[VITA] Miracle Girls Festival

To be perfectly honest, I was growing totally weary of the Project Diva series. The earlier games up until F were fun even with those troll songs that were nigh-impossible to clear without using assist items, and they helped me a lot with getting over motion sickness. However, F 2nd took the trolling to a new level, requiring all songs to be cleared to plat, including the deadly ones on Extreme. That was the last straw that broke the alpaca's back. Dropped it and never played X.

Even so, I still wanted something to play that had elements that are completely similar or even just reminiscent of that system. Miracle Girls Festival was just what the doctor ordered: 100% Project Diva style, No troll songs, and has almost all of my favorite characters in one moelicious little package.

Naturally, the first DLCs I bought were for the GochiUsa series. ^_^

MGF has you playing a director of live concert tour. Your stage assistants are the characters from Utagumi 575, who not only work behind the scenes, they will also get some stage time later on. The goal is to drum up an audience count good enough for the tour to be considered a success. To that end, an all-star cast has been assembled to perform in venues that gradually increase in scale, hailing from various animated features notable among otaku fandom. However that would still be insufficient unless the director puts in some effort in song arrangement, costume, and finally the stage effects for the performance proper. If the fans are impressed enough with the show, they may rally for an encore of the song they liked the most, (the full version of it to be precise). This will give the director a big chance to meet the quota for the tour day to end on a high note.

Wake Up Girls! was my first Idol anime, and I owe it to this game for introducing me to the franchise.

I surmise that this game may have served as a testbed for PDX, but built with average gamer reflexes in mind. Hence, no troll songs, no screen scratch. Just cute stage performances with familiar, non-Vocaloid characters (unless you count the 575 girls). In fact, this was my fastest Plat so far, having done every requirement three days after purchase. Of course, I didn't stop there. Up to now I'm still playing MGF, since it's a great time-killer for train rides. I also jam with it using my recently-acquired Vita TV when I'm at home so I don't lose my touch.

My only real complaints with this game are as follows:

*Scant unlockable costumes: Of course, the main reason for this is to get extra income from DLC purchases, which I was willing to do for characters of a familiar franchise. Of course, the lesser the fabrics, the better. Unfortunately, this brings me to my second gripe:

In the original 575 game, I know Sega tried their best not to make it too fan-servicey, but did that factor also have to apply to MGF? The only saving grace is that there's a free Santa Costume set for them, but I still want something with even less fabric... and the only way to get that was if you bought Famitsu's 2016 2/4 issue... *grumbles*

Cordless "Tere"-phone ranks among my least-played songs because Yuka can only wear this frilly number while her real-life self shows more skin.

*Swimsuit DLC for two groups are magazine exclusives and one character can't change costumes at all:  Sometimes these magazine specials can be a pain in the ass, especially if the rags in question are already OOP or the codes have since expired. No-Rin's Kasukabe Yuka (Kinoshita Ringo's idol persona) is stuck with her default idol costume.As Ringo, she at least has the ED swimsuit and the DraQue-spoofed Bikini Armor, but it's just not the same if the peppy version can't try them on.

I was ecstatic to find out that the Nyaruko franchise made the cut, but I wondered at first why Kuko's dedication lines became wall of text. Turns out, her voice actress Miyu Matsuki succumbed to lymphoma before the speech could be recorded. Such a tragedy, since aside from Kuko, I also loved her as Yoshinoya-sensei from Hidamari Sketch.

Other than that, I can still see myself going back to MGF a lot. Going on hiatus with it for a while is inevitable if I get new games, but there are still plenty of things to accomplish. This is perhaps the only PD-style game that I have a chance of getting a "Miracle" (perfect) rank on every song, after all. There are tricky ditties (such as KinMosa's "Your Voice"), but none approaching the troll level of say, Ni-Jigen Dream Fever from F 2nd.

Another first-time title for me is "Arpeggio Of Blue Steel" which was THE main nice boat title for a while until KanColle stole their thunder.

To that end, a new section will be put in the blog to showcase my performance with every song in the game, both TV-size and Full. Don't expect too much, I'm just an average gamer. Better than casual, but not pro level.