life gauge drops to the bottom, of course you will be "Booo'ed" off the stage.

The Graphics for this game are cute but... Not very great. I guess given the year it was released (2001 JP) it's not too terrible. Bright colors, big eyes, but blocky. No big deal though, you don't spend too much time looking at the graphics as you are mostly focusing on timing and pressure.

All of the music on this game is classical music, and I do believe it is the first music/rhythm game to feature classical music exclusively. Unfortunately, most don't enjoy classical music too much, so if you don't, I don't think you will appreciate this game. It's not good enough/moving enough to sway your opinion about it.

Overall: I give this game a 6.0 out of 10.
Pros: Quirky Japanese music/rhythm game, classical music.
Cons: Monotonous controls, less than impressive graphics