There is a music synthesizer called Vocaloid that can replicate singing voices, and in Japan, they’ve created characters to go along with those voices.  Probably the most popular of those characters is Hatsune Miku, an anime styled girl character with long blue pigtails.  Pretty neat character designs on these Vocaloids, really.  And now you can play a game where you help Miku and her friends play music, perform in band groups, and help others in this free-to-play mobile title (reviewed on iPad here).

When you start, you’ll view a little story segment and pick out which answers best suit your personality.  Not sure why you do that, but then you have to let the rest of the game load for a really long time, and then you can pick a group to be in.  Not sure why you do that either.  When you can finally play the game, you can sift through a menu to play songs, shop for new music, change groups, and view story sections you’ve unlocked.  Luckily you don’t have to view the story sections, as that sort of thing really didn’t interest me, but you do have to play songs to unlock new parts of the story.

The songs are the meat of the gameplay, and feature the Vocaloid characters singing and performing.  You’ll see bars scroll down and when they hit a line, you must tap on the screen where they are.  It’s very similar to something like Guitar Hero.  Sometimes you must also hold and release, or swipe up as the bars go by.  You can pick different difficulties and level up your characters.  Although I could get nothing better than a C rating no matter how well I did.

The game didn’t keep me interested for very long, but that doesn’t mean the game is bad.  I’m just not a big fan of Vocaloid music.  The game has lots of animations in the music sections, and the story parts are fully voiced (in Japanese of course).  In mobile game reviews, people throw around the term ‘console quality’ and that certainly applies here.  Fans of Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloid characters and music should definitely try this out.

Kid Factor:

Nothing violent or too objectionable here.  Some of the female Vocaloid characters wear somewhat revealing outfits, but that’s about it.  Reading skill is needed for the text, and parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews