Tap Tap Revolution has ruled the iPhone since the jailbreak days, and it’s been great. They’ve struck deals with record companies and produced branded versions of Tap Tap; I’ve lost count of how many. And it’s been great. But it’s only time that a competitor emerges and gives it a run for its money. TapStar from EpicTilt aims to be the direct port of the arcade game Dance Dance Revolution, where you step on the pads as arrows fly by.

Tapping along

Here’s how it goes. Coloured arrow buttons are placed on the four corners of your screen. Coloured arrows fly by, bottom to top, and cross the ‘arrow bar’. Whenever an arrows gets to that position, you have to tap the consecutive button, yielding some points. It takes a little while getting used to since the four buttons don’t naturally get equal treatment owing to their placement.

In easy to medium mode, things are fine. You have to tap a maximum of two arrows at a time, which means you can hold the device upright in horizontal position and play along. The tricky bit is when you move into advanced modes, where you have to deal with 3-4 arrows at a single time. For that you need to have the device lying flat, and your fingers spread out like a crabs claws. And I’m pretty sure that awkward position is not good for your RSI prone hands.

In terms of levels themselves, difficulty is not spread out equal. Some tracks are manageable in hard mode, while others I can’t get past even in the medium mode. And I’ve tried it many times mind you. Compared to Tap Tap though (where I can easily pass the Xtreme mode), even with its mixed-bag level design, TapStar is a lot more challenging and engaging (read: fun).

Another complaint is the sound. For one, if you hit the arrow button before its right time, you get a ‘crank’ noise. That’s not cool when you’re playing this game partly because of the music. Second, you can’t just play for the fun of it, as there’s a health meter. If the health meter goes down (you miss too many at a time), your game is cut short in the middle of the song. And third, once you complete a game, there’s a violent “snap!” noise that hits the ear 5 times as it pastes your scores and figures on the screen. I don’t know who in their pre-release testing actually enjoyed that ear-torture.

And for the good

Despite all the negative complaints, TapStar is fun. The user interface featuring sharp album artwork while playing the track and colourful arrows flying by makes for an enjoyable experience. Also, TapStar comes with a lot of popular tracks (from Sony Music), and the team is constantly adding new songs to the mix (the number currently stands at 24 tracks). You download new songs to the device from the built in downloads center. The songs however are scarcely spread across different genres (I don’t particularly like Brittney and P!nk) so I’m hoping they bring in some song packs we can play the music we enjoy. I didn’t come across any paid songs, but I suppose they will add those sooner or later via in-app purchasing.

TapStar also provides a refreshing change from the now stale TTR form of gameplay. Moreover, since it doesn’t come with any heavy graphics animation, the game runs butter smooth on an old iPhone. This is very unlike Tap Tap Revenge 2, which added a whole lot of weight to the game, which makes it very choppy at times. Though, since they can’t really have an on-device two player form of the game, they better implement 2-player bluetooth gaming as soon as possible. Two player mode in my opinion is the most fun part of the Tap Tap series.

If you’re got $5 to spend, and you like more than a few of these tracks, TapStar will provide you with some engaging ‘song time’. However, there’s a lot that needs to be fixed in this game, so there’s no way I can give it five stars. TapStar also comes in a Lite version for free, which allows you to download and play six of the 24 tracks. Now that’s an awesome deal since I wouldn’t want more than six of those tracks in the first place! And for those who read this review on the date of publishing, TapStar is on sale for $0.99 for 24 hours.