Parents' Guide to Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!

The bright pastel graphics suggest this app will have an upbeat tone, but the slow pacing and constant push for in-game purchases sours its notes. While the tales for the game touch on a number of positive emotional themes, including friendship, ambition, empathy, and motivation, less cheerful subjects are also featured in Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, such as loss, regret, guilt, and isolation. Five different storylines are included to choose from, offering a considerable amount of dialogue-based content to click through. The experience also features unique personalization aspects. For instance, you'll respond to a series of abstract conceptual thoughts -- such as "The scenery I saw was ..." -- with statements like "glow sticks illuminating" or "the familiar sights of my hometown" to tailor the songs you hear. You can also adjust the game's difficulty level and speed. The rhythm-based game is pretty challenging, but since it primarily involves making the same tapping and other motions, playing can start to feel tedious after a while.

In fact, the overall pace feels slow. The app takes time to load, and advancing to the next line of dialogue just lags during play. Even when that's not an issue, some conversations feel more drawn out than they need to be. There's also some incentive to spend real-world money when playing -- because crystals, which you earn by completing games and can be used to make progress, aren't doled out too quickly. Music fans may enjoy testing out their rhythmic skills a few times in the game and watching the brief periodic animated performances. But while the storyline tugs at some emotional heartstrings at times, the plot may move too slowly for players to ultimately find it very compelling -- and if they get tired of playing the game portion of the app, they may not end up rocking out to Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! for too long.