Project Sekai: Colorful Stage’s First MASTER 37 Song is Coming
It was a widespread meme among players that the staff of Colorful Stage (aka Proseka or pjsk) once said that songs in all difficulties can be full-combo with two fingers or thumbs and are tested before release. This was made to ensure players with different playstyles are not hard-capped for each song.
Though some songs were disproportionately hard for those using thumbs, there were players able to full-combo those with impressive skills. Either Don’t Fight The Music, widely considered the hardest song with its MASTER 36 difficulty or The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku, the remarkable song in terms of difficulty across all rhythm games, are conquered by few hands in the world. Though there were probably fewer than forty players actually able to do that, we could assume that there were some experts testing that before the release.
Rumor had spread about the new song, “What’s up? Pop!” by producer Capchii with Hatsune Miku, would come with a MASTER level 37, higher than all previous songs. This song, introduced as the winner of the Project Sekai Ultimate contest, was planned to make its debut tomorrow, 23/12/2022. There were already leaked videos (Bilibili and YouTube) and graphs of the arrangement, showing that it is impossible to full-combo this song with only two fingers.
With its collaboration with several arcade rhythm games in Japan, Project Sekai attracted a lot of arcade players (who are usually more, hardcore) over the years, especially during the time of pandemic when most arcades in Japan have limited operation time. SEGA, with their famous Geki!Chumai/Chunimai series of arcade games (O.N.G.E.K.I., CHUNITHM, and maimai), came into the mobile rhythm game scene with countless original songs. Diving into the international scene, it is common to see players that do not know virtual singers diving into Colorful Stage (the name for the international server version game), introducing them to vocal synths for the first time.
Made its debut on September 30, 2020, Project Sekai was just more than two years old. The international version, Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, was released one year ago. It marked a huge success for SEGA, with way more players than Miku Flick, Hatsune Miku VR, or other projects SEGA was working on. It was on top of music games in JP App Store, US App Store, and US Google Play Store for months. It was also the winner of the Users’ Choice Award in JP Google Play Best Game of 2020.
With all exposure being set, it is worth mentioning that vocal synth (or, virtual singers) not belonging to Crypton Future Media were not that represented in the game. Crypton, creating Hatsune Miku, Kagamine Rin&Len, MEIKO, KAITO, and Megurine Luka (all virtual singers in the game), was a rather small company that had a very long history of collaborating with SEGA, a massive video game company. Their collaboration dated back with the first significant one being Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA released on PSP in 2009.
Other VOCALOIDs, or those on newer platforms such as Synthesizer V, were merely represented in SEGA’s mobile game. Meanwhile, it is questionable to use non-Crypton VOCALOID for their cover song, known as SEKAI ver. of the song. That explains why Six Trillion Years and Overnight Story, originally sung by IA, was covered with Hoshino Ichika and Hatsune Miku in the SEKAI ver. in the game or Leo/need SEKAI Album vol.1, published by KARENT, a label owned by Crypton.
