DJ Max has been a music game franchise dating back for quite a while with their first game DJ Max Online for the PC. Since then they have released games in the Arcade, PC, iOS, PSP and now the Vita. The Vita incarnation of DJ Max is very different to anyone who has spent their time playing the PC or PSP ones and very familiar to anyone playing the Arcades. Staying true to the name, DJ Max on the Vita’s closest relative is DJ Max Technika 2 and 3 which has been a huge success due to it’s unique play style, gameplay and music. With that in mind the development team have gone out of their way to try and emulate that success while taking full control of the Vita’s touch capability on both the front and rear panels.
Gameplay Here:
Gameplay Here:
Gameplay wise, it emulates DJ Max Technika completely in Traditional Mode (Front panel usage only) but it’s also reinvented itself by having dual touch mode where blue hold notes and purple tap notes are done on the back screen. The development team has kept this in mind when making note charts so the blue and purple never overlap so the charts themselves don’t change no matter what mode you are in. To be fair when it comes to gameplay, that’s really it, you unlock different things like icons, note patterns and songs via leveling up. There are 4 game modes, Star which is the easiest difficulty where you play three songs from the selection of each round (Considered Lite in T1 and Star in T2/3), Pop which is the same as Star but with harder charts (Popular in T1 and Pop in T2/3) and Club (Technical in T1 and Club in T2/3) where you play three songs from a disk set (a themed selection of 6 songs) and depending on the songs you will play a 4th Boss song. There is also Free Play Mode where you can play almost any song you've unlocked.
Each song also has the three difficulties ordered in the name of the game modes, Star (Yellow), Pop (Blue) and Club (Red). However in Club you will find EX charts of some songs (This is considered to be SP Charts in T1 or MX charts in T2/3) and they cannot be played in Free Mode. While some of the charts are incredibly inventive with how they work, they tend to become harder for people who have larger hands especially if the hit detection is not on your side. Sometimes it tends to be iffy in how it wants work and not register things like blue hold notes on the back and yellow drag notes on the front from time to time. It can be incredibly frustrating if going for all combos or perfect plays.
In terms of the music selection, from a long time follower of the DJ Max franchise, it’s a little disappointing for me. The game has included songs from the big girl K-Pop group Kara with 6 songs. With the loss of Clazziqaui from the song list, it doesn't make up for it since their music didn't really suit DJ Max’s style. It’s also missing major DJ Max Technika milestones like Blythe (Infamous for it’s one and only variation chart Blythe TP/HD for it’s difficult to reach requirement on the hardest disk set and absurd difficulty), SIN, Cypher Gate, Oblivion, Miles, Lover (Personal favourite) and a few others. However it does have some nice inclusions like Never Say, Oblivion Rockin’ Night Mix and Get on Top. It has some outstanding new songs to the series like Take On Me, Back to Life, The MAX (Opening Theme) and Silent Clarity.
In the end Pentavision have come with a solid and safe game to bring to the Vita making complete use of all of its touch functions. A fun and addicting game with a lot of replay value. However it can be frustrating at times when hit detection doesn't work in your favour but definitely a recommendation for anyone interested in music games while owning a Vita.
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