Love Live! school idol festival

A game, and a franchise, which caught me off-guard. I wasn’t expecting it.

Around May 2014, I suddenly felt  the need to watch Love Live! School idol project anime, and…got kinda addicted. Love Live! school idol paradise was already announced for Playstation Vita, but it was still ways before release. And so, I googled, and stumbled upon LLSIF(the abbreviation for the game’s name), which was out on iOS and Android.

Just to mention, I never had an iOS device, and I hate Apple as a company. Not that it matters. I do have a so-so powerful Android phone, on which I downloaded the game.

The game came off as a complete surprise to me.

You see, I am an an old acquaintance with browser games, MMO and other types of social games, of which LLSIF is closer to a browser game…without needing a browser.

First which surprised me – being a social card game, it has gameplay. Yes, GAMEPLAY. It plays like a touchscreen-based rhythm game. Played Utakumi 575 on Vita? same shit, gameplay-wise.

Besides gameplay, the game also has STORY, yes, STORY. While nothing serious, and seems completely unrelated to the main story of the series, like a spin-off – it’s still pretty interesting, and after a year(when I started, the game was out for a year in Japan) the story went so far I’m still not done with it. 20 chapters already.

The game also offers side-stories for every character, be they canon(existing in the series. that’s only the 9 main heroines), or just added for card amount(do not exist in the series). To open a side story, you need to perform Special Training(特別練習) with that card(ultimately it means fusing 2 of the same card) and then, through playing some Lives, form a Bond(絆) with her.

What’s a bit disturbing – main heroines side-stories make them act like the player is their boyfriend or something. I do not really want that, but the developers already made them, can’t really complain.

As any proper social game, the game offers Events regularly, allowing players to get stronger cards, Loveca Stones(a type of Premium currency in the game) etc.

There are 2 kinds, and a 3^rd was added recently – Score Challenge, Event and FES(tival). Each having it’s own mechanic.

Score Challenge is, as the name suggests – a score challenge between 4 players each round. A song is chosen randomly, and the player must choose the best unit suiting the song then beat it with maximum score possible.

Event is, again, as the name suggests – an Event. The player will gather event points on normal songs, then spend them to play the Event song to get more points. Near the end of the Event a 4x event song will be added. It takes 4x the points to play, but gives 4x points earned.

FES(tival)’s are…well, festivals. The idea is that the player chooses if to play 1, 2 or 3 songs consequentially, makes some arranges(really, it’s just paying money for some POSSIBLE bonuses) then, of course, plays the songs.

The most surprising for me in LLSIF was how addictive it is. It’s like I started today, and whew, here I am, months later, playing without missing a single day.

Besides gameplay, there’s one more factor that might be keeping me in – I like j-Pop. Not only, to be exact, I just like japanese music, and japanese vocals in songs.

It’s hard to judge the game, but I can only tell it’s very good, and very addictive.

Another thing about the charm of the game and the franchise are the songs themselves. Yes, I mentioned I like J-POP just now, but it’s a bit different. Here’s how:

The songs in Love Live franchise feel really…nostalgic, somehow. Some remind me of those I’ve listened to in my young days, when I just started being a japanese game/anime fan, and some, somehow, remind me of music I’ve heard in 90s here in Russia(for example the recent lily white single – Aki no Anata no Sora Tooku, both songs on the disk are REALLY nostalgic and reminding me of something in 90s, though I can’t remember what. I’ve asked my mother and many people who lived longer than myself, but no other info besides that it’s something from that time period. No one can remember what is it so similar to, or why is it so familiar).

And I love it for that. Nostalgy is the biggest weak point of a Russian man. Believe me on that.