This is the most camp yet oddly cohesive story I've seen in a mobile game to date and the way it makes you care about some, if not all, of these characters and is able to give them almost equal amounts of screen time and development is a scarily impressive feat. Anything you might have heard about it is true and false all at once. You will roll your eyes, you will stare in disbelief and you will unexpectedly get overwhelmed by feelings of adoration and triumph in more than one of these event stories (if you stick around and connect to at least one of these idols, that is). Being such a character-driven game only does it favors. If the character(s) you produce get a lore dump or new arc it's honestly game over, this game doesn't pull its punches.

Where I think the game shines the most however, aside from the love many of its characters receive (including quite gorgeous and continuously improving artworks by the very talented, anonymous artists behind the cards), is the rhythm game side of it. The sheer amount of options you're given in the live settings alone, ranging from note type and size, to speed, timing, a mirror mode and several difficulties (among other things) make it one of the most accessible rhythm games I've seen, covering the needs of novices and aficionados alike. It's got a satisfying learning curve and you can always adjust it to your needs as time goes by. The presentation also has its fair share of customization and can be quite stunning, if you have the necessary storage to spare, the MVs and especially SPPs really elevate the game alongside the customizable options for idols, which are unlocked on their respective idol roads.

There's not much to say about the gacha itself. It's gambling, a mere game of chance you're tricked into thinking you have any control over, when you really don't. The most you can do is plan ahead (at least if you don't play the JP version) and save up your resources for your favorite idol(s) to increase your odds. Compared to other gacha, I appreciate the guaranteed 4⭑ in a 10-pull and quite enjoy the presentation of it all, it sure knows how to get someone excited with those rainbow stage lights. The pity for 4⭑ and 5⭑ alike is a little too high for my liking (300 pulls? Really?) and giving you at least a single free pull for new banners would be very tempting, even occasionally rewarding depending on your luck. The nigh nonexistent rerun of banners and a lack of pity on birthday banners are most definitely the greatest shortcomings of this game's gacha system. Other than that, it is what it is. 5⭑ cards themselves fortunately aren't too out of reach thanks to how events are structured in this game, but it can make keeping complete card albums for more than one specific character a daunting experience, especially for F2P.

My biggest issue aside from how certain stories are handled (a lack of planning as it just "goes with the flow", but especially regarding the issue of the game having no feature summing up key events from the basic era for newcomers), is probably idol work. The office has a great amount of customization and adorable little chibis that can interact with their surroundings, but work basically requires no input from the player. It's honestly quite a bore after the first few times when you've pretty much memorized the quotes of your go-to idols, and while you can increase the drop rates of patterns and your in-game currency, it's tedious work where you do nothing but sit idly by and hope you get the desired outcome. I find this much more tolerable in form of societies, because those can help you grind for more resources by simply being active and doing your daily tasks, unlock more things for your idols and in the rarest case even let you socialize with fellow producers.

Truly, I don't know how to sum up a game like Ensemble Stars Music. It's reached a level of infamy online I still can't fully comprehend, and yet when you get out of that specific fandom corner you realize it's still a relatively niche game, which hasn't quite reached mainstream status the way other mobile games have. To say it's an experience would be putting it mildly, and said experience will largely vary between players. But the game is definitely special in its approach and presentation, in the attention, love and hate it receives. It needs to be seen to be believed. It's a game I find easy to recommend to rhythm game enjoyers and less so to people who form unhealthy connections with comfort characters, as they are more prone to develop a gambling addiction. Casual players who might find enjoyment in the music and live stages which come with the game should have a good time with it as well. For anyone obsessed with the particular type of media which has a key gimmick that is valued above all else, discussed gravely and used to settle disputes of any kind and scale à la Yu-Gi-Oh!, Hypnosis Mic and Kakegurui will also feel right at home with Enstars. While the concept of idols is not always talked about in a competitive sense (these characters do in fact address their problems in conversations and don't immediately start a singing contest on the spot), the importance of idols in this world identical to ours, be it philosophical, economical or even psychological, is something I find very reminiscent of the previously listed media.

As can be seen, I have many thoughts and feelings about this game, which is precisely why I feel like I can't give it a fitting score just yet. I score games based on how they handle their writing, presentation and gameplay, looking into whether or not these things are balanced out and executed right. Enstars is far from finished. There's still a fair share of unsolved mysteries and unfinished plotlines (the godfather and the disease of the Sakumas coming to mind for me), characters which will be further fleshed out in the future, and gameplay features which might be added and/or altered. For now, this review is all I'll leave my log of the game with, and I'll return to score it eventually when I feel it's the right time to do so.

