It's still good, but having F2nd as a starting point for this series really spoiled me. There's several songs I adore in here, but most of it is just okay. The Nyan Cat song can't save this setlist for me, I'm afraid. At the very least, they're all fun to play. I appreciate the Diva Room stuff as a distraction for when I'm feeling burnt out on the rhythm game, but I don't ever want to play a virtual rendition of rock-paper-scissors ever again. Whoever thought it was okay to give that minigame a best 3-of-5 win condition was off their rocker.
My first Diva game, loved it a lot! really good tracklist, great presentation and a great sense of rhythm. Loads of bonus content too.
My one gripe with it is the same I have for the Persona rhythm games: the way the game progresses from the easy difficulty to the hardest difficulty is not useful at all. Instead of presenting every mechanic from the get-go and using slower, simpler charts for the easier modes, both of these games withhold mechanics from you, meaning that when you jump from one difficulty to a higher one, you not only have to deal with an increase to speed and chart complexity, but also with a whole new thing that was never taught to you in the first place. It completely hinders what would be a seamless transition otherwise.
To examplify, when you play a vertical scrolling rhythm game (VSRG), you usually have every lane in every difficulty, but in Project Diva F you only have one button on easy, two on normal and all four on hard. This leaves me unprepared for a difficulty increase and also makes easy and normal way too easy.
My one gripe with it is the same I have for the Persona rhythm games: the way the game progresses from the easy difficulty to the hardest difficulty is not useful at all. Instead of presenting every mechanic from the get-go and using slower, simpler charts for the easier modes, both of these games withhold mechanics from you, meaning that when you jump from one difficulty to a higher one, you not only have to deal with an increase to speed and chart complexity, but also with a whole new thing that was never taught to you in the first place. It completely hinders what would be a seamless transition otherwise.
To examplify, when you play a vertical scrolling rhythm game (VSRG), you usually have every lane in every difficulty, but in Project Diva F you only have one button on easy, two on normal and all four on hard. This leaves me unprepared for a difficulty increase and also makes easy and normal way too easy.
F1st's only sins are the lack of the improvements made in its successor, especially dynamic hitsounds for each note type, but it's still an expansive and joyful rhythm game to play with an ENTIRELY unique setlist of zero returning songs, making it a wonderful standalone rhythm game that doesn't feel the need to wallow in reincorporation.
If you can only get one DIVA game, I would recommend F2nd, but this one is well worth playing beforehand as a worthy introduction to the series.
If you can only get one DIVA game, I would recommend F2nd, but this one is well worth playing beforehand as a worthy introduction to the series.
Fantastic tracklist of almost entirely new songs to the series, a major visual jump forward compared to the PSP entries, and new mechanics that make this game (and F2nd) stand out among the rest of the PD series even to this day. Only real complaints are that star notes on Vita force you to use the touch screen which sucks ass (and while fixed for F2nd, was never updated here) and the framerate is weirdly locked to 30 FPS on PS3 despite the hardware being more than capable of going higher.
Part of Spring Cleaning 2023
Fun to play, annoying as hell to trophy hunt for. If you're in it for some Vocaloid tracks and far too bright background videos, go for it. If you want to trophy hunt this, skip it, unless you're going to play Project Diva F 2, in which case, play it because it will save you a ton of time in that game. Also, having to "scratch" the screen or touchpad for the star is fucking abysmal and you cannot go back after being able to use the analog sticks in future titles.
Fun to play, annoying as hell to trophy hunt for. If you're in it for some Vocaloid tracks and far too bright background videos, go for it. If you want to trophy hunt this, skip it, unless you're going to play Project Diva F 2, in which case, play it because it will save you a ton of time in that game. Also, having to "scratch" the screen or touchpad for the star is fucking abysmal and you cannot go back after being able to use the analog sticks in future titles.