Perhaps, it's eastern rhythm games in a nutshell where notes are coming in on different lane and you'll have to tap the respective buttons/keys to the beat and this one goes next-gen with VR gaming. Is this the kind of VR rhythm game I want to see in the first place? Sure, the concert-simulation VR games where you have to do all the filthy call & response garbage are not that great as the concept is completely unacceptable with the games having insufficient songs to choose from as well as the fact that there are other bullshit features like private encore stuff which I find disturbing to be frank. For job-simulation VR games, I have positive opinions about them and as the genre suggests, it's about what it's like to work in the office, store/shop counter as a shopkeeper/cashier or whatnot or even in the kitchen as a professional chef, etc. What about VR dance games where you dance on stage in front of the audience? That is the kind I want to see but...
Anyway, for Airtone, the gameplay takes place in the 3D field made out of 5 lines where the notes are coming at you or something. It has the Smash notes, Trigger notes, Hold notes as well as Tunnel notes. The Tunnel Notes are one impressive parts of my imagination where all the lines merge to form one to two lines and you have to follow along or something while holding the trigger button until you reach 100 notes. The gameplay as well as the amount of songs give you the arcade-experience.
Unfortunately, if you expect a proper VR dance game, well, it's no easy feat as the VR controllers are somewhat different than using the Kinect itself but I guess that this is how the next-gen rhythm game goes on VR. The game may have superseded the previous sensor-detection rhythm games like Samba De Amigo, Para-Para Paradise but to make the gameplay involve 360-degree fields where the notes are coming at you in all directions may make this kind of VR rhythm game too complicated. It's basically like Samba De Amigo where everything is sensor-detectable in 360 degrees. I don't mean X-axis 360-degrees which require that you turn your body around to focus on the other groups of incoming notes. I mean the Y-axis one. During the song, the lines may at times change angles and especially for the Tunnel Notes which change angles as well. Again, like those sensor-detection rhythm games of the past in the arcades, this kind of VR rhythm game seems to be using your arms or something rather than the entire body like what DDR does in making use of your legs.
The navigator is named Neon and the way she guides you is like the adviser of Sim Theme Park or similar where the adviser comes on screen and tells you something. This may become repetitive after a while and she should do the teleportation method for the results screen rather than come flying to you or something.
Lastly, the English voice acting doesn't fit the character but who cares when a character like Neon is more or less the game navigator?
This is one interesting discovery and if you're into rhythm game genre, you may probably want to buy it although you'll need a more powerful computer along with VR accessories needed for games like this. There's also the Playstation 4 version on the way and needless to say, Playstation Move controllers are needed in addition to the PSVR accessory.
