Posted by: Kat Todd
All screenshots taken from my game
When doing our semi-weekly podcast, Alex brought up an excellent point. We talk about Love Live! a lot, because I play it constantly, yet I feel like without seeing the game it is extremely hard to know really what it is (actually not a dating sim).
Love Live! is a Japanese rhythm game with a few other elements mixed in. There's a lot going on and it's really a pretty enjoyable game. As much as we like to joke that the games I play are absolutely terrible (mostly yes) Love Live! is actually insanely popular, according to a blurb in one of their updates a few weeks ago there are 15 million players worldwide, and according to a blurb yesterday, 2 million players in North America. For reference, World of Warcraft peaked at 12 million subscribers in 2010.
The purpose of this article is to explain this game to people who are used to more "stereotypical" games like we usually talk about, and hopefully to get someone to try it out. Full disclaimer: I love Love Live! and have absolutely nothing bad to say about it.
Love Live! is a Japanese rhythm game with a few other elements mixed in. There's a lot going on and it's really a pretty enjoyable game. As much as we like to joke that the games I play are absolutely terrible (mostly yes) Love Live! is actually insanely popular, according to a blurb in one of their updates a few weeks ago there are 15 million players worldwide, and according to a blurb yesterday, 2 million players in North America. For reference, World of Warcraft peaked at 12 million subscribers in 2010.
The purpose of this article is to explain this game to people who are used to more "stereotypical" games like we usually talk about, and hopefully to get someone to try it out. Full disclaimer: I love Love Live! and have absolutely nothing bad to say about it.
The basic premise of the game plot is that there is a School Idol Group named μ (often written as muse in shorthand) who has recently gotten very popular and needs some help with practices and shows. For those who don't know, Idol Groups in Japan are really popular and a little similar to 90's boy bands in the US. There are a lot of problems with actual Idol groups, but this isn't about that.
When you first long on you get to select one of the nine members of μ which becomes your first character card. Typically people select their favorite, and the debates about which idol is the best idol get really really heated, and I recommend you never, ever go there (Eli is the best). From then on when you log in you see this page:
When you first long on you get to select one of the nine members of μ which becomes your first character card. Typically people select their favorite, and the debates about which idol is the best idol get really really heated, and I recommend you never, ever go there (Eli is the best). From then on when you log in you see this page:
"Get an SR Eli!" I'M FUCKGIN TRYING OK
This is your homepage, and as you can see there's a lot going on. For starters, your idol is off to the left to offer advice on what you might do next. Or just say cute stuff. It's a toss up. Up top to the right is your Rank (what level you're on), and next to that is your EXP bar and LP bar. EXP is fairly self explanatory, it's how far you have to go to get to the next Rank. LP is how many "points" you have to play a song. As your Rank increases, so does the amount of LP you can accumulate. As you can see you accrue 1 LP about every 6 minutes. Below that is your gold, you use that for various things, and your heart gems. This game does have in app purchases, though I've never actually found the need to buy anything. As you can see I have plenty of heart gems (used for things like recruiting rare cards or restoring LP, which we'll get to in a moment).
Below that is your presents box, you get a daily log-in bonus and sometimes other bonuses, which can be redeemed in your presents. What's New is the section that tells you what your friends are up to, and Friends is where you can add people with a friend code or as you play songs.
The next box down is your goals box, or what you have to do to progress in the story portion of the game. You could completely ignore the story portion but it's cute and you get stuff for doing it. After that is a scrolling box of the events that are going on so you can check on your progress.
That's all just your homepage. The tabs at the bottom take you to different things you can do within the game. The first tab is "Stories" and when you click on that you see this:
Below that is your presents box, you get a daily log-in bonus and sometimes other bonuses, which can be redeemed in your presents. What's New is the section that tells you what your friends are up to, and Friends is where you can add people with a friend code or as you play songs.
The next box down is your goals box, or what you have to do to progress in the story portion of the game. You could completely ignore the story portion but it's cute and you get stuff for doing it. After that is a scrolling box of the events that are going on so you can check on your progress.
