Midnight blue, vivid red, pop yellow, dark purple, and bright green. Five colors that have both everything and nothing in common. Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage (Project SEKAI: Colorful Stage featuring Hatsune Miku in the original Japanese) is a mobile game starring five groups and, of course, the titular Hatsune Miku and her friends.

   The gameplay is simple to learn, but intensifies on higher difficulties. Colorful Stage is a rhythm game, in which you hit notes on the screen to the beat of the song you’re playing. For this kind of game, the soundtrack is key, and it truly delivers. The rhythms hit hard, and the soundtrack is full of classic songs that especially appeal to anyone who had a Vocaloid phase in middle school, with plenty of unique songs made specifically for the game. 

   The story, which is surprisingly deep for a mobile game, starts out with the 20 ranks of the Main Story that exemplify how each group got together, with multiple event stories that center around one character at a time. Players unlock the main story ranks by making teams with cards of the members of that group. After that, you can move on to read the old Event Stories. These occur in sequential order, usually affecting each other if they’re “Key Stories,” the most important ones that show the growth of the groups beyond the Main Story. 

   Of course, there’s no perfect game. I discovered a few central issues that are prominent to me, as much as I adore the game. In some of the events that haven’t yet made it to the English version, there’s blatant cultural appropriation of Native American and Desi culture in certain outfits, specifically the “Revival My Dream” and “A Desperate Situation?! Island Panic!” events. It’s always Wonderlands×Showtime who receives this treatment. Poor guys. 

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   As someone who isn’t fond of the gacha system in general, it’s an issue for me in this game as well. Players pull for cards with the in-game currency known as crystals. The rates are 4% for each focus card when you pull, which seems pretty decent, but is still messy. What if you don’t get the card you want? Well, there is a spark system where you can pick the card, but that’s only after spending 60,000-90,000 crystals on the banner, depending on how many Gacha Sticker Vouchers you have. This allows fans of the game to keep 33% of the spark price and use them on other banners. For the rate that you get crystals for free in the game, it’s completely unreasonable. I’ve pulled over 100 times for 30,000 crystals before and never gotten the card I hoped to get. An Ode for the Pure of Heart Toya just never came home at the end of the day, in addition to other limited cards as well. Players will just have to cross their fingers and hope they get them on the rerun next year.

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   Despite its flaws, I adore Colorful Stage. It’s a great game that has a few issues holding it back from being entirely perfect. The characters are deep and interesting, the story makes players want to root for them, and it’s continuously being updated with new songs and fascinating stories. I personally cannot wait for Alter Ego and Peaky Peaky to make their way to the English server. I’d give it a solid 9/10!