— for anyone wondering who in their right mind would put in the time and effort to write a serious review of Ensemble Stars Music, of all things: hello, it's me, your friendly neighborhood AdamP. I have nothing to promote, not even my reviews of varying quality, so all I'll say is that you should do yourself a favor and listen to Valkyrie's discography <3

Ensemble Stars Music is a solid, rewarding game to play if:
- you like rhythm games
- you can take bad gacha rolls in stride
- you have a fair amount of idle time to play bits of it
- you can love characters a healthy amount

And it is a very bad game to play if:
- an unlucky gacha roll can be devastating
- you feel like you should often spend money on getting (or maybe getting) jpgs of anime characters
- you feel a compulsion to get the latest card of your faves
- you don't have much idle time to get the free in-game currencies/participate in events

And I am 100% serious on that. No gacha game deserves $100 for a card of your fave.

How should I put this? It's a gacha game masquerading as a rhythm game but it is a very good rhythm game. The songs are good, the gameplay is good, everything is customizable to the level that's best for you. But I can't shake the annoyance that comes with this game being a card collector game in actuality and not even a particularly nice or kind one at that. Gacha is known for being cruel but Ensemble Stars deserves its reputation as being one of the most cruel ones in existence right now.

Story is alright. The characters are likable and there's someone for everyone. The actual plot has some "what the hell is going on" moments that are entertaining but if you've seen any media about the struggles of being an idol and wanting to change the industry, you won't be surprised by anything in Ensemble Stars.

Disclaimer: I'm just playing because of Naru-chan.
Also all "gacha" games are evil. (Although, one can earn some pretty nice cards of the highest rarity during events and such, without paying actual money, at least. Can take a heck of a lot of effort and time, though. Earning enough Diamonds to pull from the gacha is also doable. But then you'll roll over and over sometimes and get no 5-stars, too...)
Honestly the only rhythm game I've played that doesn't give me the sweats haha.

The actual rhythm game is pretty nice. The absence of distinct, visible lanes threw me off initially, but now that I'm used to it, it's really nice. It feels more intuitive and my fingers just move to where they need to be without any thought for what "lane" the "note" is in. On the other hand, the most difficult songs are harder because I haven't managed to assign my fingers to specific lanes as I generally do in other rhythm games. Most of the time I'm playing entire songs with only two fingers.
Compared with other rhythm games, this one feels somewhat on the lenient side in terms of timing.
Unfortunately, one's score is tied to which cards one uses, no matter how well one performs.
While one can fail a song, one is always permitted to finish it. Which I find is much better for practicing than games that force stop a song if one messes up too much.

The songs being original to this franchise is cool. A lot of them aren't ones I care much for, but there are some pretty nice ones. (There's sooo much corny lyrics, which are at least amusing.)
All of the songs are immediately available to all players without any need to earn/unlock/buy any, which isn't the norm in my experience.
The 3D dances in the background are neat and look good (although there are a few videos with more intense flashing lights that can be really bothersome and hard to look at. "Dancing in the Apocalypse", and some of UNDEAD's songs come to mind — the worst, for me, being "Melody in the Dark")! They can be distracting, but can also be turned off entirely and replaced with a static background. It's nice that the 3D dances can be done with any characters the player chooses. There are even a couple of songs for which the vocals change to match the characters the player selects ("BRAND NEW STARS!!" and "Walk with your smile").
All of the songs have full versions that can be heard outside the game, which I recommend for any you fancy~

The user interface is quite busy and I felt lost for a while after I started playing, with so many different currencies, learning where to use what items.

The story is available for free (some of the event stories are available only during certain times). I haven't managed to get interested in it at all, despite trying plenty of times. So, unfortunately, I can't judge it properly. Some of the characters seem charming, though. There's a lot of variance. However, most of the characters don't feel particularly realistic or relatable to me. The story is set in an alternate universe and is genuinely bizarre.
The translation is pretty good (although there are plenty of typos). The translators make a good effort to convey personality and unusual speech through use of capital letters and such. The main story is all voiced too!

One can play together with friends and be matched with strangers, which is always a nice feature. People I've played with are generally friendly. When doing Lives (playing songs) together, players can't exit or disband the group once they've entered, which is so nice compared with my multiplayer experiences in Colorful Stage of repeated disbanding late into the process (seemingly because people are being picky about which song they want to play?). Life is too short for that crap!!!
The chat function in this game is laughably (and frustratingly) bad. You aren't allowed to use curse words like "just", and "pretty". (Your guardian should have taught you better anyway.) But also sometimes you can. It's super inconsistent about which combinations of letters are "illegal". Worst of all, it won't indicate which word/letters are the problem within a message. It's pretty much impossible to guess. Rather than just using asterisks or removing the offending words, the user is barred from sending the message at all. So good luck communicating with people in-game.

This game is currently occupying 8.33 GB on my phone, which is kind of awful.

Switch, MaM, Double Face, Valkyrie, and ArashiP??? Am I allowed to do that?