Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X is the 3rd in the Project DIVA series and the first for PS4. It was also released on PlayStation Vita but the game only features cross-save. It is the tenth game in the Hatsune Miku franchise of rhythm games based on Vocaloids.
The rhythm gameplay remains the same as previous games. You press the face buttons or D-pad (they're interchangeable) in time with the button prompts onscreen, which is usually in rhythm with the music. The beatmaps on harder difficulties are more in line with the music and a lot more fun. In addition, you can flick the analogue stick or swipe the touchscreen when a Star button prompt appears, hold notes and a new input in this game is the "Rush" button, where you just mash a single button.
While playing the songs, in the background, the characters will be dancing on a stage with lots of lights and frequently changing camera angles. It is designed to distract you but that's part of the charm. Button prompts fly in from edges of the screen and while it may look crazy if you watch a video, when you actually play the game, it's easy to follow.
There are Technical Sections during songs where completing it with no errors will give you bonus points. Plus, there's a Change Time section where you get the change to earn a new Module (i.e. costume) upon successful completion. The aim of the game is to get a high score, you get graded on each button prompt being from best to worst: Cool, Good, Safe, Bad and Miss.
For the first time, the game packs in a story mode, even though it's really basic and simple. The digital divas, Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Len, Kagamine Ren, Megurine Luka, Kaito and Meiko, have to perform in order to save each Cloud, whose Prism has been depleting and is appearing dull. By performing in events and gaining Voltage (based on the high scores from the results), it can shine again. You get dialogue in a visual novel type format after each song, and while it seems novel at first, it wears out fast and you just want to get to the next song.
There is a ton of grinding just to finish the story. Sega heavily padded out the game this time around to its detriment and makes the reduced amount of content even more noticeable. You need to play each song on average 7-10 times in order to unlock the final event in story mode. This leads to one of the most glaring flaw of the game. For all its additions, Project DIVA X removes a lot of things as well. Gone are the in-game shop and Diva Rooms. Instead, you gain items to give as gifts to the Vocaloids randomly after every song. You give these gifts to see special events although this is optional and only really required for completionists or Trophy hunters.
Modules (in-game costumes) and accessories are also randomly obtained after playing through songs. There are a lot of modules and accessories in the game, nearly 300 in fact, and thus you will be repeating songs again and again and hope that the RNG lands in your favour. That is the biggest annoyance and frustration of X: the sheer reliance on randomness in order to pad out the game. It is disgusting and should not have been implemented so heavily into the series, you could be playing 10 songs and nothing new pops up because of a string of bad luck, and that means more than an hour wasted considering a song takes 3-5 minutes to finish.
The RNG is the single most problematic aspect of the game and the worst decision that Sega could have made. It totally ruined the game for people who wanted to complete everything and putting them at the mercy of luck. It's one thing forcing players to grind to get points to buy everything from an in-game shop; it's entirely a different thing when you force players to grind for a chance to unlock something they need. The fact that everything is put behind the RNG wall makes it infuriating to play. It puts a sour note on everything.
The song list is the most important aspect of rhythm games and while of course it depends on your tastes, Project DIVA X disappoints in this aspect as there are nearly no songs that are instantly catchy or likable. There are only 24 full songs, plus another 6 "Medleys", which combine 3-5 additional songs into one playthrough. You cannot play the full versions of the songs that comprise the Medleys. Considering the previous games had around 40 songs, this is a big step backwards, doubly so with the poorer song quality.
Thanks to the focus on "live performances", the PVs of each song are a lot more boring. Gone are the unique scenes that are designed to fit with the lyrics of the song. All of the songs play on a stage background and the characters are just dancing around. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all.
There are four difficulties: Easy, Normal, Hard and Extreme. You being with only access to Easy and Normal and you need to clear all songs at least once before you unlock Hard and Extreme. This is a shame since Easy and Normal are quite boring and it is only on Hard, where the beatmaps align much more closely to the music, and gets addictively fun and the "one more time" mentality comes into play. Extreme gets crazy with the multiple overlapping button prompts in quick succession; it requires a lot of practice. Higher difficulty gives you more items... but only if you do well.
Some songs on Extreme gets cheap on difficulty where they vary the speed at which notes come without warning, overlap multiple notes on the same button prompt onscreen, or putting the prompts right at the edge of the screen and having them come at speed leaving next to no time to react. All this means that you have to play the same song again and again and again in order to memorize what happens, which is not skill but just memorization.
The hardest song, which is a compilation of the hardest songs from previous games, is a nightmare for people who are not proficient. It will seem impossible, and it is frustrating that you have to play it since it forms one of the game's requests and required to unlock specific items. It just feels so cheap, requiring heaps and heaps of practice, making it not fun at all. However, it is fairly lenient since you can still pass with plenty of mistakes, and you feel a sense of satisfaction that you managed to pass it.
The Diva Rooms were already boring in previous Project DIVA games so there isn't much loss with them removed. However, as the affection system remains, it takes the cake here by making it another grindfest to hope that you get the items you need, and then put you through 10 levels of "friendship" by giving gifts that barely raise the meter.
The other mode is Free Play which you select any song to play. The difference being this and story mode is how the points are calculated. In story mode, you get multipliers depending on what you wear and how well you do, while Free Play has no multipliers. This makes Free Play harder to pass, which isn't a problem except for the harder Extreme songs.
Overall, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X feels experimental and easily the worst Project DIVA game. The RNG element is pure hell for completionists, severely padding out the game. The game has a massive case of lack of content, with poor quality songs. The game mechanics are still fun but everything else ruins it. Save your money for one of the other Project DIVA games or better yet, get Future Tone instead, which has 200+ songs and no excessive RNG.
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