Frederic: Evil Strikes Back

Frederic: Evil Strikes Back is the sequel to Frederic: Resurrection of Music. Just like the original game it is a rhythm based music title starring composer Frederic Chopin as the protagonist. Two years after rising from the grave to defeat the proponents of the modern soulless music industry, his quest is far from over. Returning with his sunglasses, leather jacket and a sports car, he once again needs to confront the industry. In the first game he played his own compositions on a keytar, reworked in a specific, modern music style. This time he mostly plays parodies of well-known artists (Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson...).

The gameplay is similar to the Guitar Hero games. The two duelists are shown in the background and music notes slide down a highway of strings / ziplines until they land on the black and white keys of the keytar in the front with seven possible keys in total. As soon as they appear there the appropriate keys should be pressed to play the notes. White notes always land on white keys, and black notes on black ones. A faint glow appears around the note once it hovers over a key, showing how close it is to perfect timing along with the beat. On the edge of the keyboard it is green, closer to the middle is blue and at the perfect spot it turns red. If the note passes red, it turns blue and green again. Hitting ten excellent (blue) or perfect (red) notes in a row is rewarded with bonus points. If not performed successfully, the sound becomes distorted.

To win a duel a large of number of good notes need to be played, increasing a green meter near the top of the screen to the right, pushing back the opponent's red meter. New for this edition of the game are blue notes (press a key rapidly) and two-finger chords marked with a tie between them. There are ten duels in total and there are four difficulty levels: too easy, normal, hard and chopin. Between duels there are story segments drawn in a cartoon style.