So a few days ago I decided to try out the Vocaloid Miku game “Project Diva” for the PSP. This “rythm” type game lets you play as Hatsune miku in about 32 addiciting stages/songs. There are also dozens of unlockable costumes and other vocaloid characters.

Gameplay:

Before anything… let it be noted that THERE IS NO AUTO SAVE FEATURE! Me and several other’s I have spoken to played for a few hours assuming incorrectly that it saved itself and came back and had to start over from scratch xD

Each stage is a song with a different beat and difficulty ranging from level 1 to 5 where level one will put you to sleep 90% of the time and level 5 will make your brain explode. I frequently found that the level indicators are very misleading; for instance, I still have not gotten past normal mode on the very first stage which is supposedly a level 2 difficulty, but I’ve mastered some five star levels in hard mode. I’ll talk about the level discrepancies later though.

Putting the numbers aside; the game ended up being more difficult than it looked.  I lost three times in easy mode on the first stage and all I could think was “AHHHH! I’m failing while Miku shakes her butt in my face as if to taunt me>.<!!!” The mechanics of the game are easy enough though. A stationary black shape with a timer on it will appear and a moving Colored shape matching that moves in its direction. You press the shape corresponding to your PSP buttons when they touch each other which will match a beat of the song. What makes it more complex is when a few dozen of these shapes are flying around at once and sometimes it is difficult to tell where they are going even. As an example, imagine the popular game Guitar Hero; its would be as if your strings were continually moving all over the stage instead of staying in their designated finger positions. Luckily it USUALLY only uses the X and O button in normal mode, and while Hard mode uses all four shapes, most of the time its just normal mode with the two added shapes, and not really any more difficult. Once you have played a song a few times though the patters will come naturally; this is a game you can feel yourself improve in over time.

The second element that makes this game a little more challenging is the point system. Each time you play a song, depending on your scores you will be awarded with “FAIL,” “Standard,” “Great,” and “Perfect” (which I’ve only achieved once xD). Even if you are easily completing certain stages you might not be getting a high enough score  to get standard or Great which you will need to progress in the game and unlock things. While some stages give ample points, some shorter and slower ones have so few notes you have to get almost perfect.

There are two ways to increase your score, both of which take alot of practice and playing songs over and over again. The most straight forward way is to build up a combo without missing any notes. Once you you can get 50-100 combos it will quickly rack up points, but the second you miss a note, or don’t hit it at the correct timing you have to start the combo all over again. The second, and most important part of the stage is “Chance time.” During this part of the stage you will be given insane amount of points for your combo, Sometimes as much as 1/2 or 1/3 of your total points will be earned in this short period of time, and some stages are impossible to get through unless you perfect it.  Building up combos also frequently unlocks new characters and costumes, so practicing gets you twice the amounts of awards! Even once you’ve practiced enough to be a master at this game, getting Great and Perfect in some stages I’m sure would be a feat.

There are a total of 32 playable songs and 14 bonus songs you can listen to in “Miku’s Room.” You can view the list of songs at this Project Diva Wiki. That site also informs you of all requirements for unlockables too, so if you plan on playing the game it might be handy to book mark.  I’ve never actually been a HUGE miku fan hahaha; but after playing this game I’ve found a whole bunch of songs I want. Here are some of my favorites ^.^

^ Took me less than 10 seconds to lose that my first play through… I was too busy having a seizure from the flashing background. Sometimes the video can be kind of distracting…

^ This song alone makes this game awesome xD (And thats the PV, couldn’t find a vid of someone playing)

While I was very happy with the song selection there are a few things that bothered me. First of all, when you change your character it doesn’t change the voice; as funny as it is seeing male characters singing Miku songs, I’m kind of disappointed that there aren’t more songs for other characters. Both Rin and Ren are given two songs with their voices, But these start off as miku songs so they’re aren’t songs just for them.

Extras:

There are a total of 53 unlockable costumes/characters which can be gained through beating a stage in a certain difficulty settings, getting a certain combo, playing a song a certain number of times and a few other prerequisites. Even after you beat the game I guarantee you will be playing for hours trying to get all of these. My favorite costume so far is Heart Hunter:

My one and only HUGE disappointment with costumes is no Chibi Miku!!! She in the commercial, opening, and a quarter of the songs in the background… but not a playable character TT____TT

In “Miku’s Room” you can listen to all the songs you’ve unlocked while Miku does things like dance, listen to music, and yawn… You also can unlock special furniture and stuff… she seems oddly fascinated by a toy space ship I’ve placed in her room O.o My favorite is a snowman with a leek… not that she’s shown any interest in that. Overall Miku’s room is kind of a waste of time even though there is quite a bit of unlockable content for it.

The last extra of interest is a customizable stage section. You can upload your own songs and make your own stages. Since the menus are still in Japanese and I feel it would be a complex edit system even in English I haven’t succeeded in making my own stage, but here is an example for the curious.

Technically with this the game could go on forever if you want to make your own songs or even download fan made stages from the internet.

Overall:

+ Addicting fun Gameplay
+ Replay Value
+ Tons of Unlockables
+ Lots of songs and characters

- NO AUTO SAVE!!!
- Not enough songs for other characters

If you love Miku or Rhythm games this is a definite get.
I feel there’s probably room for a sequel… since there are tons of Miku songs out there xD
Though I never see this being sold outside of Japan.