(Vita) Superbeat Xonic - Feel the Beat!

ahchurro11

PSLS Level: Bronze
DJMax is a rhythm game series that was exclusive to the PSP made by a company named Pentavision. The objective is simple, hit the notes on a track to the rhythm of the music with a fancy little video in the background. It did something simple and it did it really good. Well, some of those developers have formed their own company named Nurijoy and made a spiritual Successor to it named Superbeat Xonic. Is it any good as a spiritual successor? Let's find out!

Similar to its spiritual brother DJMax, the modes include the Main Stage Mode that plays similar to DJMax's Main Arcade mode, A mission based World Tour mode, Leaderboards, and backstage inventory. As for the main game itself, the layout is just as simple as DJMax's. Notes fly in from the center of the screen towards the sides, with the player rhythmically pressing the buttons to the beat. While that is happening, a psychedelic video plays in the background to fill the screen which thankfully never really get distracting. The game goes for a general Night Club feel and it definitely excels in that. The whole game has a neon lights everywhere and has a night life club atmosphere to it which works for the most part overall. The music is also, for the most part, appropriate to that style as well as it consists of a lot of techno and heavy dance music, with some other genre tracks tossed in for variety.

Important to a rhythm game to its core are the controls, and Superbeat handles it really well. The game consists of 3 modes: an easy 4 Trax, a medium 6 Trax, and a hard 6 FX Trax. 4 Trax consists of 4 lanes being controlled with Dpad up, Dpad down, Triangle, and Cross buttons. 6 Trax adds 2 more lanes that use the Dpad Left and Circle buttons. 6 FX Trax finally adds FX notes that use the shoulder buttons. Its a rather simple control layout that follows similar to that found in the DJMax games, so no issues here. The timing for hitting notes is also really simple and accurate. The timings include Superbeat (Perfect), Good, and Miss. With this simple timing, it's easy to beat songs and even achieve perfects which are satisfying.

The music in the game, as mentioned before, goes for a more club style, putting more focus on techno tracks and dance songs. Luckily, they tossed in a few tracks here and there to spice the variety up, such as some metal songs or some J-Pop. Overall there's about roughly 50 tracks, so there's definitely a number of tracks to enjoy, specifically if you enjoy the club style of music.

The visuals also follow with the theme of night clubs, with laser lights and neon designs strewn about the whole game. It's easy on the eyes as it never becomes a visual mess. Each song is accompanies by a flashy background of laser patterns and colorful patterns, which work for the most part. While pretty to look at, it unfortunately isn't really memorable aside from the 1 or 2 times the game decides to throw in a unique visual like piano keys or Metal Skulls.

As a player plays through the game, they will earn EXP, which goes into unlocking more stuff like new songs, some hidden EX patterns, Note Sound Effects, and Characters with special effects like miss shields or EXP multipliers. Similar to DJMax, there isn't really much else to unlock besides that though which is disappointing to me. Luckily though, gaining EXP and leveling up is really easy and quick that it makes me wonder why they added it in to begin with. It isn't too much of a hassle.

Now for the issues: when compared to the DJMax series, this game is really easy. Perhaps it's due to the more forgiving note timing or the note patterns themselves, but I never really failed a song wheres I have needed practice in DJMax; this however is more so a personal problem than an actual problem. One actual problem the game has is visual and song variety. One of the more memorable things of the DJMax series are the varied videos that play in songs. Some were anime-esque, some were CG, some were kinda freaky, some were charming, but all of them were distinct and memorable. Superbeat Xonic doesn't have many original videos as most songs use the psychedelic patterns I mentioned before. It's mot like the unique video approach wouldn't have worked since some DLC songs used a pre-rendered video and I was able to focus on notes just fine. As for song variety, it meets the limit, but pales in comparison to its spiritual brother. In DJMax, there was no theme to the songs, they just existed. But in Superbeat, they tried to stick too closely to the night club feel, only dipping into other styles occasionally. Personally, I feel like they should have focused more on song variety than a focus on the game theme.


Overall, Superbeat Xonic is a good rhythm game on the Vita that has a nice set of visuals and songs. It's music is nice and catchy, the visual style is pretty but unmemorable, and the controls are fine tuned to perfection. The focus on the night club theme and small lack of variety keeps this game from being one of the rhythm game kings on the system though. If you should ever find it on sale, it's definitely worth a buy, but only rhythm game fans looking for something new should get it at its full price.
 
Last edited:
TFW You accidentally hit post thread before finishing the review
5375c1f9ea490b85e7d4af7a9478395c.jpg


I'll definitely come back to this to post the screenshots for it, getting images out of a vita is kinda tedious...
 

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
1,287
Messages
15,733
Members
1,427
Latest member
enzo0
Back
Top
monitoring_string = "c4568df34a4eab80a0d9879fe9bce549"