Although I doubt she will be overtaking Sonic the Hedgehog as their mascot anytime soon, Hatsune Miku and her respective line of rhythm-oriented video games seem to have been a big success for SEGA in western markets. It was a big surprise in 2013 when the company opted to localise Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F on the PlayStation 3, and the company has continued to provide new instalments on an annual basis at least (F 2nd in 2014, Project Mirai DX in 2015 and X in 2016). Leaving little time in 2017 before offering something new, SEGA have recently released the digital-exclusive Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone exclusively on the PlayStation 4.
You might be left thinking that SEGA have shafted the game slightly, considering that all previous games have received a physical release. Although it is nice to have a physical copy of any game… I can see why they opted to take this approach. Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Future Tone by itself is available as a free download, although only contains two songs and a handful of modules to dress the character’s up in. To take full advantage of this game, you will require at least one of the two add-on packs, which come in at $44.95 AUD each – Future Sound and Colorful Tone. With both packs, you will have approximately 220 songs available to play through and hundreds of modules and accessories to purchase with in-game currency (or completely unlock with DLC priced at $19.45 AUD) – a lot more content than what has been offered in any individual standalone game.
Earlier Project Diva games in the Hatsune Miku series have offered a few sweeteners with each title – such as a simple storyline on occasion or a system where you can decorate a room for each character and give them gifts. The same is not true for Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone, with the focus almost exclusively being on playing through the range of songs on offer. As this was the main draw in past games to me, it wasn’t a huge issue losing the other add-ons. At least at first. Although not a major issue, this does mean you are left with little to break up lengthy sessions of rhythm gameplay with. Whether it involved seeing the Vocaloids go about their daily lives or even try to put together your own rhythm routine (albeit never being that easy to do so), there isn’t much in-game to offer a short mental reprieve after tackling a challenging song on a high difficulty. Often after 30 minutes to an hour I just found myself just closing the game and playing something different due to this.
The gameplay has received a few changes since its last outing on the PlayStation 4, however more or less remains similar to before. Each song will see players doing a combination of button presses in time with the song’s beat, corresponding to button symbols which appear on-screen. Most often you will be required to press one of the four main buttons – X, O, □ and △, although use of the directional buttons and thumbsticks is routinely required, especially on higher difficulty settings. On the note of difficulty settings, from my perspective the difficulty has been ramped up considerably, even on songs which have been released on home video consoles prior. Especially if you are less experienced with rhythm games, I would go into this game expecting to slowly work your way up to higher difficulty settings. At least with this level of challenge, difficulty settings do not determine which modules or songs you unlock.
As mentioned earlier, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone is split up into two song packs – Future Sound and Colorful Tone. While additional packs are set to be released as downloadable content at a later date, each pack offers a substantial amount of content. The first, and my personal favourite pack, is Future Sound, a compilation of songs which are primarily sourced from the Project DIVA games. Quite a few of these should be familiar to fans of the earlier western releases, although as stated previously, I wouldn’t approach these expecting the same level of difficulty as before. The second pack is Colorful Tone, offering songs from both Project Mirai and the Hatsune Miku arcade releases – the latter of which has quite a few songs debuting on western consoles for the first time. With 200+ songs and 300+ modules/accessories shared between these packs, expect many hours of gameplay between them. Of course, longevity will to some degree depend on your personal preference in music.
Many of the songs across both packs are performed by Hatsune Miku, however there is still a good assortment of tracks which feature vocals by Kagamine Rin, Kagamine Len, Megurine Luka, Kaito or Meiko. There are even a few tracks which don’t lock you to one set of audio, instead allowing you to choose between different character vocals. As with previous Hatsune Miku games, you are given the freedom to change characters to visually perform a song, but this alone won’t change vocals.
On the note of modules, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone offers a great choice of options across its two packs. Unless you decide to pay for a bonus piece of DLC which unlocks everything straight up, you will need to unlock all the accessories/costumes using in-game currency, which for the most part isn’t too expensive. Two or three songs will unlock you a good costume and a decent assortment of accessories for that outfit – although unlocking everything may come down to grinding. Many outfits from past Hatsune Miku games make a return, although there are also outfits based on SEGA franchises which may appeal to some. Although while you can dress up Hatsune Miku to be reminiscent of Ulala from Space Channel 5 for example, there is no Mexican Flyer song to complement it.
Like previous releases, Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone is not a game which will present you with a static screen as music plays in the background. Each song has its own music video, complete with stylised environment and choreography. This comes with both a very big positive and noticeable weakness. The positive is that every element from the graphical quality to the uniqueness of each clip stands out – and in a way, it feels like you are paying money for the visuals just as much as the music. A noticeable negative however, as with past games, is that the visuals tend to be very distracting when you are trying to tackle a difficult song. All songs, irrespective of when they first debuted to audiences, maintains a consistent art and well-detailed art style, which in my opinion suits the hardware it is played on.
Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone is a no-frills compilation, which highlights a lot of what the Hatsune Miku games have managed to both deliver and accomplish to date. As we are well into the current generation of video game platforms as well, this is a great way of enjoying what was once offered on the PlayStation 3, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation Portable (in Japan), Arcades (in Japan) and PlayStation Vita in high definition, without needing to wait for a trickle of high definition ports or previous songs made available slowly as DLC. Just two decently priced packs at launch… and you have access to a wealth of songs. Can’t complain in that regard.
A review copy of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future tone and its two major song packs was provided by SEGA for the purpose of this review.
