Actually managed to find a copy of Project Diva X at Best Buy today (seems like all of the local stores got exactly one copy of the PS4 version each... which, to be fair, is one more than I expected).
Played the game a bit and I am not a big fan of the story they tried to add at all. I can understand why they added it in an effort to drive people to play the songs outside of the typical achievement/score attack loop, but man the narratives they have here are omega corny. Feels like one of those things that would come across better in Japanese having absolutely no understanding of it.
I think most people who wanted Future Tone would have bought it by now. Plus, how are they going to market it as an "arcade game" when we never received the original arcade games?
From my experience, very few people import foreign-language games of any kind (especially since doing so ends up being a fair bit more expensive -- this isn't the price arbitrage that you see people going for on digital storefronts). Even something that would be relatively import-friendly (like fighting games or music-rhythm games) generally only gets bought by the most hardcore players.
As for how to position the game internationally... remasters are all the rage, right? Just pitch it as a remaster of the PS3 and 3DS games (never mind that some of those PS3/PSP games never came out here).
This is the first time I'm hearing about Future Tone, and holy god. 220 songs? No god-damned Star notes? THAT SOUNDS LIKE HEAVEN!
...except for the part about being on PS4 only. I mean, I know why, but I enjoy these games so much more on portables. That's never been more clear with PDX, where I have a hard time following the notes on my TV but it's smooth as butter on the Vita.
Ugh.
Future Tone is much more readable on large screens than F/F2/X are, as the notes are larger, have drop shadows and the game's default scroll speed is higher. Don't know if that's enough to help... but you can download Future Tone Prelude for free and try the two demo songs and see if it helps.
And I'm pretty sure some of the Extreme charts in Future Tone would lead to some
interesting gymnastics on a Vita.
The series has been declining in popularity in Japan and the concert-style can likely be done on a smaller budget.
Either that or maybe they just wanted to try something different to keep the series interesting *shrug*
TBH, I just focus on the notes and the music and don't even pay that much attention to what's going on in the background.
It feels like a lot of Japanese-developed games are in this downward spiral when it comes to their budgets, which is only accelerating the death of that market. Especially when you compare Project Diva X to something like Cinderella Girls: Starlight Stage. Project Diva still has higher production values... but that gap is shrinking, and by cutting the budget they are in most instances creating a less compelling experience, so fewer and fewer people stick around (which then causes even deeper budget cuts, and so on).
Part of me wonders how dependent they are on international sales to keep the series solvent, since it seems like this is the second release (the first being Project Mirai DX) that was made specifically for the international market.
) and the lack of loading screen illustrations as a minor nitpick.