It’s been a good few days since the release of Love Live! School Idol Festival All-stars Worldwide edition, and I thought I’d give it a little review (since I promised to eventually post reviews on this blog, even if this one stands out…). If you don’t know. I’m a big fan of the love live series and still play the original Love Live! School Idol Festival daily.
Before starting, I should warn that this is purely my opinion and if you think otherwise then that is fine.
Also, I was reading some of the reviews on the app store for it and they don’t really seem to talk much about the gameplay. So that’s what I’ll be focusing on.
To start, the game download size. In the age of increasing phone space, it makes sense to create bigger games, but this game not only has around 1.5gb base but pretty much everything requires a small download. It’s not the worst thing as space isn’t a problem on my phone but maybe some people will have problems with it. If anything, it’s just tedious having to download each time.
Next, the new way of play. The old 9 button tap has been replaced for two buttons. Why you may ask? I don’t know. The two-button tap does similar stuff. It has a hold, a double press and a single press. It does, however, have the new addition of a flick note, requiring you to flick the screen in a certain direction.
I think the biggest problem with this mode, is its limitations. It’s kinda boring. It has very limited options and can’t create the fun and crazy gameplay the old 9 button system could. I guess they wanted to do it to focus on the models and dances so you don’t get distracted from the background, but more on that later.
Another problem is the buttons seem kinda close in some songs. This is probably me being dumb but there were a few times I couldn’t tell what side to press first during quick alternating presses.
As I mentioned, the lack of anything ‘crazy’ makes this game easy, really easy. Even on the hard difficulties, you will never struggle. The only reason you will fail these songs is because of the stamina system.
The stamina system is a thing that basically, every note you tap causes you to lose some life points (stamina), it’s up to you to build and level up your team to have above the recommended stamina and show power. This killed my enjoyment. Even if when you fail you can continue playing, it won’t give you any score or any collectables. To me, this feature seems more in the way than anything else and you should just lose stamina when you mess up a note (but the game is too easy so you’ll never fail which is probably why this system exists).
Moving onto the next point, collectables. To level up your team you need to grind. And you can only grind the songs you can actually beat with your current team. You can get collectables through training but it’s luck based and you can only do so many each day. Each character has a skill tree-like thing where you can unlock costumes and voices which is pretty cool. I’d prefer if you could just use the Gacha system (I think to some extent you can?) but whatever.
Speaking of the gacha system, it is the start of the worldwide release which is why there is nothing. But having split the currencies into “paid” and normal is just dumb. They both are the same currency but you can use the ones you got with real money differently to the ones you get from the story. Why not just make two currencies like most games?
Songs. As mentioned, it’s the start. There aren’t many songs and you won’t even be able to play them without downloading and grinding your team to a higher level. You do have to complete the story to unlock more songs which is the same as the last game but this one starts you with almost no songs.
It’s clear it’s more of an RPG than a rhythm game and that’s fine. I don’t hate the game. It has its moments. So let’s move onto the positives!
It was great seeing all 27 of them together. The opening cinematic was so heart-warming and I had a big dumb smile on my face the whole time.
The 3D models are really well done and cute. The costumes are excellent and the dances are brilliant. The presentation of the game is good, it does have a bit of a weird UI problem but I’ll let it pass. The character stories are great and surprisingly addictive. You just have to fully idolise the best girl (whoever that may be…)
As I said I do think this game is fun. I do like rhythm games a lot but this clearly had a focus on the presentation and story over the rhythm game side of things. So it’s just an RPG (kinda? I guess?)
It does have some features that carry over and does improve some. I do like the 3D dances and the costumes as well as the partner stuff. But I understand that to bring that over to the old one is a ton of work and won’t happen. I’m not asking for it to happen.
Love live is all about the music and the girls, this game has all of that. Fan service is definitely at its peak here and I can’t see it crumbling.
The reason for this review is you don’t see many reviews talking about the gameplay of things. It’s always: “1 star, crashed on load.” or “5 star, love live is the best” it’s never anything helpful.
I will continue to play the game and look forward to future events and updates. Overall it’s not bad just different (which is good)
Ultimately, if you want a rhythm game maybe get the old one. If you want a story or RPG type grind then this is the one for you
7/10
Thanks for reading my review. If you agree that’s cool. If you disagree that’s also cool. It’s an opinion. I have mine you have yours. Don’t go hating people because they don’t like what you want them to like.
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