Hatsune Miku Diva F
Hatsune Miku was created by Crypton Media, a vocaloid company in Japan and her video games are rhythm-based games co-developed by SEGA. You could play any Hatsune Miku game without having to play any of the previous releases as there is no story to follow.
Hatsune Miku, while she isn’t the first vocaloid, she was the one who truly made the genre extremely popular in the anime community and she is considered by all of her fans to be the queen of the entire world. Outside of the community, it’s a very niche thing in the western world and most people would have no idea who she is and would especially be weirded out that she’s not a real life 3D singer.
(BAKA BAKA BAKA!)
Hatsune Miku has made appearances in many commercials in Japan and also has had cameos in many anime. Her popularity has also helped pave way for other vocaloids and virtual reality type idols like Projekt Melody ,Kizuna A.I, Luka, Kasane Teto and Akita Neru. Kaito and Meku were the first vocaloids to be created, and as time went by, more vocaloid programs were introduced for doujinshi and professional music producers to use.
Nico Nico Douga also played a part of its growing popularity in Japan through many music remixes and original songs created. Her universally beloved cover Levan Polka is used as a tutorial to get familiarized with the game.
(Totally not at all spoiled)
To start off the user interface and the control system were very easy to learn and understand and the options were very detailed. You could choose the level of difficulty of the song you want to play. If you choose easy, you only have to press the circle and the thumbstick. Each song has a BGM rating meaning that the notes will come either slow or fast. The challenge level is pretty fair and all you have to do is fill the meter in to score the highest points. You could play as Hatsune Miku or other vocaloids like Keito, The Kagamine twins, Meku and Megurine Luka.
The PS3 version adds in 6 new songs that were not included in the PSVita. Many of Hatsune Miku’s most popular songs especially Romeo and Cinderella and of course World Is Mine appear in the game. Senbonzakura, produced by White Flame eventually was covered by Wagakiki and both versions are best described in one word, Legendary. It is also the final song in the game and also serves as a tribute to Japan and to Otaku culture.
You can choose Hatsume’s costumes and accessories and it's not a Hatsune Miku project without her changing an outfit every few seconds. After you complete a song, you can get diva points if you scored high points.There isn’t any story to go through in the game and the only way you could really “beat” it is to play through all the songs. You unlock songs after completing each song and also new module outfits depending on how well you did. More outfits were included in the PS3 version.
The gameplay is simple: all you need to do is press the buttons at the right time and certain parts are dedicated to accumulating a boost in score. Technical score was added and the main goal is to score as much combos by pressing the buttons at the right time to earn maximum points. There is the Diva room now and it is a pretty interesting feature where you could play and interact with your vocaloids and decorate their rooms. You can play with the vocaloids and pet them and they will also interact with other vocaloids too. If you set your birthday you will get a special happy birthday message from Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Len.
(Basic gameplay of Hatsune Miku)
The graphics and futuristic visual style really looked very appealing. The animation is really on another level of high quality the way the vocaloids dance and the backdrops for the music videos are really amazing. I really love the art direction and the character designs and every single module looked very impressive. The visual expressions of the vocaloids are much more expressive on the PS3 hardware and that goes for the graphics and animation.
The visuals were great but with so many things happening on screen, you could get distracted quite easily. Real time lighting was added and it was very well done with the backdrops of the videos.
Theres a augmented reality mode and this was before the Playstation started working on virtual reality where a life sized vocaloid appears and you photograph them in various poses and change the scene backgrounds. In addition, you can use the new Augmented Reality feature to make AR "Live concerts" by displaying a "Life-size" character dancing to one of four exclusive songs. These aren't playable in Rhythm Game Mode. Three of them are from the first -Project DIVA- game. The songs in this mode are not playable and are only available in AR mode in -Project DIVA- f
Live Stage/AR Live Mode have songs that are not playable (despite some of them having playable PVs) and are only available in Live Stage Mode in -Project DIVA
I really don’t have any complaints about the game and I had a really great time with Hatsune Miku. It was a lot of fun and very entertaining.
(2020 has given this song a whole new meaning)
It gets 5 out of 5 stars.
Vocaloids/virtual girls have made a very big impact in the anime community.
The idea of a shy girl who wants to be a musician and uses vocaloid as a way to express herself would be really awesome as an anime series.
Going off topic for a bit, there are actually people who marry Hatsune Miku through the virtual wife product and yeah I’m not going to be commenting about that other than just simply to each their own.
Eventually they are going to evolve to be more human like and instead of just being hologram projections, they will be interacting with their fans and the virtual girl industry of Japan is really going to reach new heights of popularity.
(I have two trading cards and two games of this guys bride and, otakus around the world has had a love affair with her)