Review Utacchi (DS) review

[Overlord Nadrian]

Konami (the studio that's mostly known for the Castlevania games) made a new rhythm game, in which you play the vocal parts of the songs, like in Pop'n Music, or the newer Guitar Hero's.

This review was written entirely (except for the screenshots) using Moonshell2's text editor and not checked for spelling mistakes afterwards, so excuse me if there are some

Menus: Select your profile, select whether you want to play a song, buy one or listen to one. Then choose the song you want to play/buy/listen to. You can also choose the difficulty level, and the amount of notebars. Easy has 1 bar, Normal has 3 and Hard has 5. Couldn't be simpler. Which is good. 10/10

Story: Simply put, there is NO story, but because that's not the point of a rhythm game it doesn't matter. 0/0 (Z0MG I DIVIDED BY ZER0, 2012 IS NEAR

)

Gameplay: As in almost any rhythm game, you tap the notes as they pass the horizontal bar on the bottom of the touch screen (you hold your DS sideways to play, so this is actually the left side of the touch screen). Four kinds of notes exist: the red notes (played normally, just tap the screen), the blue ones (keep your stylus pressed on the screen until the note has completely passed the bar), the green ones (not only press, but also keep scratching the screen until it has completely passed the bar) and the yellow ones (flick your stylus as they pass, like you throw them away). The yellow notes are ghey (no offense Brian

) IMO, because the game doesn't always react well when you flick your stylus, which then breaks your note streak. It`s no big deal if you're playing a slow paced song or on a low difficulty level, but you just can't afford to miss any notes in a fast song/on a higher difficulty level. Had the yellow notes been implemented better, or just left out, I would've given a much higher score. 6.5/10

Graphics: Very basic (you see a 2D guy/girl dancing on the top screen while you're playing, that's all) but everything looks good, no jagged lines anywhere, so I guess I can't complain. 8/10

Music: There's 36 songs in total. Most of the songs are either popular J-Rock songs or songs used in anime (or sometimes both

), there are some joke songs too (although maybe they're meant to be played by a younger audience, I don't know) but they're all good, and AFAIK none of them have been used in a DS rhythm game yet, so Konami picked out the best (Japanese) songs that hadn't been used yet. 9/10

Can I play this game if I don't understand any Japanese? Yes, definitely, because except for the menus, the only text in the entire game is the lyrics and the names of the songs. You can hear a small part of the song before you select it, so you'll probably be able to recognize them.

Replay value: Some songs are silly, but if you're into J-Rock you won't have any trouble playing most of the songs over and over again, like me. Unless you can't because of the incredible difficulty. 9/10

Overall: Unless you really hate J-Rock or if you're a pussy and give up after failing at one song, you'll like Utacchi. It's something new instead of the same old Guitar Hero. It's definitely not the best, but it's good. 7/10

Screenies: (Various sources)

Playing a song.

Finished a song.

 

[Raika]

This game is pretty good. But after playing the same songs over and over it gets kinda boring.

But yeah, I enjoyed this, especially "Sky Blue Days/Sorairo Days"!! The OP for Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann!!

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

One song I didn't really like was STRENGTH, because it was a cover, and not even half as good as the original...

 

[gotchapt]

more j-games like this?