BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!

Overview

BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! is a rhythm game released for iOS and Android devices. The game was developed by Craft Egg and published by Bushiroad as part of the BanG Dream! multimedia project alongside the release of a related anime series, manga series, light novel, collectible card game and actual music CD releases as well as live concerts. It was first released in Japan on March 16, 2017 followed by releases in Taiwan on September 26, 2017, in Korea on February 6, 2018 and finally, a worldwide release on April 4, 2018.

Plot

The story centers around 5 different girl bands: Poppin'Party, Afterglow, Pastel*Palette, Roselia and Hello Happy World!, each formed by 5 high school girls.

The main story follows an unseen, silent player character at his/her new job at the live house CiRCLE as the live house prepares to organize a live event to showcase the many girl bands that populate the local area. The five featured bands are eventually brought together and all agree to perform at the event, after which the story details the preparation leading up to the event itself with the bands clashing over creative differences and disagreements in purpose and motivation.

Additionally, each band has its own individual story arc that expands on the formation of the band as well as the goals of the individual band members as well as that of the band itself. These stories generally recount the girls' daily lives and their various problems and circumstances both within the band and without.

Finally, the game has new events every week that are each accompanied by a short story arc, generally involving a smaller portion of the cast, sometimes across bands, getting involved in some circumstance which provides the setting for the new event.

The story is presented in a Visual Novel style. The dialogue is fully voiced by the Japanese cast with translated English in text boxes. The story is presented in an episodic format, with each successive chapter being unlocked by playing the game and earning experience to 'rank up' in both an overall account level for the main story chapters and in individual band ranks to unlock the band stories.

Gameplay

Basic Gameplay

BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! is a touch-based rhythm game. Players must respond to note indicators coming toward the player on the 3D Note Highway, similar to the Guitar Hero franchise, and activate them in time with the song and the notes falling to the line at the bottom of the screen. There are 7 different lanes in the note highway where notes may come down and there are 3 different note types in the game, namely light blue tap notes, green hold/slide notes and pink swipe notes where the player must match the note timing by quickly swiping up on the screen.

Scoring is done relative to how well the button press is timed with the note, earning either a Perfect, Great, Good, Bad, or Miss. At the end of a song, scores are ranked on a scale from D - S as well as the max combo achieved, with only Perfect and Great hits counting toward combos.

Band Formation

There is also a card collecting aspect of the game that influences scoring on songs. Players must form bands of 5 cards, each card representing 1 of the 25 different characters, and the combined power level of that formed band will affect the numerical scoring at the end of songs alongside the proficiency with which the song was played.

Each character has multiple cards representing them, showcasing the character in different costumes with each card having a rating between 1-4 stars denoting their rarity. These cards are obtained through the Gacha system common to many free-to-play games where in-game currency is used to obtain random character cards. Cards can be drawn individually or in packs of 10, with a 10-pack draw guaranteeing that one card will be at least 3 Stars or rarer. New cards are added with each weekly event, with newly added cards generally having an increased drop rate for that week.

Events

New events are held every week and are accompanied by the release of a group of new cards, a new mini-story arc for the event and, generally, a new song to play. The events themselves generally involve players earning event points to get on a leaderboard, with high placements earning rewards at the end of the event in the form of in-game currency and other useful items.

Free-to-play Structure

The main free-to-play mechanic in the game is the aforementioned collectible card and accompanying gacha system. Currency to get new cards is earned through completing missions, performing various tasks on songs such as getting high ranks and full combos, and by participating in the weekly events.

There is also a timer mechanic where players have 'live boosts' that replenish over time. These live boosts only serve multiply the rewards earned from playing songs. In practice, this means that the live boosts are necessary to make any meaningful progression in unlocking the story and climbing event leaderboards. However, it is important to note that players are still able to play the game if they have run out of live boosts, albeit earning significantly reduced rewards for their efforts.

Track List

Worldwide Server Track List (as of 24 April 2018)

Original Tracks

• Tokimeki Experience!
• Sparkling Dreaming ~ Sing Girls ~
• Yes! BanG Dream!
• Tear Drops
• Poppin' Shuffle
• Star Beat!
• Summer Skies & Sun! Sun! Seven!
• On Your New Journey
• 1000 Cryinsg Skies
• Keep On Moving!
• Doki-Doki Sing Out!
• Hanazono Electric Guitar!!!
• Chocolate Bass Recipe
• A Distant Heartbeat
• I-I Never Said Love!
• That is How I Roll
• True Color
• Shuwarin*Dreaming
• Pasu Pare Revolutions*
• BLACK SHOUT
• Re:birth day
• LOUDER
• Passionate Starmine
• Orchestra of Smiles!
• Happiness! Happy Magical
• Goka! Gokai!? Phantom Thief!

Cover Songs

• Sorairo Days (orig. by Shoko Nakagawa)
• Alchemy (orig. by Girls Dead Monster)
• Hikaru Nara (orig. by Goose House)
• Little Busters! (orig. by Rita)
• Karma (orig. by Bump of Chicken)
• Don't Say "lazy" (orig. by Houkago Tea Time)
• Butter-Fly (orig. by Kouji Wada)
• great escape (orig. by cinema staff)
• READY STEADY GO (orig. by L'Arc~en~Ciel)
• Secret Base (orig. by Zone)
• Dream Parade (orig. by i*Ris)
• Soul's Refrain (orig. by Megumi Hayashibara)
• Hacking to the Gate (orig. by Kanako Itou)
• ETERNAL BLAZE (orig. by Nana Mizuki)
• Guren no Yumiya (orig. by Linked Horizon)
• Sugar Song to Bitter Step (orig. by UNISON SQUARE GARDEN)
• Silhouette (orig. by KANA-BOON)
• 1, 2 Fanclub (orig. by MikitoP)
• Seikai wa Hitotsu! Ja Nai!! (orig. by Milky Holmes)