Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Megamix+ Review

James Martini July fifth, 2022 – 8:40 AM

I’ve to confess: I do know very little about Hatsune Miku. I had by no means even heard of the 13-year-old recreation collection Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA earlier than taking part in its latest entry, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Megamix+. Despite my lack of awareness concerning the recreation, its collection, or its title character, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Megamix+ managed to interact me in a short time, with a enjoyable mix of basic rhythm recreation mechanics, some enjoyable visuals, and a really replayable loop.

For these of you (like me) who don’t know something about this collection, I’ll begin with its basic idea. In the Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA collection, you play a fairly customary rhythm recreation, however as a substitute of the songs being chosen from fashionable music or possibly instrumental tracks, all the songs are made utilizing Vocaloids, the voice era software program that spawned Hatsune Miku initially. While not all the songs in Megamix+ are Hatsune Miku songs, the overwhelming majority of the are, and many of the others characteristic her ultimately.

When I say that the gameplay of Megamix+ has fairly customary rhythm gameplay, I imply that it has the standard button prompts floating throughout the display screen in direction of a corresponding slot and when the button floats into the slot, you press the button on the controller. The nearer you’re to excellent timing, the extra factors you get. You also can construct up a streak for consecutive appropriate hits, and lacking will break the streak. Additionally, you could have a kind of life bar up on the high of the display screen, and lacking buttons will drain the bar, and if the bar totally drains the spherical will finish mechanically and you’ll fail.

I actually don’t have much more to say concerning the gameplay as a result of it actually doesn’t get rather more sophisticated than that. It could be very a lot a twist on Dance Dance Revolution with out the mat. There are a number of alterations. For instance, buttons float in from wherever on the display screen and transfer at various paces, which I discovered made it a bit of arduous to trace them at occasions, as buttons may truly go over different buttons to get the place they’re going, which resulted in me urgent buttons on the incorrect occasions, pondering they had been going to different locations.

The streak system additionally struck me as a bit of attention-grabbing. I couldn’t actually inform what sort of bonus a streak gave you (although it was clear that there was some bonus), however you possibly can solely hold a streak on consecutive “Good” or “Cool” presses, that are the 2 greatest within the recreation. The subsequent stage down, “Safe”, will finish a streak, regardless that a “Safe” button press felt fairly good to me. This makes the streaks very tough to take care of, which in flip made it fairly tough to get larger rank finishes, although that may additionally need to do with my lack of rhythm recreation expertise (and decidedly iffy sense of rhythm basically).

Perhaps the most important concern I had with the gameplay was that the sport actually struggled to maintain a stable framerate. Even on my hefty gaming PC, the sport would typically drop to noticeably low framerates that might be uneven for any recreation, however felt extra-bad in a rhythm recreation. As you’ll anticipate, having the icons freeze on the display screen after which transfer once more as the sport chugs alongside, attempting to maintain up with the tempo of the tune, makes it actually arduous to time the button presses. The framerate drops didn’t occur too typically, however a recreation like this is dependent upon a secure framerate and the common drops, particularly initially of songs, had been a bit of disappointing.

If you’re questioning what may trigger these drops within the framerate, you don’t must look any additional than the graphics. While nonetheless sticking to the very anime look of Hatsune Miku and the opposite characters, the music movies can have fairly intense lighting and particle results. These results make the music movies fairly cool, however I can’t say that it’s price the price, contemplating that while you play the sport you don’t actually have time to have a look at the music movies in any respect.

The recreation has another mechanics, like the flexibility to purchase outfits for the completely different characters and customise them, or customise the button press results, the sport is totally centered across the rhythm recreation and Hatsune Miku’s music. I don’t thoughts how simple all of it is, as a result of the sport is sort of enjoyable. Like I stated earlier, it’s nearly precisely what you’ll anticipate from a Hatsune Miku rhythm recreation, however that’s on no account a foul factor. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Megamix+ presents a clear and comprehensible recreation that anybody with even primary rhythm recreation expertise can get into. It’s not revolutionary, however if you happen to like rhythm video games, you’ll discover it to be greater than sufficient enjoyable.

Score: 7 out of 10

Reviewed on PC