Hatsune Miku is a weird game to review, mostly because of the stigma it has in the West. The digital idol has been put in correlation with anime and Japanese pop culture, while in reality, the persona has always been a tool to showcase the Vocaloid software. Said software was released more than six years ago, and many songs are made by a bunch of talented people. It was an utter shock earlier in the year when Project Diva F saw a western release for the PlayStation 3, even though the fans of the songs and merchandise are expanding to a certain degree. I am here, however, to write about the newest game, which was just released for the Nintendo 3DS in Japan. While the original Project mirai and its sequel have some similar ideas, this new entry shines a whole lot more and is stronger in almost every regard.

Hatsune Miku: Project mirai 2 is a rhythm game in which you play through songs in various settings. In the original game, you were strictly using the buttons and had to perform actions with total precision. This move was somewhat frustrating, as rhythm newcomers and veterans had to adapt to a system, which wasn't always really fun to play. Mirai 2 fixes this error by taking lessons from Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, another game released in the same year as the original. You are able to use the buttons or the touchscreen to interact with what happens on the upper half of the system, and this makes it instantly more accessible. While it takes the base of Theatrhythm, it does have its own quirks to make it stand out. The line that you follow across the screen is way more active and you interact  with it in unique ways while enjoying the song. This makes it a less static adventure, that asks for your full attention for the right reasons.

The regular course of the game sees you completing song after song, as you will be unlock nearly 50 of them. That seems like quite a lot, but it makes more of an impact if you never tried the original. Half of the songs on offer come directly from the previous game, with extremely minor adjustments to the background video. While that is a slight bummer, the new control system does somewhat make up for it. Even if you know the course of the songs, the twists that the game throws at you are refreshing.  The various difficulty options on each setting add some nice surprises along the way. Again though, it is a bit of a shame to see the same scenery of old reappear.

The songs on display are quite varied in Project mirai 2, and it is easy to find favorites in the Vocaloid pool. A song like Finder is upbeat and electronic sounding, while World is Mine is somewhat darker and has some rocking parts. The mixture here is quite impressive, and it will take a good while before you have explored everything on offer. Unfortunately, SEGA will have no way of expanding it, compared to the DLC songs in the earlier mentioned Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. I had so much fun playing through the songs that I simply wanted more to consume, and it is one of those rare instances where I would have liked some post-completion downloadable content. The Project Diva games do this, so it is more surprising that it is simply not there in Project mirai 2.

Next to playing the songs, there a bunch of other features to tightly knit this package together. You can of course just go and watch the videos of the songs, which are beautifully rendered in 3D. You can save 3D pictures to the SD card and clap along by using the buttons and the touchscreen. More interesting is that you can write Nico Nico Douga-style comments, which will fly across the screen during the video. These can be shared over StreetPass with other users of the software, which is a cute reference to the Japanese video sharing website that made Hatsune Miku famous. Talking about StreetPass, these features have now been expanded to include a personal profile. You can throw your favorite character, pose, song and even a personal comment on there for good measure. Next to all this data, you will also be sharing a dance that you have created. In a special environment, you can use unlocked dance cards from the game to put create something groovy on any of the unlocked songs. It is fun to toy around with, but not much more than that.

If you are a lonely player or don't care for social interaction, there is still plenty to accomplish on your own. The game offers 100 stamps with special goals to shoot for. Even when you finish all the songs, it is more than likely that you will be not quite done with the title. In the department store you can use points to purchase outfits, My Room elements and food to interact more with your character of choice. Outfits can be worn in the My Room environments and used freely in any song, which is certainly a nice touch. New to Mirai 2 is that you can mix and match elements from two costumes together, as well make more tweaks to the overall appearance. The expanded AR functionalities of the previous entry are also back, allowing you to see live performances of 26 songs and toy around even more with the six characters. The game has even much smaller things going for it that I won’t spoil here.

Hatsune Miku: Project mirai 2 is a much more complete game than the original ever was. It offers 50 songs, two totally different control options and quite a slew of additional bonus content. While it is silly that the older songs got recycled, the new elements made me not as annoyed about it. You also have to realize that without them, the game would have been just as long as the original and this gives everything some balance. Still, it is a bit of a bummer that SEGA took no chance to allow for some meaty DLC to expand it all further. One closing comment I want to give is that I am starting to prefer this style over the Project Diva games. Both game series are tailor-made with the audience in mind, but the overall outcome is way more charming and interesting to look at. If you can handle something that is a little more Japanese and out there, Project mirai 2 provides an excellent rhythm fix on the 3DS.