Gay rhythm game bullet hell. That’s certainly a sentence to start a review with. Let me explain. So NOISZ is a pretty standard rhythm bullet hell visual novel with a bunch of story and lore implication that I’m not 100% on because I haven’t played it, but when I saw NOISZ STARLIVHT, one thing stood out to me. There is a little more emphasis on the rhythm game aspect of it in this one.
Now it’s no secret that I enjoy a good rhythm game, hell the december reviews has an entire day of the week dedicated to them, so seeing a vertical scrolling rhythm game with a twist intrigued me, and I’m glad it did, because this game is fun. There is a fun challenge with coordinating tapping the notes with one hand and dodging bullets with the other. You heard me, there is still the bullet hell part of the game to contend with. Your sprite sits at the bottom center of the screen, and returns there (with i-frames) when you let go, but you can tap the top half to move her in order to dodge the onslaught of bullets. Usually if there are a lot of bullets, there will be few notes, and if there are a lot of notes there will be no or few bullets, but that goes out the window at the higher difficulties where you have to coordinate both.
Now there is one more thing to qualify with that sentence at the top of this article: This game is incredibly gay. You’re the producer for an idol band named STΔRLIVHT, but the band members all share a secret power called the NOISZ, which they have to use to freeze time and destroy NOISZ Beasts, that are summoned by the music they and other bands play. But to most effectively use the power of the NOISZ, they have to be able to trust eachother, so you’re spending a bit of time learning about these characters in a visual novel setting. Two of them are dating, a third is a transgirl, all of them are incredibly gay, there is even a dialogue option to tell them that you’re gay too if you wish.
The game’s developers have recently announced that they will be changing the game’s monetisation model. At the time of writing (prior to the Janurary 1st update,) the monetisation model of the game is either ~£1 per character as a 30 day subscription, or ~£5 per character for a permanent character pass, where the pass removes ads, enables offline play, enaables practice mode, removes stamina costs for difficulties above easy, unlocks hard difficulty automatically, and grants a bonus song for that character. According to the twitter posts, after the update, ads will be removed across the board, the F2P stamina system will be reworked so that stamina only provides additional boosts rather than gating gameplay, and subscription passes will be removed (leaving only the ~£5 character passes.)
My partner who squees and stutters at literally any cute transgirl asked me to also recommend the prequel stories, 2ECONDS TO STARLIVHT, which are pure visual novel, free on steam, and go into a bunch of exposition for the members of STΔRLIVHT. Forever My Diamond is Grace and Sera’s story about expressing your feelings. My Heart’s Reflection is Hakuno and Sumire’s story about what it means to want to be yourself.
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.AnarchEntertainment.NOISZSTARLIVHT Free to play
2econds to Starlivht: Forever My Diamond: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1329110 Free to play
2econds to Starlivht: My Heart’s Reflection: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1479030 Free to play
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