Project Diva: Dreamy Theater 2nd

Project Diva: Dreamy Theater 2nd

Dreamy Theater 2^nd is more of the same, perhaps unsurprisingly – but also everything its predecessor was but much more. Indeed, every song from the first game is included in this one as an extra, which is nice (though makes the trophies take longer to get) – the only reason for me to keep the first game, which unlike this one still needs the PSP attached to even start, is that I have a nice collection of edit songs on it.

The gameplay is much the same, only now there are doubled notes and held notes. The doubled ones require you to not only press the right button but also the d-pad button that is its equivalent – up with triangle, right with circle and so on. The held notes were the bane of my life getting perfects in this game – they not only register your timing when you press down but also when you release, which for whatever reason I found that much harder to do accurately, making for many an annoying moment. If there were one part of this game I would change, it would be this.

The graphics are even nicer than before, and of course there are more characters, with more outfits, and the chance to have two on the screen at once, which the first game lacked. Edit mode is thus more fun to play with and this time I really enjoyed making a video of my own.

The game is also much more fun because it’s much more challenging. The first game was really too easy, with only the Christmas Song’s fiddly solo proving hard to perfect. This one has an ‘extreme’ mode that is way more fun than anything the first game offered, and though some tracks were frustrating and needed several tries, the thrill of getting through a tough song and getting a perfect on your first attempt was as much fun I’ve had with a rhythm game since Technika.

It took two long sessions to get a perfect on the very last song, the 32^nd-note-plagued ‘Hatsune Miku no Gekishou’, and the reward, criminally, is only a gold trophy and not a platinum, but it’s a challenge I’m very pleased I undertook and managed to overcome. It was the hardest gaming challenge I’ve tried in a very long time, certainly harder than hidden RPG bosses or ‘Through the Fire and Flames’ on Guitar Hero 3 (though if the challenge were to get a perfect on that it would have been much harder). That’s enough now, until Extend goes to PS3, if it ever does. My next rhythm game will probably be Rhythm Thief on 3DS!