SEGA of America has revealed the release date for Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X in the Americas! The game will be released on August 30 for both the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. The PlayStation 4 version will cost $49.99/CA$64.99, and the PlayStation Vita version $39.99/CA$54.99. While the Japanese PS4 version was labeled as an “HD” version in its name, in the Americas both versions of the game will simply be called Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA X. You can view a new English trailer below, showing new PS4 footage that hasn’t even been shown for the Japanese version of the game. Clearly, it seems SEGA is really aiming for the market overseas with the PS4 version, with a release date in the Americas only five days after the release of the PS4 version in Japan. This makes is all the more unfortunate, and almost incomprehensible from a marketing standpoint, that a European version hasn’t even been announced.
Pre-orders and launch day copies of the game will include a special Hatsune Miku pouch, as shown here together with the game’s boxart:
We now also know the English names for the 5 areas (“Clouds”) in the game; Classic, Cool, Cute, Elegant, and Quirky. Each Cloud contains its own selection of songs (30 in total) and challenges for players to complete. In total almost 300 modules will be included in the game.
The “Live Edit Mode” is refered to as “Concert Editor” in the English version, and as was already announced for the Japanese version, this mode will feature support for PlayStation VR. Unfortunately, long-time fans have expressed disappointment in how limited the mode was compared to the Edit modes in previous Project DIVA game. As fan-made content is an important part of the franchise (and Vocaloids in general), let’s hope the mode is improved for the PS4 version. VR support will be enabled after the launch of PlayStation VR as a free update.
New in this Project DIVA game are Requests (Quests in the Japanese version), which as the name suggests are requests from Miku and her friends to complete quests in the game’s new story mode. It’s not clear if changes will be made to the game’s PS4 version in regards to unlocking modules. Fans who imported the game, and those in Japan as well, have expressed frustration with the random unlocks of modules. In Japan, SEGA has released paid DLC to unlock all the modules at once, a somewhat questionable move given that it coincides with making module unlocks random. While the original Free Play mode from previous Project DIVA games is still present, it doesn’t allow the unlocking of modules anymore. A situation that I hope will be reversed in the PS4 version, as both systems could co-exist perfectly fine (buying modules with in-game currency unlocked by playing Free Play mode, and unlocking them randomly in the game’s story mode).
Despite a mixed reception of the PS Vita version, there’s nonetheless a lot of potential in Project DIVA X if some of the major complaints are addressed in the PS4 version. Having played the japanese import version on the PS Vita. I’m very much looking forward to the release of the game on PS4. And hopefully, I won’t have to import the US version to be able to play the game in the EU!