That's all just your homepage. The tabs at the bottom take you to different things you can do within the game. The first tab is "Stories" and when you click on that you see this:
There's the main story and side stories to choose from. The side stories are just the bios for the idol's which are unlocked as you both idolize them and maximize your bond with them (more on those later). They're nice because you get a love gem as you unlock each girl, but not necessary. The main story is the other option and when you open it you get something like this:
Since writing this I have actually unlocked Story 3 of Chapter 5 because I have spent more time playing Love Live! than writing this article.
Where you can access all the main chapters of the story arc. The story itself is pretty standard Japanese RPG style art:
They all have bird mouths
The story is cute and introduces all of the girls of μ, as well as giving you tips for the game. I guess the story probably isn't necessary and you could just play the songs if you wanted, but that's not how I do things.
Thanks 4 the info Eli
The next tab is the members tab, where you manage all the characters you can use. You create teams of nine girls, each with one leader and 3 different song "types". You get cards by completing songs and scouting, which you can do once per day for free, or afterwards with heart gems or friendship points. You gain friendship points by logging in, completing songs, and playing with friends.
Firstly team formation allows you to create your teams by swapping out cards. You can have up to four teams, and the combination of girls you use will help you get higher scores when playing songs. It's important to pay attention when making the teams so that you have the best combo available to get the highest score. I currently operate on three teams: one dedicated to each of the "types" of son, and cycle through depending on what I'm playing.
The "Leader" position is actually pretty important, since the member cards (the ones of the actual Love Live! cast) include two different kinds of boost. The first boost will happen during the song and can do things like widen the range of "perfect" hits, boost your score, or heal stamina. The second is just a pure score booster. Only the members of μ carry these boosts.
You can also let the computer decide a team for you.
The "Leader" position is actually pretty important, since the member cards (the ones of the actual Love Live! cast) include two different kinds of boost. The first boost will happen during the song and can do things like widen the range of "perfect" hits, boost your score, or heal stamina. The second is just a pure score booster. Only the members of μ carry these boosts.
You can also let the computer decide a team for you.
3 Eli is not enough Eli
The "Practice" and "Special Practice" tabs are both meant to improve your club members in different ways. There are different ratings of cards (normal, rare, super rare, ultra rare) along with the 3 song types (cool, smile, and pure). The rare+ cards are μ members and typically have the best stats. They're also the only ones that have aforementioned boosts. This is the screen for the "practice" tab and you essentially feed weaker cards to the ones on your team to make them even stronger. Those screen looks like this:
Kotori feasts upon the weak to become strong
Kotori is an angel
I had Kotori consume 9 duplicate cards that were also "Pure" (green) to increase her level and pure (score) which is blinked out in that screenshot because I'm terrible at taking screenshots. You can see also in this picture her two skills that I mentioned earlier. You can get cards by completing songs, though they're usually bad ones so they're most often sacrificed during practice.
Special practice involves "Idolizing" the club members into their idol outfits. Sadly none of my μ members are idolized because you can only idolize a member by combining two of the same card. The cards merge into one and the character's outfit changes and their stats increase.
Special practice involves "Idolizing" the club members into their idol outfits. Sadly none of my μ members are idolized because you can only idolize a member by combining two of the same card. The cards merge into one and the character's outfit changes and their stats increase.
Shizuku's outfit is boring, but this is a good example.
The last two tabs I rarely use. "Remove member" lets you sell members for Gold if you decide nah, I don't really want to level up any of my idols. Member list is just a list where you can see all of your members and their stats without actually doing anything with them.
Finally comes the actual, you know, rhythm game part of Love Live!. There are two different sections, "Hits" and "B-Sides". Hits are songs you get while progressing through the story and have three modes: Easy, Normal, and Hard. B-sides change day to day to include other songs from the anime, as well as event songs. They include an "Expert" mode and are harder than the Hits (their "Easy" is like the Hit's "Normal").
The icons next to the song title are what tell you what "type" of song this is, and in my case, which team to use. When you selecting a song you then select another player to "help" you, AKA give you a points boost based on their main team's leader. You also get friend points for selecting certain people to play with you. After that you select your team and the game starts.
