Digital pop star, Hatsune Miku, and her other Vocaloid friends, are taking to the stage for another round of singing and dancing in Project DIVA X. However, this time around, our singing has another purpose. We’re introduced to five clouds that divide the world. Each cloud has an aura that defines the style of music played there: Classic, Cute, Cool, Elegant, and Quirky. The clouds have fallen dark because the singers have been unable to sing. Now that you, the player, have arrived, your job is to assist the singers and help them sing and restore the clouds’ energy.

This ultimately still plays like the other Project DIVA games, but with the added element of story. The Vocaloids can’t sing without you controlling them. So, choose a song and assume the role of Hatsune Miku or any of the other singers and tap the buttons to the rhythm of the music. Initially, you will have to perform cloud requests, where you choose a cloud and play the songs within it. In this mode, your score counts as “voltage” which will fill the cloud prism and restore energy to the cloud. After restoring one cloud, you have the option to open a new cloud and cannot open another one until you complete the one you’ve chosen. Does any of this make sense? Not really, but if anything, it adds to the charm.

All of the songs are very catchy and enjoyable, even for someone who isn’t exactly a J-Pop fan. There wasn’t one song that was a bore or unpleasant. However, if you really hate J-Pop, then you’ll probably find it obvious to take a pass on this series. For those unfamiliar, the core gameplay involves you choosing a song to perform and tapping buttons to the proper timing. Targets that resemble the face buttons will appear on screen and matching symbols float across the screen to overlap said targets. Listen to the music and press the buttons as they overlap to the beat. The better you do this, the better your score will be and will determine whether you pass or fail. It starts off pretty easy, but can get really crazy on the harder difficulties.
The higher the difficulty, the more buttons and taps per minute it throws in. All difficulties make use of the face buttons, stars which require you to flick the stick, and arrows which require you to press the face button and direction on the d-pad at the same time. While easy mode uses only the circle button for those getting used to the game, and normal mode only two buttons, Hard and Extreme difficulties makes use of all buttons in elaborate patterns that only veteran rhythm game players can comprehend.

The addition of clouds somewhat takes away from the feeling of variety, as you are required to play songs of the same style all in a row until you can move onto the next cloud, where you will play songs of that style. As opposed to simply having a list of songs to choose from and unlocking more to the list as you complete them. Some may find it more coherent this way, feeling more like themed concerts. It really comes down to the preference of the player whether or not you will like this. Clouds have only five songs each, so it doesn’t take very long to complete them. In the beginning, songs in the clouds are available only on Easy or Normal. After completing a song in a cloud, it’s added to the Free Play list where you can play on any difficulty.

There are a ton of collectibles to unlock in Cloud Requests. Ranging from artwork to items, gifts, accessories, and costumes. Much of this is stuff only completions will care about, but costumes and accessories have an effect in game that you will want to take advantage of. Since clouds have an aura that defines the style of music within them, modules and accessories also have auras. While playing a song in Cloud Requests, a chance time will occur and if you play well enough during it, you will unlock a module and add it to your collection.
When choosing a song to play, you can choose a module and accessories that will boost your voltage, making the song that much easier to complete. Choosing costumes and accessories that match the aura of the song will inherently have a boost, but combining certain accessories will give you an additional boost. There’s a lot of different combinations to try out and you could end up spending a lot of time seeing what kind of bonuses you can get and maximize your voltage. It is pretty cool to see costumes having a real effect in the game and not purely cosmetic. They do not, however, have an effect in Free Play as their is no way to boost your score there.

Friendships return in Project DIVA X. Giving a vocaloid a gift they like will improve your relationship. Higher friendship levels increase your voltage while doing cloud requests. Sometimes after a cloud request, a vocaloid will confront you, hinting that they want something. If you give them what they want, you will get a big boost to your relationship. It’s usually pretty obvious what they want, but if you get thrown off guard and give them the wrong thing, you’ll lose a big chunk of progress. Giving gifts normally can result in cute little cutscenes. Only certain items do this and the cutscenes will be added to your collection as you unlock them, really piling up the amount of things you can collect.

There are also many cutscenes in Cloud Request mode, consisting mostly of dialogue. They occur after every song and aren’t especially captivating, but they are fun nonetheless. The vocaloids will often ask for your advice. Your answer doesn’t appear to have much impact, just changing some of the dialogue the occurs immediately afterwards. While it doesn’t really add much, it can make you feel a little more involved with the characters.

Unlike previous Project DIVA games, the game allows you to choose any singer for any song. You want to play a song originally sung by Miku, but you’d like to play as Luka? You can. Or you’d rather see Kaito up on stage? You can do that. The voices don’t change though, so it make look odd at times, but it is a nice feature. Free play gives you an option for the recommended set on each song, choosing the character and costume for you if you’d just like the music video to appear as originally intended. That’s always a welcome feature.

The music videos that play in the background are always a spectacle. Dances are excellently choreographed and backgrounds perfectly fit the mood of each song with great attention to detail. They don’t quite reach the fantastical level many of the songs in Project DIVA F 2nd did, but they’re great in their own right. The backgrounds can be very distracting at times, and can make it hard to keep up with all the button presses. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as it goes to show how much is really going on. Listening to the music can keep you on track, even if you feel like you can’t properly see all the notes, which is really a good sign of a good rhythm game.

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X really nails all the points that count. The music is incredibly catchy and will play in your head for days to remind you that you want to keep playing. Everything else about the game is amusing and colorful and screams fun with sugary visuals that border on sensory overload.