Project DIVA Arcade Location Test in Singapore – A Fan’s Personal Experience

Project DIVA Arcade machine over at Zone X AMK Hub in Singapore

Yes, the Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Arcade location test was available here in Singapore for about three weeks and I was fortunate enough to try it out and experience the game as a Vocaloid fan. Read on for more information with images of the machine and gameplay~

Playing the song "Electric Angel" on Hard difficulty level

There was one machine over to Singapore for the location test and three major arcades here took turns of about one week each to have the machine at one of their outlets, namely: Timezone (Causeway Point), Virtualand (Bugis) and Zone X (AMK Hub). As there was only one machine all players would need to wait for their turns in order to play the game, which costs 2 SGD (About 1.5 USD) per game for two songs (lasting about 10 minutes per game) and 3 SGD (~2.3 USD) for a new IC card. However if you fail the first stage then it’s game over for you.

More of "Electric Angel"~

In terms of graphics we were not disappointed as the game is projected in high definition (HD) graphics (comparable to playing it in PS3 on a widescreen LCD). It’s truly enjoyable when you can clearly see the details of your favorite Vocaloid characters singing and dancing to the songs. =D Just in case if anyone is wondering the machine is actually designed by Tripshots, who’s well known for the 3DPV Miku song “Nebula“.

Gameplay-wise it’s somewhat like Project DIVA 2nd without the direction pad, but with more songs (mainly Miku with a few Luka songs and one Rin song). And the gameplay video changes for some songs on different difficulty levels. As for the modules (costs ranging from 50 Vocaloid Points for regular ones to 1000 Vocaloid points for the swimwear versions) it’s pretty much what you can expect from the first Project DIVA, although there’s the Miku Append module (300 Vocaloid Points) included for those interested in getting her.

DT playing Project DIVA Arcade

Clearing a song will generally earn you about 2~10 points depending on the difficulty of the song played (Easy/Normal/Hard/Extreme) and the grade you obtained at the end of playing the song (MissXTake/Standard/Great/Perfect). And if you feel you can pass a song comfortably you can touch on the “challenge” system located at the bottom left hand corner of the screen to earn more Vocaloid Points. First time failing/clearing the challenge would get you -5/+5, second try gets you -10/+15 and the final try requires you to get perfect, but you will be rewarded with 60 Vocaloid Points (or -30 VP should you fail) if you can achieve that.

There’s also the leveling up system in the game as well, generally you will gain a level for every two unique songs played, unless it’s a song which you have played/cleared before on the same difficulty level (for example if you cleared Shoushitsu on Normal in the first stage and then passed Shoushitsu on Hard in the final stage then you would gain one level, playing the song again on Normal or Hard would earn you little to no experience at all). So it’s either you keep playing different songs on various difficulty levels to level up quickly or play the same songs again (together with the challenge system) to earn more points and get the modules faster.

All the players were given a survey form asking them about whether they know about Project DIVA, do they enjoy the gameplay, how frequent do they visit the arcades and so on. Judging from what I can observe over at the different venues for the location test it would be safe to say that the demand for the game has been pretty good, and with all the positive survey replies hopefully we can get to see the game officially return to Singapore and staying for good~ ^__^

About: DT


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