I had a fun time with Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix+ from SEGA. It was colorful, musical, and a real treat without much effort. The replayability might be an issue when you reach expert status, but the desire to achieve a better score with more accuracy, while unlocking more songs might overcome the bore that comes with less challenging difficulty. Regardless, it’s a heckuva game.
Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix+ is a J-pop rhythm game, folks. It’s button-pushing at its finest and harkens back to the days of Parappa the Rappa, a PlayStation classic, where pushing the right button at the right time means you have gone with the beat of whatever song is being sung. With over 150+ songs to choose from in Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix+, that is a lot of button-pushing in your future.
If it’s just a button-pushing rhythm game, does that make it less worthy of your time? The good folks at SEGA say no, and I must be honest, I agree with them. To make the gameplay more than just that crux, the game also comes with some dancing AI and some dress-up for those looking for customization. There’s not a helluva lot going on here besides those three things, but there is still enough to chat about.
Let’s dance right to it.
Dancing Queen
Let me first start by saying that this is my first experience with the Hatsune Miku Project series. I have heard about it from afar, but never took the time to sit down with it in the past. Seriously, my only rhythm game that didn’t involve an arrow-driven mat was Parappa the Rappa, which I was terrible at in the old days. Okay, there is that one stage in God of War 3 that requires some button-mashing with music, but I don’t think there is enough music to make that count. Anyway, this is a new series to me, so pardon my ignorance when I say that I enjoyed what the game had to offer, even if the experience was in short stints.
The biggest two gameplay elements that floored me were the controls and the number of songs included in this PC experience. Starting with the former, I had a tough time getting started because I was using an Xbox controller with my PC. The Xbox buttons, at least in the default setting, had their buttons completely backward. For example, when the game called up for me to push ‘B’, I had to push ‘A’ on the controller. I had to essentially memorize my button layout backward, which at times could be confusing. There is probably a setting that allowed me to assign the controller buttons, but I didn’t want to have to do that considering that the Xbox controller is one of the most used controllers on PC. Anyway, identifying the button in my brain, then trading places with the button it’s bound with alphabetically was a pain in the ‘A’ button. I made it work after about six games and never looked back. Of course, ‘looking’ was a big part of the gameplay design.
Hearing the music and matching the button-mashing moments wasn’t as tricky as it felt at first, especially when I nailed down the button order. I think the biggest issue, and this was probably part of the challenge of the game was figuring out which letters were hitting what pads at the right time. The game not only throws the letters out in a non-traditional rhythm game way by pushing them out from all directions instead of one, but it also has them crisscross each other at times, which plays tricks on your eyes because it’s tough to tell at times which letter is coming next. That gameplay design gets tougher as you progress to harder stages of the game but offers up a good challenge with this type of moment and mashing.
And the challenges are what make this game special, at least for a rhythm game. The game features a variety of songs that range from novice to quite difficult. For newbies, like myself, it was essential for the game to take it easy on me for a buy-in. The game offered easy-tiered songs that focused on the main rhythm of whatever J-pop song that was playing. For example, I was hitting ‘B’ more times than any other button during early easy stage songs. Gradually, the songs would gauge how I was doing, and if I was doing well it would throw in a new letter. It never truly was complicated in the easy early songs. I’m impressed with SEGA’s dev team that programmed the A.I. and how it figured out how I was doing and if it should up the difficulty. This type of A.I. interaction is found in good RPGs, where the game looks at your stats and slowly throws more difficult obstacles your way. It’s a great way to get the player adjusted to more challenging stages, as was the case with my experience. It made sense for Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix+’s gameplay design.
When you decide to challenge yourself to a more complex song, and if you choose something with hard rock roots, you’re asking for a complicated button-pushing time, you will see a variety of buttons and thumbsticks come into play – and quickly. Going back to the guitar rock, I went into a song that featured two people with guitars. The song was moving fast, and it was complicated. I was thrown every button combination and watched them fly onto the screen one after another. Then the song decided to throw in a right-left-hard left thumb stick motion, which threw me for a loop. Eventually, I replayed the stages and got used to the pacing. Again, it was nice and gradual, but fun more than frustrating. The challenges of the harder songs made the game more fun for me and got me to replay it just to simply do better. I think I failed once in the game during my review session but varied in scoring achievements that I could probably do much better with going back and replaying.
The only con to replaying music is going back to easy songs. Once you experience more complicated songs, it’s difficult to enjoy slower-paced music. While you can up the challenge, it’s still not as entertaining as the more difficult music. I suspect this is the reason for the 150+ songs in the game. As you progress further and further, more songs are unlocked, and you go up in score and rankings. You will eventually have plenty of music to choose from and challenge yourself with as you get the rhythm going on your controller. The experience will last long with the large library of music to choose from in the game. The replayability of the entire game is understanding and wanting to do better, which the game does encourage you to do as you progress with more difficult music. It’s just difficult to enjoy the slower music when you want it to speed up.
Overall, the gameplay design is simple and easy to pick up, but also difficult to master. Having varying paces and challenging degrees of onscreen button-mashing does make for a good time. The inclusion of dancing characters to visually get in your way as you try to match the letters to their respectively timed spaces also throws a fun wrench into the process. It’s an entertaining overall design and one that I will probably return to when the next iteration arrives in the series.
Customization
I commend the good folks at SEGA for allowing players to customize their singers/dancers for the game. Having the ability to change outfits, hair, glasses, hats, and even make your own t-shirt is awesome. I think that it’s a good reward for the players and it keeps the visuals fresh when the music kicks in. I know people go ga-ga over customizations, otherwise, it wouldn’t be an option in Bethesda games, so this is a big plus for Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix+ because it will certainly personalize the experience for those who enjoy customizing. For me, while I thought it was neat, I didn’t think much about it while playing. My focus was purely on the gameplay. I can see my teenage daughters and my eight-year-old loving the hell out of this option, but that’s really who it is geared towards and that is good enough for me. It will expand the longevity of the title for the younger gamers out there.
Visuals/Audio
The visuals on the PC side of things are probably the best the series has ever seen, as the 3080 I have packed in this PC delivered the smoothest FPS and solid visuals. The visuals will certainly make the anime crowd out there happy as can be, as the graphical presentation didn’t miss one beat (pun intended).
On the music side of the equation, it was pure and beautiful J-pop. You get a variety of different tunes, some heavy on the synth, others heavy on guitars, and vocals that are pleasing to the ears. If you don’t like J-pop, then you’re in for a bad time, but I think everyone secretly enjoys this genre of music.
Conclusion
I had a fun time with Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix+ from SEGA. It was colorful, musical, and a real treat without much effort. The replayability might be an issue when you reach expert status, but the desire to achieve a better score with more accuracy, while unlocking more songs might overcome the bore that comes with less challenging difficulty. Regardless, it’s a heckuva game.
