Test your rhythm skills and help turn a team of underperforming NEETs into real money-making idols in this rhythm game addition to the popular Japanese game franchise Ensemble Stars. Originally released in Japanese by Cacalia Studio and Happy Elements K.K back in 2015 as a spinoff of Ensemble Girls!, this musical game full of male idols is now available in English on PC and iOS and Android platforms.
Combining multiple different game mechanics, Ensemble Stars!!! Music is gacha, rhythm, life simlulator, and visual novel all in one. For those unfamiliar with gacha games, players exchange in-game currency for “pulls” to receive random collectibles.
There are multiple ways to play due to the different game mechanics it has. The main part of the game is to go through its story. From the start, you will have a Main Story with two parts and then, Story Campaigns. There are also special events with more storylines based on season, holidays, and even the idols’ birthdays. The stories are all broken into chapters, and you must read through them. Occasionally you are required to play a “Live” performance show which is the rhythm portion of the game. In these “Lives,” you will need to create a “Live Lineup,” which are virtual cards of the idols you want to use in the performance. Each card or idol comes with stats, which help you gain points during the rhythm game. A certain score must be achieved for you to continue reading the story. Players earn these cards through the gacha mechanic, which in the game is called “scouting.”
When scouting, players will use the in-game currency of diamonds to purchase tickets to scout idol cards. Players can either pay actual money for in-game currency or simply use the free diamonds that they get as rewards. The game can be played entirely free, and there’s quite a lot of free content for a gacha game. The story chapters essentially do not require the use of currency or daily points to play and as long as you have a strong deck of idol cards for the “Lives,” you can continue playing until you reach a point where your current cards are not strong enough.
Ensemble Stars!!! Music focuses heavily on the rhythm mechanic. Besides the rhythm segments in the storylines, members can also just play simulated performances or songs from the franchise in the “Live Stage Shared” section. Here, players have access to a huge library of songs where they can just test their rhythm skills. However, this section still relies on your current deck of idol cards and uses up “BP” on each try. Members can replenish BP by using free or paid diamonds or simply waiting for them to auto-replenish with time.
With so many idol gacha games out on the market, what makes Ensemble Stars!!! Music different? Interestingly, the storyline is slightly different than the norm. While players are considered a producer, they are not exactly a character in the game itself and the visual novel is very much from a third-person point of view. The story follows a group of unmotivated misfits at a music company called ES (Ensemble Square). ES has labeled these boys as underperformers and are essentially so bad that they are considered a waste of the company’s investments. However, the boys can’t just be fired as they have accumulated a lot of debt within the company using their resources without bringing in actual income as idols. The boys are given one last chance to become successful idols, so they must re-learn the basics on how and what it takes to become an idol.
Each of the boys face their own challenges, and they must resolve these issues in order to become popular idols at ES. Aira is the underachiever who is more obsessed with idols than becoming one himself, Hiiro is a country himbo who only came to ES to find his deadbeat brother, Tatsumi is an older ex-idol who is in debt from a hospitalization and being on leave for years, and Mayoi is a perverted introvert who believes he’s some kind of supernatural being. A strange lot of boys, but they will eventually become the idol group, ALKALOID.
While the main story follows ALKALOID, there are about 14 other groups at ES, offering 40 to 50 other characters to get to know in this game. That means there is a lot of content to go through for a mostly free game. It’s a lot of boys, and you just can’t help but want to collect all the idol cards including their special versions during events. In addition, the game also has a section where you can obtain outfits and dress your favorite boy(s) up and even decorate their breakroom. As a producer, you have to make sure your boys are well rested and well dressed for anything!
From the music, content, and story, Ensemble Stars!!! Music is a solid rhythm gacha game. There is so much to do that it’s almost shocking how much of it can be played free. The voice acting of the fully voiced game and its music are spectacular. Skilled rhythm gamer or not, there’s a little bit of everything in this game for everyone.