The icons next to the song title are what tell you what "type" of song this is, and in my case, which team to use. When you selecting a song you then select another player to "help" you, AKA give you a points boost based on their main team's leader. You also get friend points for selecting certain people to play with you. After that you select your team and the game starts.
Thanks Biskitty (u kno who u are)
You can see the added boost to my Pure score.
The music note pulsates with the beat and is the source of all the circles. The green stamina bar to the left is essentially how many times I'm allowed to "miss" a circle.
This is from another song (featured on the Podcast) and shows what the game looks like in action. I failed this song to get this picture, I hope you're all happy.
During the song you tap the circles to the rhythm and get 4 scores: "perfect" meaning you hit exactly on beat, "great" meaning you were really close to the beat and it's not that noticeable", "good" meaning you were just off beat enough that it's noticeable, "bad" meaning you're way off beat, and "miss" meaning you didn't even fucking hit it.
Once you're done with the song you're given 3 grades. One for your numerical score (based on your boosts, player skills, and how well you tapped to the beat), your combo score based on how well you tapped to the beat, and how many times you've played the song. The rating scale is C, B, A, and S. S rank is essentially near-flawless. You hit all of the notes at "great" or "perfect" and your team scored enough points to be past that song's "top" threshold. Each song has a predetermined score to beat for each rank. If you don't even hit the "C" threshold, you fail the song.
After the song your scores are tallied and you're awarded three cards at random. As you play songs your bond with the idols also increases, which unlocks side stories if you both idolize and max your bond with them.
Once you're done with the song you're given 3 grades. One for your numerical score (based on your boosts, player skills, and how well you tapped to the beat), your combo score based on how well you tapped to the beat, and how many times you've played the song. The rating scale is C, B, A, and S. S rank is essentially near-flawless. You hit all of the notes at "great" or "perfect" and your team scored enough points to be past that song's "top" threshold. Each song has a predetermined score to beat for each rank. If you don't even hit the "C" threshold, you fail the song.
After the song your scores are tallied and you're awarded three cards at random. As you play songs your bond with the idols also increases, which unlocks side stories if you both idolize and max your bond with them.
I'm not on my S game today
These cards suck and will be sacrificed later.
Now once you've made your team and played the game, you can scout for new members. There are two types of scouting, "regular" and "honor student". You get one free regular scouting a day and it includes all cards, N+. Obviously normal cards are the most common, and while you can get R+ cards through normal scouting it's a very low chance. I've only gotten one. Regular scouting costs 100 friendship points per card.
Honor Student scouting is R+ only, where you can scout for just the members of μ. It costs 5 love gems for 1 card. I personally think that the game gives you enough love gems just by logging in and clearing stories that you don't need to actually purchase any love gems, but that is an option.
Honor Student scouting is R+ only, where you can scout for just the members of μ. It costs 5 love gems for 1 card. I personally think that the game gives you enough love gems just by logging in and clearing stories that you don't need to actually purchase any love gems, but that is an option.
Sometimes they also do special scouting events where you can scout for just a few members.
After that is just the "shop" where you can go to buy love gems if you want to, but that's really the only thing you can purchase in this game. Other contains the settings and news updates.
That is essentially all there is to this game and I obviously love it a lot. Go play Love Live! it's an excellent game to play when you're out and about. Though you do need either an internet connection or 4G/LTE because the game communicates to the servers to download songs and transmit your scores.
Also the Love Live! movie is coming to Kansas City in September, so there's that. I already bought my tickets.
After that is just the "shop" where you can go to buy love gems if you want to, but that's really the only thing you can purchase in this game. Other contains the settings and news updates.
That is essentially all there is to this game and I obviously love it a lot. Go play Love Live! it's an excellent game to play when you're out and about. Though you do need either an internet connection or 4G/LTE because the game communicates to the servers to download songs and transmit your scores.
Also the Love Live! movie is coming to Kansas City in September, so there's that. I already bought my tickets.
