Parent's Guide: Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Age rating, mature content and difficulty

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd is a rhythm action game, based around music by Japanese "vocaloid" sensation Hatsune Miku and her friends - twins Kagamine Rin and Len, Megurine Luka, Meiko, and Kaito. As you play through the songs, all you have to do is press the right buttons in time with the prompts as they appear on the screen. It's kind of like Rock Band, or maybe Just Dance (only with pressing buttons rather than wanging a Wii Remote around) - with the big difference here being that prompts fly at you from all corners of the screen, rather than progressing across in an orderly fashion.

With some 40 Hatsune Miku songs on offer, and a wide range of genres, most of your time with the game will be spent playing through songs to gain DIVA points in order to buy new costumes (or "modules" as they're known in game), room items, and gifts for the characters. In the DIVA room mode you can customise each character's room, and give them gifts to raise your friendship level. You can also raise your friendship level by rubbing their face, which is more than a little bit strange. For those with a bit of a creative streak, there's also an edit mode so you can create your own button sequences for songs in the game, although it can be a bit overwhelming, despite its clear instructions.

There are three difficulty modes to choose from: Easy, Medium, Hard, and Extreme. On Easy mode, you'll only have to worry about pressing two of the buttons, and will have a drastically reduced number of notes to hit, while by the time you've ramped the difficulty up to hard, you'll have to deal with the full array of buttons, and a screen full of notes.

While you can adjust the difficulty, Hatsune Miku still isn't the easiest of rhythm games to pick up and play. Younger players may struggle with some of the harder Medium songs, as even on the easier difficulties, some of the tracks can prove quite challenging. The game feels a lot more difficult than its previous game Project DIVA F, which may be an intentional difficulty spike, as they're assuming you've played the game that came before. That said, if you stick to Easy, newcomers should be OK - however we'd recommend downloading the original game Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F first.

With no bad language or gore, the only thing parents may want to keep in mind about Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd is in the ever so slightly sexual content, with some slightly suggestive costumes available for the characters, and similarly borderline suggestive loading screens.

Age Ratings

Format Reviewed: Playstation 3