Groove Coaster is a Japanese rhythm game by Taito that started as a mobile game in 2011 but found its way to arcades - the arcade version being from 2013. Many years later we got a PC release which is a Groove Coaster Link Fever arcade game port.
The game can be played with a keyboard, Steam controller or other game controller (unfortunately setting the game control is not possible in-game).
The game play is very simple. You pick a song and then you will see your little avatar travel on a line that could be described as a roller coaster track. It can go in any kind of direction without giving any hint about where it goes next. On the line you avatar will encounter different kinds of notes that you need to confirm when your avatar passes right through them.
The controls for the game will depend on what you use to play the game. Since keyboard is something all PC users have I will only talk about the keyboard controls. The general idea is that you have a controller for each hand that is capable of several kind of movements (in case of a keyboard it means that you have 5 keys for each hand, 4 if you omit the middle one which is not necessary).
On the easiest difficulty you will encounter only three most common notes. The first one looks like a circle and it requires you to press any button with one hand. A critical a more jagged circle requires you to press a key simultaneously with both hands on their respective controllers. These notes can have hold variants which require you to press and hold a button until they are gone. There are other kind of notes that will appear on higher difficulties. Beat note that requires you to press a button repeatedly, scratch that requires you to alternate two keys, or slides that are directional and require you to press the corresponding direction.
The game has very specific visuals that make it a really nice ride from start to finish. The vector graphics are abstract and psychedelic and change according to the beat and flow of the song. It's what makes the game so unique.
The other thing that is unique for Groove Coaster is the use of ad-lib notes. Those are notes that you won't see on the track. If you find all the ad-lib notes you will get a Full Chain instead of No Miss. To find them you can either try hitting notes to the rhythm or to some special effects in the song or you can use some items to help you find them.
Items and avatars can be bought for a currency that you gain by playing. The better your grade the more currency you will get for the song. There are also several songs that you can buy with it.
There are 3 standard difficulties for each song Simple, Normal and Hard. Some songs also have Extra. The songs can't be played on any difficulty from the start. You need to unlock each difficulty. In order to be able to play a song on Normal you need to clear it on Simple first. If you want to play it on Hard you need to clear it on Normal etc.
The song list is rather limited (at least if you look at it from the perspective of a mobile or arcade player). The song count is not that big but there is quite many songs available in the base game (58 if I am not mistaken). DLCs can be bought if one chooses to. The DLC songs are mostly good.
Since this game is Japanese you will find Japanese music there. There are some original songs, game music and touhou. Vocaloid and anime songs that are in mobile and arcade version are not present in the PC version.
Verdict
In general I'd recommend Groove Coaster to anyone who likes rhythm games and wants a simple easy to pick up game that is a visual joy. For a casual player that wants a new experience and has no prior experince with Groove Coaster I can only recommend this game even if the game is abandoned by the developers.
If you are more serious rhythm game player I wouldn't recommend the PC version. Download GC on android or iOS, go to local Round 1 to play the arcade version or buy Wai Wai Party!! for Switch. Buy the PC version only if you are capable of playing a rhythm game that is offsync and you are willing to listen to offsync keysounds.
The game is not synchronized and will run differently depending on your PC configuration. The fact that rhythm games can be offsync is nothing new but they can usually be synchronized with the use of visual or audio offsets. Groove Coaster for PC cannot be fixed in this way because different songs have different offsets. The game is also key sounded. When you hit a note it will actually play a sound. The fact that the game is offsync will make it even worse experience since some sounds play with offset set and some don't.
S'Tsung (stsungjp @ Twitter)
