Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix

Genre: Music-Rhythm

Players: 1

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Review:

The Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series is a long-running series of Music-Rhythm games based on the titular fictional “vocaloid” character (and her small group of vocaloid friends). For those unaware, this is a fictional J-Pop singer voiced with synthesized vocals. While the character has existed in various media since 2007, the various Music-Rhythm games starring her started in 2009 with the first Project DIVA game on the PlayStation Portable, with the series jumping to multiple PlayStation platforms, arcades, and even the 3DS, but Project DIVA Mega Mix marks the series’ first appearance on a Nintendo console. Fittingly, this game acts as something of a tribute to the series, including over 100 songs from throughout the franchise, with only ten of the songs being entirely new.

Visually, Project DIVA Mega Mix is absolutely gorgeous, featuring extremely-detailed subtly cel-shaded anime-style characters with a huge variety of elaborately-designed outfits, as well as elaborate hairstyles with decent physics. In addition, each of the game’s many songs featuring its own music video with its own choreography, scenery, and style. The game offers players the option to watch the songs in a “music video mode”, which is probably just as well, because players will likely want to watch some of these videos without the distraction of the gameplay. I should mention that although the game does allow players to dress up the vocaloids in a variety of outfits they can unlock, it mostly avoids getting too fetishy with it (well, mostly… I do note that it requires more in-game credits to unlock more revealing swimsuit outfits). All told, while I have played quite a lot of music-rhythm games on the Nintendo Switch, this game is thus far absolutely the most technically-impressive in its visuals.

When it comes to the sound… do you like heavily-synthesized J-Pop? Because with this game, you’re gonna’ be getting heavily-synthesized J-Pop, lots of it, and nothing else. Don’t get me wrong, it’s all good quality, and fans of the genre will be thrilled, but there’s a distinct lack of variety here, made even more noticeable by the extremely limited number of “vocalists” on offer. This is pretty much a band-specific Music-Rhythm game, and as such, players not familiar with Hatsune Miku’s “band” of characters would do well to listen to some of their works before buying this game, to make sure they actually like said band.

I also have to give this game lots of credit for giving players access to a wide variety of note sounds to choose from, even selecting individual sounds for each note or allowing the game to choose sounds based on the song. This way, players can customize their experience to better highlight the music.

The gameplay itself, at its core, is fairly standard for the genre – hit the corresponding button in time with that button crossing over its paired cursor, with hold notes, combination notes, and so on. I should mention that this game starts at a pretty challenging difficulty on its easiest mode, and only gets more difficult from there, though thankfully the game gives players multiple indications what note they need to hit when, and players can even change the way notes look to show the button’s letter, direction, or surprisingly even to show PlayStation controller X, O, Triangle, and Square button prompts for those more used to those controls. So while this is a challenging music-rhythm game, it goes out of its way to be fair.

Also surprisingly, Project DIVA Mega Mix has gone out of its way to deliver special Nintendo Switch-exclusive game modes for playing both with motion controls, as well as with the touchscreen. While I found the touchscreen controls to be disappointing (given the way the game normally plays, I was hoping for something akin to Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents-style controls, but instead found it’s largely the same as the game’s normal controls but with on-screen button inputs), the motion controls are kinda’ clever, having players treat each Joy-Con as a joystick of sorts and pressing the trigger button while tilting the Joy-Con at the correct angle. Ultimately, I think I still prefer the traditional game, as this mode requires players to turn their wrists at an awkward angle and caused my thumbs to cramp during some of the more difficult songs, but this mode is still fun and unique, and offers a completely separate challenge from the rest of the game (along with its own separate scores).

In the end, I can’t quite say that Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix is the best Music-Rhythm game on the Nintendo Switch – its song selection alone means it’s going to have a more narrow target audience, and I didn’t quite feel myself slipping into the rhythm like I did with Flyhigh Works’ best entries in the genre. Still, if you enjoy vocaloid music, this game is going to be a pretty fantastic package, and fans of Music-Rhythm games should definitely give it a look.

tl;dr – Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Mega Mix is a Music-Rhythm game with a collection of over 100 songs from throughout the franchise, with a fantastic presentation, loads of unlockable content, and good (but challenging) gameplay. It’s not quite on the same level as some of the best offerings on the Nintendo Switch, and there’s not much variety in the music (just highly-synthesized “vocaloid” J-Pop), but overall this is still a superb entry in the genre.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2020 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Music/Rhythm Game

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