When I picked up this game, I didn't really know what to expect. I don't know a thing about vocaloids or Touhou and I've never played previous iterations in arcades or on phones, so I was taking quite a risk. Even on sale, Groove Coaster cost me $35 with loads of DLC as an option too (the game is normally $50), which is way more than I typically pay for digital games!. Luckily, I found myself hooked in pretty quickly and grew to appreciate both its choice in music and its fast paced, extremely flashy gameplay. If you like rhythm games and want one that feels designed with controllers in mind, this is the one to go for.

Groove Coaster's gameplay is right in its name; your job is to follow your avatar of choice as it moves along a literal track and press buttons in time with the notes that appear. All you need are two buttons and two sticks, but the game gets a lot of mileage out of them. You'll be flicking and jiggling sticks, holding buttons, pushing/pressing in unison, and doing tons of tapping. It's frantic and intense in all the right ways while never feeling like it's going out of rhythm or isn't meant for a controller. As much as I like Taiko no Tatsujin (which is probably the closest rhythm game mechanically to this one), it never feels 100% right on a controller, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Groove Coaster feel so natural in comparison. The game does an excellent job of slowly doling out new notes over the course of each difficulty level, too. Easy mode only has you doing the most basic of notes and each step up adds some of the others in, giving you a natural curve where you get time to learn everything you need to know. You can also equip items to make things easier or harder, such as items that nullify a number of mistakes or give you more coins for missions at the cost of a stricter win condition. These items don't cost anything to use and they don't prevent you from getting S ranks or mission progress, so there's no reason to be shy about trying them.

Equally impressive are Groove Coaster's visuals, which are incredible to an almost unbelievable degree. Every single song has completely unique visuals, all of which tie into the song both thematically and mechanically. For example, the song "Lost Colors" starts you off with dull, colorless notes that gradually gain more colors as the song goes on. It's a great bit of visual storytelling in a genre that you wouldn't expect it from and it even bolsters the gameplay too. As much as they're out to blow your mind, the visuals are also out to kill you, and the game has no problem distracting you with flashing lights, images that obscure the track (the Misc genre tracks in particular love to do this), and sudden twists and turns that mess up your timing. It sounds like it'd be cheap and frustrating, but since you have plenty of leeway to succeed in a song and the game makes its intent obvious from the get-go, this instead just feels like a cheeky bit of fun and a clever way to challenge players.

Even with all its DLC, the base game still offers an impressive 100 songs, 29 of which are unlockable through some of the game's 300 missions. It's awesome to see this much unlockable content in a modern video game, but I wish the implementation of the missions was done in a way that felt more varied and interesting. Missions are completed through playing specific songs, completing multiple songs in a genre under certain conditions, or by simply buying your way past them with coins. This is all fine and good, but for whatever reason, the game loves to repeat objectives and genres for many of the unlockable songs specifically. Several of them are locked behind the "Complete 10 songs in the Original genre with a full chain" missions, which is obnoxious for multiple reasons. While a good batch of songs, there aren't that many songs in the Original genre, so you'll definitely be replaying those songs many times (I swear if I have to play Kimi no Starlight Road one more time!). The Misc genre also ends up in a similar situation where it gets reused for challenges constantly, except that genre has even fewer songs! It's a strange choice for sure and focusing on the missions means you'll have to neglect many other songs, so I recommend balancing out your playlist and taking breaks from missions every time they want you to play Link Link Fever yet again or whatever, just so you get to make use of that huge tracklist.

Full chains are a pain that can turn the experience from an immersive one to one that's the musical equivalent of a checklist, and that just plain stinks. You see, to get a full chain, you need to hit every single note in a song, including the "Ad-lib" notes that are completely invisible. You're meant to figure these out based on the rhythm of the song, but considering that a typical song has near or more than a thousand notes, it's very easy to miss them in the heat of the action. There's an item that makes them visible, but with that on, you can no longer use an item to nullify misses, meaning you need to be absolutely perfect. Unless you're really good at the game, you'll likely want to stick to Easy and Normal songs for full chains, which means even more repetition in that you'll be replaying the same songs on the same difficulties. Ad-libs are an interesting idea on paper and probably make more sense in the arcades as a way for skilled players to flaunt their knowledge, but at home, they just feel like someone slapped a collectahon checklist onto this rhythm game and I found myself wishing they weren't a thing.

With an impressive variety of songs, including picks from anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann, tons of Touhou remixes, as well as music from various Taito games like Darius, Bubble Bobble, and even Lufia 2, Groove Coaster feels like one of the best rhythm games in years. It plays fantastically, has what may be the best visuals to ever grace a game in the genre, and is chock full of content. The asking price is steep, but this is one that's still absolutely worth buying. I get the impression this game went somewhat under the radar and that's a shame considering how rare rhythm games tend to be nowadays. If you're like me and you wish the genre had more of a presence, check Groove Coaster out and you'll quickly learn that the genre still has life in it yet.

I fell in love with Groove Coaster when I accidentally found an arcade at a mall while visiting another state. Desperate for a cheaper (and local) way to play the game, I downloaded the app on my phone, but I wasn't happy with the touch controls. Not long after I decided it would have to be a game I only played on trips to Massachusetts, Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party was announced and that was some pretty good timing.

It's not quite as fun to play as the arcade version because the arcade version has the fun buttons, but it's otherwise the same. When playing handheld (or probably on a fancy rotating monitor), you can set the screen to vertical mode so the chart takes up the entire screen instead of just the middle third, and that's absolutely the best way to play. There are a ton (and I mean a TON) of challenges to complete, and by doing so you can unlock songs, characters, sound/visual effects, etc.

