I played through the PSP version of The Idolmaster a few years back, and it was quite a rough game to get though as a non-native speaker.  It’s very text heavy and you are frequently given dialog options with a very short time limit to make a decision.

Even ignoring the language barrier, it takes a long time to shepherd your chosen idol through her rise to stardom, and it involves many tedious minigames and not much actual music.  The last thing I wanted to do once I’d finally gotten Ritsuko to the top was to start over with another character, much less work through the process twice more so I could manage a trio.

Live For You is almost an apology for the pain of the first game.  It’s a straightforward rhythm game that lets you throw any combination of idols on stage, with any costumes you like, and just lets you have fun tapping along to happy, energetic music while your chosen characters perform on screen.

It’s also famous for throwing achievement after achievement at the player.  If you don’t mind being super cheesy, you can get a full 1k gamerscore in a couple of hours.

I am not super cheesy, so it took me probably six or so hours.

Even if it WAS super easy, I’m still quite happy to see a 1000/1000 on my Xbox Live gamer card.  The last time I managed to do that in any game was, um, seven years ago, and that was only because you cannot play through Phantasy Star Universe WITHOUT getting 1k.

The rhythm game was a little on the tricky side, especially on Hard.  While the songs can’t be as fast as Project Diva songs – the characters in Idolmaster games are voiced by humans who are subject to, you know, the laws of physics, whereas Miku can sing at 240bpm, the note charts are complex and timing demands quite exacting.

On Easy and Normal difficulty levels, it’s not that bad, but it’s still easy to slip into a bit of a Can’t Blink, Will Break My Combo mode and start resenting the fact that the cute girls dancing and singing are distracting you from the stream of note symbols that you’re trying to hit.

…

Moving on.

It’s nice to finally get this off the backlog.  I went on a bit of a Japanese 360 games binge when I was living there in the summer of 2010 and I’m finally coming to the end of it.

Next up, unless I have a change of heart, is Deathsmiles IIX.  I may also put Bistro Cupid in and give it a spin for a bit, and then I think I get to put the Japanese 360 away for a bit.