Superbeat: Xonic is a rhythm game developed by a Korean studio, therefore the song variety includes Korean, Japanese but mostly being English lyrics or even no lyrics. Superbeat doesn't fluff around, the core gameplay is rhythm and this is what you'll get. You will press buttons in time with the onscreen prompts which coincide with the beats of a piece of music. There is also a touchscreen play style which is more intuitive but not recommended as the higher difficulties will be near impossible to beat using this play scheme. The UI is similar to how Persona 4 Dancing All Night was presented in that the prompts come out from the centre in one of six segments each corresponding to the three buttons from either the d-pad or the face buttons.
The game is hard because unlike Dancing All Night, the prompts do not take the form of the buttons. The prompts are either blue or green rectangles which are confusing. It takes a while to get used to and you will need to keep playing in order to train yourself to be able to respond to the prompts at a split second's notice. Superbeat has a poor tutorial mode that skims over very quickly on how to play the game. It is not even interactive as it is a video so you can't read it at your own pace. It will take more than a few songs before you get the hang of things and know what to do.
Most of the songs are fairly short at between 1-3 minutes long. There are a total of 59 playable songs which is heaps of variety. Some of the songs are great but it is a shame that you don't get to listen to a longer version if you like one. There is a World Tour mode where you play a set of three challenges per destination. These are normal songs but with specific missions such as not missing any notes, getting a perfect score or dealing with handicaps like notes fading out. The first three destinations are easy enough with a few tries but then the difficulty spikes up and Superbeat ends up becoming brutal and frustrating. This carries over to the Stage Mode where you can select songs on each difficulty.
The problem with the game is that the button prompts are unintuitive and it takes a long time to get the muscle memory required, especially if you're used to the Hatsune Miku games. On the higher difficulties, the game ends up using the same green button prompts for the top and bottom buttons making it hard to distinguish when at high speed. The color coding should have at least coincided with the well-known colors of PlayStation to help ease newcomers. As it is, Superbeat gets too hard too quickly that it makes players want to give up.
During the game, you can't slow down prompts otherwise too many are onscreen at the same time but you can't speed it up fast enough as it will become too fast and hard to decipher which button to press on the fly before you miss it. Once you miss a prompt, good luck trying to get your rhythm back on some of the faster songs. The sheer number of notes flying towards you in some of the songs makes it disheartening. You will definitely feel like giving up at times midway through a song.
The other annoying thing about the game is the frequency of the usage of the analogue stick. The buttons are fine but when the analogue stick button prompts are up or down, and comes flying as frequently as the physical buttons but being way more annoying to do quickly due to how the Vita is held, it becomes another frustrating element. That said, it is satisfying when you manage to pass a level and get into the groove but the excessive repetitiveness of restarting the same song again and again and again can cause a huge amount of rage and feels unfair. There's only so much replaying the same song to get really good at it a player can take, yet that is exactly what the developers want you to do.
The loading times are noticeable but only because the whole screen blacks out and the background music stops playing. One annoying thing is that the game sends you back to the title screen once you clear a stage. You would have thought if you were in a particular mode, you would want to keep playing other challenges in that mode after finishing one... There are some minor glitches, the most major of which is when you select one song, the game ends up selecting the one to the left. This happens whether you're using the buttons or the touch controls. Be sure to download all updates otherwise songs won't unlock properly.
There is a leveling system so players can feel a sense of progression. There are 99 levels and you earn experience points each time you finish a song. The harder than song and the higher the difficulty, the more experience points you earn. You will also be able to unlock Sound Bites and DJ Icons. Sound Bites are the sounds it makes when you hit a button prompt. DJ Icons are more like avatars but they have additional effects such as protecting you from missing a number of notes, or increase experience earned. Overall, Superbeat: Xonic is a difficult game. This isn't to say you can't have fun with it as it is still heaps and heaps of fun. It will take a bit of time to get used to but you will notice your skills improving. For fans of rhythm games, Superbeat: Xonic is a must-buy, packing heaps of content and challenges to whittle your hours away.
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