I’ll be honest, I never really understood the hype surrounding Hatsune Miku and the Vocaloid craze. For the uninitiated, Miku and her friends are virtual pop stars who literally go on tours, perform live concerts and release albums with their singing voice completely made through computerized sounds after taking audio samples from a real person. Basically, they’re made completely out of autotune combined with Coachella Tupac.
But while I never found myself getting into the fandom as a whole, I would never let that get in the way of a great rhythm game, which the Miku series of games tends to bring. The latest entry, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f 2nd, looks to continue that trend, with more songs, more unlockables and more Miku that ever before. Sadly, with the large range of content comes many of the issues that held down its predecessor, delivering a fun title that never strays from its expected path, for better and for worse.
Each song comes with an often overdramatic video when not filled with bad dancing. J-Pop is serious business.
In Project Diva f 2nd, players are thrown onto center stage as either Miku herself, or nearly half a dozen other character modules, including Kagamine Rin, her brother, Len, and Megurine Luka, each with their own songs and voices across the 40 in game tracks. Featuring a mix of both new songs and returning favorites with reworked button charts, there will be plenty of high energy toe tappers and even a few slow jams to build up your score with. Unfortunately, if you’re eager to dive into what Project Diva has to offer, the game forces you to be patient, only starting you with about five songs, with each new one unlocking as you complete what’s available. Even then, I found the soundtrack overall to be less impressive than the first game, finding myself rarely humming the tracks after the game was off, (except for the tutorial song, damn it! That thing had to have been made by the devil).
Throughout each song, prompts will have would be pop stars pressing one of the four face buttons or swiping the touch screen in time with the music. Patterns become more complex as the songs increase in difficulty, but again, Hard and Extreme are locked, forcing a false sense of replayability, especially for series veterans who will blow through the default settings. Starting with Normal only uses two buttons and the touch pad for example, while increasing the mode of play brings in the whole controller. Mix that in with double swipes and taps, (where a direction and button or a two finger swipe is needed to score), and you end up with a straightforward, yet fairly complex and highly rewarding play style.
Adding a little depth to the regular going ons of each song are two Technical Zones and one Chance Time section, each of which will help you boost your rank. Technical challenges you to hit a certain amount of notes in particular sections without missing, while chance builds up a meter that offers huge bonuses for those who can fill it, while hitting the final note in the sequence. Whether trying for the highest ranks, or inching to survive a tough song, (since you can still fail a song even if you make it to the end if your score is too low), these sections can both help or hinder you. Trust me, there are few things more annoying than almost getting a perfect run, only to miss the highest rank because the handful of notes that you missed were in the technical section, especially on Hard and Extreme.
That’s not to say that higher modes of play aren’t fun. In fact, they’re the highlight of the game! But as the fun increases on higher settings, so does the frustration. My biggest complaint with the first game in the series was its interface, placing the button prompts all over the screen while icons fly all across the screen. As the amount of inputs increase, so does the confusion, cluttering up the screen with images that are nearly impossible to follow along with unless you already know the song by heart ahead of time. Even then, when the game tries to get cute and make patterns with the icons, multiple inputs in the same prompt, or alternating buttons, it makes the rhythm sections both frustrating and hard to follow. There’s nothing worse than losing a perfect combo because you can’t make sense of all the triangles and circles flying at you. Worse of all, is that taking your fingers off the buttons to swipe the screen is counter-intuitive, often leading me to many a miss. Thankfully, the options allow Vita players to switch to the PS3 play style and handle those beats with the analog stick instead.
What does Miku-Mikuing someone even mean!?
If the confusing note charts are particularly jarring, take the game to Edit Mode and see if you can do any better! With the ability to create custom button arrangements, these creations can be made, shared and downloaded online, potentially creating an endless stream of remixes from the community. As if the insane amount of in game achievements and items weren’t enough, editing and downloading can keep you playing long after the main game has worn thin.
(NOTE: Edit Mode was unavailable at the time of review, but is essentially the same as the first game. This review will be amended if we find any major changes.)
When you need a break from the onslaught of the Rhythm Game, players can explore Miku’s Room. Here, you can watch her read, eat, sleep, and go about her daily life in its voyeuristic glory. When you want to go a little more hands on with her day to day, you can pet her and give her food and water. Sadly, there’s no option to walk her or play frisbee, but you CAN use your hard earned Diva Points to buy new outfits, accessories, gadgets and furniture for her, or any of the other Modules, all of which have their own rooms and petting needs. A little creepy? Sure! But this is firmly a Japanese title, so would you expect anything less?
Speaking of the Japanese, f 2nd has a pretty awesome feature for the hardcore fans who imported the title, allowing them to do a one time save transfer. I personally can’t think of a game that has allowed that before,showing that Sega really knows that their hardcore Miku fanbase wouldn’t wait for the localized one. It’s great knowing that they have them in mind while localizing a game that many would consider to be a hard sell anyway.
Harder difficulties can get way too confusing.
So despite its issues going largely unchanged, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva f 2nd still manages to be an addicting, rewarding and content filled package that will keep fans playing for a long time. With so many items to buy and unlock, harder difficulties that will push you to get better, and a mostly solid soundtrack, it’s hard to ask for more from a rhythm game on the go. Sure, the interface could use a much needed overhaul, more of the game should be available from the start, and Divas Room can be made far less creepy, but in the end, Project Diva f 2nd is a solid buy for the Vocaloid and the rhythm lovers alike.
Final Score: 3.5/5