As the title says, it's time to get back into Groove Coaster on Switch! Future Performers is out! I havent had the time to play a whole lot of it yet, but so far there's good and bad with this new entry.
The Good: The inclusion of a Story Mode, with a cliche sport anime feeling, to unlock most of the stuff in the game. This remove the Mission Board grind from Wai Wai Party!!! In fact, a big plus for me is the fact that you don't need to grind for much (at least from what I can see right now). No coint to collect at all. There's also two Controls Methods: Basic and Advanced. Advanced is almost like the previous game, with Notes that you need to hit on both side at the same time. Basic remove them, so you pretty don't need to do a lot of button combination. So even more players from all skills levels can play it with ease now. There's also videos playing in some songs in the background, which I really like.
The Neutral: No more ad-lib (hidden) notes, which while cool when playing a song, didnt meant much to me. I was always using the item showing me the hidden notes when I wanted to Full Chain a song anyway in Wai Wai Party!!!!. No more Motion-Control mode also, which I never cared much, except to complete the Missions linked to them. And some new notes have replaced others. You don't have to quickly press from left to right anymore, those kind of notes are gone. Instead, you can now do secondary note while doing a HOLD instead. And there's also a Green Note that you need to hit with the Trigger/Shoulder buttons. I don't know if I like that one much, because the beauty of Groove Coaster always was in its simplicity of only using the D-Pad and face buttons, no matter which button you wanted. To now have to think about another button totally outside my usual range is killing my flow a little.
The Bad: Granted Story Mode will unlock more, when booting up the game, you only have access to around 30 songs. I have hard time believing we will reach the 100 songs Wai Wai Party!!!! base game was offering at launch, but we'll see as I complete Story Mode. Plus, if you bought a lot of DLC in Wai Wai Party!!!!, a lot of the songs in Future Performers are duplicate. Gone are also every multiplayer modes. For now, it seems to be 100% single-player. Maybe new modes will be added later on, like how the Online was added way after the initial release in Wai Wai Party!!!!, but it's not there yet.
It's only very early impression though, so I will surely change my opinions as I play some more and as they update the game over the years. For now, you can watch the first 35 minutes of gameplay with the video I did below:
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