Review: Superbeat Xonic (Vita)

Turn your PlayStation Vita into a portable rave unit, crank up the volume and use your carefully honed skills to tap along to an impressive library packed with over 50 tracks!

Pros:

• Three difficulties: Easy, Normal and Hard.
• Autosave on/off.
• DJ Ranking can be turned on or off. Having it on means your scores get uploaded to PSN.
• Controls can be touchscreen or face buttons or a combination of the two.
• Opening tutorial.
• Backstage: Details stats like levels completed, Items collected etc.
• Stage: Basically your arcade mode Here you can pick a song and go at it.
• World tour: The main campaign of the game where you go through various stages of difficulty and length. Full Platinum trophy.
• Earn exp and level up to unlock items. You earn exp from finishing songs and is performance based.
• Notes in game vary from the easy to the extreme. You have your simple single bars where you tap them in rhythm, Then you have ones where you swipe up or down upon contact, But then you have a scratch one where you hold the note and guide it up and down in a DJ scratching fashion.
• Best played with headphones.
• Full online leaderboard support.
• Three music playlists:4 Trax, 6 Trax and 6 Trax FX. Not only does this determine how many songs you play in a setlist but it also introduces different note and note types thus increasing difficulty.
• Fever mode: Keep hitting the notes and increase your fever bar, Upon filling it FEVER automatically kicks in for bonus scores.
• Power Gauge: Your health bar and missing notes decreases it whilst hitting notes fills it.
• Combo meter. Your best combo is saved on the records.
• DJ Icons that unlock as you level grant in-game buffs like shields, extra xp etc.
• Key sound: Again unlocked through levelling, A key sound can be equipped and serves as a way to increase replayability by adjusting the sound of your taps. In short it makes songs sound different and feel fresh.
• Can change game speed on the fly.
• Game speed goes from 0.5 to 2.0.

Cons:

• Difficult gameplay especially the later levels in world stage.
• Unlocking new levels in world tour is not always clear and you can be left feeling lost and confused as to what to do.
• Tap/Hits can be a tad off in terms of picking up hits.
• A lot to take in initially.
• Never feels like you have everything explained to you.
• Extensive play is tiring on the old fingers.