Hatsune Miku: Primer

With the run up to Niche X, it's all been a little quiet here on the blog, but we do have some content coming!

In preparation, here's a beginners guide to Hatsune Miku and the Project Diva games, you may need it.

The main gameplay involves targets appearing across the screen, usually in a pattern that helps discern the rhythm, and then button prompts fly in and you have to hit the corresponding button as it passes the target in time with the music. There’s also a few star-shaped notes that you need to swipe either with touch or thumbsticks. Songs also feature two special sections; Technical sections require you to hit every note for a hefty score bonus, Chance Time sections require you to hit enough prompts to charge a star shaped gauge, hit the final star target in the sequence with a full gauge and in most games you trigger an event and some extra points. It's pretty engaging and well designed rhythm gameplay and the difficulty scales nicely so that on Easy you only have to worry about one button (not nearly as boring as it sounds) but on extreme symbols fly thick and fast in all four varieties plus some requiring hitting two buttons at once.

Each and every song is performed by Vocaloids, a kind of Virtual Japanese Idol built around some fancy voice synth technology that can create whole words from a bank of recorded phonetic sounds and turn that into singing. It's then up to some very talented producers to create professional quality songs using these tools. It’s very Niche, very Japanese and I find it fascinating. It helps that these virtual voices are attached to actual characters. Miku herself is the quintessential Japanese Idol, a manufactured super cute diva. In the games you'll see her star alongside other vocaloids; KAITO, MEIKO, Rin, Len and Luka

With the rising popularity of vocaloid popstars (Miku in particular) several games have already been released under Project Diva for PlayStation platforms and Project Mirai for Nintendo 3DS. You might also spot collectable Nendroid and Pop figures of these "Piapro“ characters – created by Crypton Future Media, the developer of the voice tech. If you’ve ever seen a cosplayer with long green hair and not been able to place the character, chances are it’s Miku in one of her many costumes (referred to as modules in game). It's clear a lot of effort has been put into giving these characters personality and style.

Intrigued? Feel free to ask any questions and get involved in the conversation or check out our other Miku content.