Sega's Project Diva series is among the best in rhythm gaming. The long-running series has a track record of greatness, with numerous entries since its PSP debut. Its unique blend of hit Vocaloid songs, flashy animations, and novel mechanics have carried the series through numerous fantastic entries - all of which I've put dozens of hours into.
Naturally, I was excited for Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix when it was revealed last year. In fact, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:it was one of the first things I wrote about for TheGamer. The prospect of a portable Project Diva game that wasn't tied to the Vita sounded promising, and after the stellar Future Tone, I was convinced that MegaMix would prove to be an even more polished title.
Alas, the final game is a bit of a mixed bag. Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix is perfectly fine for newcomers, but longtime fans won't find much new here.
Pay To Play
The immediate gut-punch, right out the gate, is that MegaMix will launch with 36 songs locked behind DLC. The base game has 101 songs, which is nothing to sneeze at, but launching with content locked behind a paywall is a bad look. Future Tone had a similarly strange release, in that the title was essentially split in half and released in two $20-ish packages, but that was a bit more palatable with over 200 songs. $40 USD for 101 songs with $20 DLC, in comparison, seems like a step back. It's still a decent value, but honestly, it would've been nice to just have it cost $60 and come with everything.
That said, the tracklist on this thing is pretty solid. Plenty of personal favorites are in the base game, from "LOL - Lots of Laugh" to "Hello, Worker" to "Luka Luka Night Fever," as well as smash hits like "The World Is Mine." If you were assembling a list of the best Vocaloid songs, most of them would be featured in this base game. That said, other beloved hits like "Kokoro," "Summer Idol," "Knife," "Rin-Chan Now!" and "Clover Club" are locked behind that DLC. It's a bit of a bummer, and honestly, it feels kind of scummy. These are fan favorites, and it almost feels deliberate to gate them off behind DLC.
Same As It Ever Was
If you've played Project Diva, you know what you're getting into here. Button prompts swirl every which way during songs, flying towards miniature timers that you hit in sequence to the music. This is the same mechanic that every game has been refining since the PSP, and it still works just as well as ever.
What really impresses me this time around, though, are the customization options for those prompts. As the face buttons and D-Pad are used interchangeably, you can kit out every single prompt to be something different. You can even make them PlayStation buttons, if you so choose. Not only that, but you can reconfigure every single control to your liking in this thing, and for the sake of accessibility, that's pretty good on Sega.
Flail To The Music
What's not good on Sega is the inclusion of Mix Mode, a new mode that throws its initial promise straight into the dumpster at higher difficulty levels. Best described as a motion-controlled riff on Guitar Hero and DJMAX, the mode tasks players with using the JoyCons' motion sensors to guide paddles to the corresponding on-screen prompts.
There's potential for this mode, to be sure. I love motion control gimmicks and I love rhythm games - what could go wrong? Uh, tur⛄ns out, quite 🏅a lot.
Just how awful it feels to play Mix Mode is difficult to describe until it's actually in your hands. At lower difficulty levels, it's totally fine, and even fun in short bursts. But when you crank that difficulty up, you're in for a bad time. The layout of the button prompts gets straight-up inscrutable, and the finicky nature of the gyroscope controls becomes readily apparent when the paddles refuse to sync with your movements.
For a franchise that I consider to be one of the most reliable when it comes to input accuracy, this mode feels like an afterthought tacked on for the Switch. It's fine for a few easy songs, but it's a sorry replacement for the core game.
A Half-Step
Ultimately, MegaMix is a strange bag. It's definitely something I'll play more of throughout the year - the convenience of picking up my Switch and playing a few songs can't be overstated. But as far as this series is concerned, it's lacking in major innovations for long-time fans. A bad motion control mode and the ability to make custom t-shirts just wasn't the type of iteration on these games I wanted to see, and locking some of the best tracks behind DLC is straight-up baffling. This series is capable of soaring heights like the aforementioned Future Tone and the astounding Project Mirai DX spin-off, and frankly, MegaMix just doesn't come close to those.
I'd definitely recommend Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix to newcomers and would recommend it to fans looking for a new portable experience. But if you've got access to a PlayStation 4 and don't care about portability, you're still better off picking up Future Tone.
A Switch copy of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix was provided to TheGamer for this review. Hatsune Miku: Project Diva MegaMix is available now for Nintendo Switch.
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix
- Released
- May 15, 2020
