gentrified beatmania. once you get past the unskippable tutorial that treats you like you've never played a game before, the basic gameplay is inherently fun, but it's all lined with aggressive monetization and design decisions that either blatantly or subtly support that monetization. things like being able to continue a failed track with gems, having songs locked behind what is essentially a gacha system, etc. i'm not sure if this was on purpose, but the audio synchronization has a 30ms delay by default, which ????? it's all strange and is clearly intended for a more casual and less fugal audience. the catalogue of tracks is all mainstream music that has the occasional banger, so unless you're completely allergic to modern pop, it should work for whatever taste in music you have. that said, it's dumb, thumb-friendly fun. it's simplified beatmania, you can't really mess up the base gameplay that bad. i'm still on the lookout for an alternative, though.

I actually like the idea of a gacha song system, it let's you find new songs and get excited about unlocking your favourites. And the gameplay is simple enough for a phone game, but surprisingly difficult. There's a few little problems I have, like the note hit counter goes "great" "perfect" and "perfect+" instead of the more logical good > great > perfect. And since perfect and perfect+ are the same colour, it's super hard to tell which one you can't take your eyes away from the notes to check.

The problem with this is that it's basically EVERYTHING wrong with free phone games. Full of ads, exclusive paid content, pointless wait times for things like opening rewards etc.

Played the shit out of this game for ~2 years. Diamond perfected > 350 songs + several deluxe versions despite the game's shortcomings. What could've been one of the best rhythm games just to be ruined by shitty monetization.
There's nothing to do after finishing the tour pass (I believe level 22 when I stopped playing) unless you buy the seasonal battlepasses. And then there's the lack luster events that always have the same songs. Getting 100 cards just to open a deluxe box and free gems is a nightmare. You barely get rewarded for playing the game.
Enjoyed the game while I had stuff to unlock for free; not spending a dime. Got boring & repetitive later & honestly grinding this game is not worth it.

This game... man. I've got a lot to say so scroll down for a tl;dr.

Gameplay: If you've ever played piano tiles, you know what to expect here, except for swipe notes being a new addition. The frustrating part is the random input drops or delays while playing. Usually, this problem can be corrected by adjusting your offset or becoming better at the game, but that is not the case here.

Monetization: This has got to be the worst monetization scheme I've seen in a music game. It even puts the gacha rhythm games to shame.

1- The case system is your main mode of progression. Every time you beat a song, you get coins toward a time-locked case. Each one contains some amount of genre cards, which unlock a corresponding genre box, containing a song. The problem with this isn't really the timers (clash royale does a similar system) but the fact you cannot play while your three case slots are completely full. This means you can only play 7 full songs per session.

Unlimited Play is purchasable from the shop, but it isn't worth the price, in my opinion. You were able to earn Unlimited Play permanently by unlocking every free song in the game (excluding promotions) until this last update.

2- Deluxe Charts were a recent addition to the game, adding new, harder charts to existing songs with new gimmicks. The charts themselves play pretty well. However, the Deluxe genre box requires up to a max of 100 cards to unlock, with a halved card drop rate. Not only is this completely ridiculous, but it makes earning unlimited play even MORE arduous than it was before. Now you're forced to play even more for less cards.

3- There's a battle pass every month that introduces 9 new songs to the game, costing $10. 1 of those songs is free, however. If you miss a pass, you have to wait three seasons for them to be available in the shop. No, you can't buy the songs directly, you must spend gems for a CHANCE to get the tour pass song you want. Also, the tour pass does not give you unlimited play, for some odd reason. It's such an odd oversight, I can't see it not being intentional.

4- The song prices in the game are much more expensive than any other rhythm game out there. Most rhythm games rarely go above $1.25 or even $1.50 per song. Yet, beatstar has no problem going above $2.00 per song. Sure, it is not cheap to license all of these highly-popular songs, but $2.00+?

When most of a review talks about a game's monetization, there's a problem. Many more free (or cheap!) rhythm games exist on mobile. Even though they might not have these super-popular pop songs, it's a much better value for your money and time.

tl;dr
This is an average rhythm game in the style of Piano Tiles. The music is very mainstream with a few bangers here and there. However, the poorly coded hit detection and oppressive monetization model completely ruin the fun.

This game is actually really funny. This is like the only rhythm game I've ever played that has had a song selection of American radio music. Most of the time for non-fan built rhythm games, there's an ost or music collaborations from other rhythm games. Basically whenever you play a rhythm game, you expect to not ever recognize a song unless you play other rhythm games. This game is really unique in that regard.

The gameplay itself isn't bad and can sometimes have nice ideas for the charting. I think the song choice leads to an interesting result in the charts, too. Normally rhythm games have a lot of instrumental songs, but this one only has songs with vocals. The result of this is that almost every chart will have you hit notes in accordance to what the singer is singing. This results in sort of unique charting and I just found that interesting.

Unfortunately, as someone else put it, it basically has every mobile game problem. There are long ads that happen every time you open a pack or box to unlock songs. The real killer is after a short while, you basically have to pay to unlock songs, or grind the small amount you have forever. Also half of the time you unlock something, you only unlock the potential to unlock it via lootboxes lol.

This was fun to play for about a couple hours until I realized I wouldn't want to commit to unlocking more than the 20 songs I steadily unlocked. Also it's really funny how if you ever miss, you have to pay in game currency if you want to continue the song or else it kicks you out. As a gamer, naturally, I don't miss; but, its target audience is definitely for people who aren't into rhythm games so I can see them getting income off people who are just beginning lol.

Oh also this is the only fleshed out mobile rhythm game I've seen where you're intended to play in portrait mode with both hands holding the phone and it's like super comfy. More rhythm games definitely need to do that because every other one is like intended to be played with the phone laying down on a flat surface and like what's the point of a mobile game that requires a convenient setup like that. Groove Coaster is sick but that feels more like it's supposed to be played with one hand holding the phone and the other using two fingers.

Tem um jogo muito bom escondido por trás do gacha e das monetizações abusivas.

Passei por todos os estágios possíveis com ele: não gostei. Comecei a gostar. Passei duas semanas completamente viciada. Passei a competir com amigos e percebi que sou ruim e fiquei frustrada. Desisti de competir com amigos e só aproveitei. Travei porque a progressão do jogo quer que eu pague pra avançar. Cogitei pagar muito pra poder continuar jogando. Coloquei a mão na consciência e não paguei nada. Fiquei frustrada e parei de jogar por uns dias.

E finalmente chegamos no momento de aceitação que eu reconheço que a monetização é escrota, mas eu adoro jogos de ritmo então vou continuar jogando casualmente por um bom tempo.

Isso dito, recentemente ele recebeu uma atualização e o sistema de progressão parece mais justo e menos frustrante agora. Vamos ver quanto tempo leva até eu esbarrar numa barreira zoada e ficar frustrada de novo.