There's a lot of music and the selection is similar to any other Groove Coaster game, and you can get an idea of what that means on Youtube or by downloading the ios/android app which is free-to-play. It's generally high-energy music that you could dance to if that's a thing you wanted to do. The genres are broken down into the following: Original (which is music made specifically for Groove Coaster games), Anime/Pop, Vocaloid, Tohou Project Remixes, Game Music, and Misc. As of today (25 January 2021) there are 18 DLC packs.

The "coaster" aspect is unique and fun but sometimes the perspective is a little weird and it can be kind of hard to see what's happening, or the background video and/or visual effects are a bit intense and it can be difficult to see the chart. It would be nice if you could turn the background video off or even change the brightness like you can in DJ Max Respect (and I'm assuming other DJ Max games, though I've never played them). Other than that, it's a solid rhythm game. The difficulty is fair. I started out on a medium difficulty and worked my way up and the progression felt natural.

I've written far too much for a game that unfortunately won't get enough love so I'm just going to back away slowly and go play some Groove Coaster.

[review wip]

Oddly enough, according to TV Tropes, Groove Coaster originally meant to be a spin off to Space Invaders and taking cues from Taito's mobile/console game Space Invaders Infinity Gene (which shamefully still never got a remaster today but is easily bought cheaply on iOS and Android, with the XBOX 360 version being lost in time after the store is closed, goddamn it), even if the game has nothing to do with the actual shooter gameplay it has, but just the eponymous Crab-like alien creature, and since Groove Coaster 3 it has got a really adorable and sensual mascot designed by none other than Yasuda Suzuhito (known for his pin up style character design) of SMT: Devil Survivor, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, DanMachi, Caladrius, and many Japanese videogame and anime works he did, while the Groove Coaster series departs from its minimalistic design in order to accomodate well to J-pop, Touhou remixes, VOCALOID music and so on.

Everything I could want out of a rhythm game.

The visuals are so intense and disorientating at times. The game actively tries to get you to really get lost in the flow and the rhythm. The adlib system deserves a special shoutout for actively rewarding the player for hitting notes that do not appear visually. It's like the game is giving me points for tapping my toes.

All the music is great but the vocaloid tracks in particular are perfect for the rhythm game genre. While other games have you normally playing a single part of a larger song, like just the guitar or just the vocals. Groove Coaster pretty seamlessly transitions from vocals to instruments and makes you feel like you're playing the entire song, not just a part of it. I think it works so well because vocaloid is such an interesting crossroad between vocals and instrument.

It's just a fun fun time. I've got an arcade machine just an hour drive away and I can't wait to get my grimey little mits on one of those big groove coaster nipples.

Groove Coaster may be an arcade rhythm game in terms of genre, but I'm personally leaning more towards calling it an audiovisual experience. Have you ever wanted to play a rhythm game inside of a Windows XP Media Player visualizer, cranked up to 11? Groove Coaster provides that in spades, while also being a really fun rhythm game too.

In Groove Coaster, you character travels along a literal track, lined with beats to hit along the way. As you coast along the rail, you'll press buttons and flick the analog sticks to the beat of the music. One of the more admirable quirks of GC is the "AD-LIB", a type of beat that's spread throughout each song, but invisible to the player. To hit them, you press any button to perform a beat wherever you think they may be, like a gap between visible beats, or a part of the song not represented by visible beats. I really like this feature in concept, but what it inevitably leads to is you constantly tapping your buttons to whatever the percussion is in the background. This strategy only tends to work on Easy/Normal difficulty however, on higher difficulties like Hard/Extreme, you'll need to sniff 'em out some other way, like with items.

Items in Groove Coaster are...odd. There's a handful of them to unlock, and each one gives you a specific benefit, like being able to miss 10 beats without losing your chain, or making the AD-LIB beats visible. You can only use one of these items at a time, but they don't cost anything to use. It's like an optional safety net you can use with no repercussions. I suppose it's good for casual play, and they won't help that much on higher difficulties, but I still think that integrating the items with the game's currency system would've been much better.

The game uses its currency in the mission list, a fine (but flawed) addition to this game. Fulfilling criteria will unlock more characters, items, and even new songs. You can spend in-game currency to skip some of these missions. That's its only use (some missions can also literally have the goal of "spend currency"). The other thing that really irks me about the missions is that their totals are not cumulative, at least, not until you actually unlock the specific mission. Played a song five times and then later unlocked a mission that wants you to play it three times? You get to play that song three more times. Unlocks could move a hell of a lot faster if the game just acknowledged what I've already accomplished.

Going back to the visuals, I just wanna admire how much GC accomplishes with so little. Wireframe shapes and objects, low-poly inanimate silhouette figures of characters, and flashing lights/colors abound. Mix in the virtual track that your avatar follows, add some fancy disorienting camera pans, and the game takes you for a wildly unique roller coaster ride on every individual song. It's kind of an assault on my eyeballs, but it's so cool that I can't look away.

Overall, while I have my gripes with its structure, Groove Coaster is visually stunning, and a solid rhythm game. I'm glad it gets to join the pantheon of Japanese rhythm games that I play at my leisure.

(PS: The menus have a "navigator", basically an announcer, and one of the game's latest updates added Gawr Gura as a navigator for free. Having the Apex Predator God Rhythm Gamer Shark Vtuber praise and encourage my rhythm game skills is something I didn't realize I wanted in life, thanks Gura.)