Miku Hatsune, Project Diva f 2nd Review

By Benjamin Kelly on 29/04/2024 21:51 UTC

Project Diva f 2nd is the latest in the Vocaloid series of games, a rhythm game starring Japan's favourite fictional Pop Idol (yes, she performs live, but she's a hologram) and her friends. That alone should be enough for you to have decided if this game is for you or not, as rhythm games tend to be very divisive, especially Japanese ones, but stick with me. You might be surprised.

The main aim of the game is simple, as a symbol passes over the target, press the corresponding button/s (or scratch the screen (Vita) or flick the analogue sticks (PS3) for star symbols), and this is all done in time with the music. Anyone who's ever seen games like Dance, Dance Revolution (or even Guitar Hero) will understand this core concept. Where Project Diva f 2nd differs, however, is in the craziness of it all.

Most rhythm games have the symbols on a track, in a constant place. Project Diva f 2nd has the targets in various places all over the screen, and moves them constantly, and the symbols fly on from various angles. It's stylistic, it's crazy, it's unbelievably fun.

As one would expect from a Japanese Pop Idol, the songs are primarily in Japanese, but options have been included to have the subtitles in either romanji or in English (depending on if you want to sing along, or if you wish to find out what they're actually singing about if you - like me - aren't lucky enough to speak fluent Japanese). The songs are varied and most of them are stick-in-your-brain-for-a-week catchy, though there were a few that I found I played once for completion's sake but have no urge at all to go back for. As with all music tastes, however, this is purely subjective and those same songs may end up being timeless favourites for you.

The better you do, the higher your rating. A perfectly timed press will result in a 'Cool', whereas less than perfect may be a 'Great', 'Safe', 'Bad' or even a 'Miss' completely. Chain 'Great' and 'Cool' results for more points, and complete the 'Technical Time' sections perfectly for a massive points boost. Then there's 'Chance Time' where a better performance will fill up a special star, and if successful, unlocks a better version of the song's video.

Should you succeed, your performance is rated as 'Standard', 'Great', 'Excellent', or if you're skilled enough to not get a single trigger below 'Great', you'll be awarded a 'Perfect' result. The better you do, the more 'Diva Points' you earn to spend on character costumes, user interface skins, and items to give to the characters - and this is where the replay value kicks up to eleven. There are quite literally thousands of different items to unlock and purchase, so to get them all you will be playing for a long time.

The higher the difficulty, the more 'Diva Points' earned. Easy Difficulty is great for rhythm game beginners, using only a select few button inputs, but only rewards a few 'Diva Points'. Extreme Difficulty, in contrast, offers the most points per song possible, but will twist your fingers and mind fiendishly.

Even beyond the main rhythm game mode, there's also the Diva Rooms, where players can interact with the characters, decorate their rooms, give them items and befriend them - it's almost like a mini inbuilt dating-sim but not quite as creepy. In honesty, I barely touched the Diva Rooms mode as the rhythm game was the main draw, so it's nice to know that they're completely unnecessary, but nice to have anyway if you're into that kind of thing.

There's also an incredibly detailed editing suite that allows you to create your own rhythm game stages and share them online with the community. I've spent some time playing with this, but feel as if I've only scratched the surface, and that's kind of the point that I take away from Project Diva f 2nd. The game is huge and contains more content than has any right to fit on a cartridge the size of my thumbnail, but it's all perfectly suited to playing in short bursts on bus or train journeys. That's not to say you can't whittle away hours on end with Project Diva f 2nd as, believe me, you can, but if you've got literally only five minutes, you'll find the game still rewards that kind of gameplay too.

Naturally, there will be even more content to come in the form of DLC songs and items (there's already tonnes) but there's enough in the main game to keep you going for one heck of a long time as there is.

The thing is, whilst I love Project Diva f 2nd (probably more than any Western 25 year old male should), it is the kind of game that doesn't appeal to everyone. If you're a fan of Japanese music or rhythm games, then this is a no brainer, but if you're on the fence or unsure about it, I'd urge you to at least download the demo from the PSN store and see what you think. If you're fortunate enough to have both a PS3 and PSVita and are unsure as to which version to get, personally I'd go for the Vita one as the game translates perfectly to a portable console and looks every bit as beautiful on the smaller screen - and there's always Playstation TV if you then fancy taking it to the big screen (you can set the Vita to use the analogue sticks for stars too). That said, I was such a fan, that I picked up the PS3 version too (despite also having PSTV) purely to cross-save and watch the videos on a larger HD screen.

8.5

“Finger twisting rhythm craziness!”

The thing is, whilst I love Project Diva f 2nd (probably more than any western 25 year old male should), it is the kind of game that doesn't appeal to everyone. If you're a fan of Japanese music or rhythm games, then this is a no brainer, but if you're on the fence or unsure about it, I'd urge you to at least download the demo from the PSN store and see what you think. If you're fortunate enough to have both a PS3 and PSVita and are unsure as to which version to get, personally I'd go for the Vita one as the game translates perfectly to a portable console and looks every bit as beautiful on the smaller screen - and there's always Playstation TV if you then fancy taking it to the big screen (you can set the Vita to use the analogue sticks for stars too). That said, I was such a fan, that I picked up the PS3 version too (despite also having PSTV) purely to cross-save and watch the videos on a larger HD screen.
Story0%
Gameplay90%
Graphics80%