K-On is something that's had a huge impact on my life. I saw the anime back in 2021, and for a plethora of reasons, it's become not only my favourite anime, but also my all-time favourite piece of media. I've done a review of the show on AniList (that you can check out here: https://anilist.co/review/19150) and a 7 part analysis on the movie that came out in 2011 (which you can check out here at your own discretion: https://x.com/indigodaman/status/1767225163848806787?s=20), but since it's now the 15th anniversary of the anime, there's no chance I wouldn't do something to commemorate, and what better way to do that than to review the one piece of K-On media I've yet to analyse; the game known as Ho-kago Live.

I found out about this game's existence shortly after binging the anime, and I fairly liked it. Not a game I returned to often, but still fun for what it is. But the more I came back to this game, the more I've grown to love it, and it's at a point where this is one of my personal favourite games. I'll start with how it represents the show it's based on. It does a fantastic job at capturing the vibes and tone of the series in more ways than one. The cel shaded artstyle manages to nail the look of the anime with 3D models, and it looks really appealing, helped a lot by the backgrounds taking place in multiple of the show's locations that also look really solid, not even mentioning the new backgrounds that go all out with raw creativity. There are also these small cutscenes that play when going through the game for the first time, and while I couldn't make out the dialogue since it never got localized (I played this before the existence of the English fan patch, shut up), the animations really captured the silly nature of the series, and this is also prevalent when you see these cute chibi versions of the characters just walking around on the main menu and doing whatever they like. It also captures the more stylistic parts of the show amazingly with the menu UI, the layout for when you're playing songs resembling a music sheet, the awesome title cards that appear before you properly begin each song, and the multitude of references to the show through the MCs and animations.

So, we've established how great Ho-kago Live is at being a K-On game, but does it deliver on the gameplay? Yes, it absolutely does. It plays out like a typical rhythm game where you have to press the directional buttons and face buttons to the songs being played, in which there are 19 taken from the first season of the show and multiple albums and EPs. But what makes Ho-kago Live stand out is the approach it takes. Across the 19 songs, there is more than one way to play them, because you can pick between the 5 HTT members to represent a specific instrument, Yui being the lead guitar, Mio being the bass, RItsu being the drums, etc. And the rhythm in which you have to press the buttons changes to compensate, providing a unique experience for any given song across all 5 characters, enhanced by the different styles across each instrument. Yui uses the X and Circle buttons alongside the arrow buttons on occasion, with a good chunk of the prompts being held to represent longer, Azusa's the same but the Square button is more prominently used instead, Ritsu uses faster X and Circle button presses and you never do long strokes since you're using drums, Mio uses the directional buttons as she's a left handed bassist, which is a really cool detail if you ask me, and Mugi uses all of the face buttons. This also offers a variety in challenge, as it'll fluctuate quite a lot depending on the song you play and the character you choose for it, further making every character's style worth trying for every song.

Another element that makes its gameplay stick out from other games of the like is how a vertical line goes across the music sheet below as the buttons pop up, as opposed to the buttons scrolling accordingly. It adds a unique flavour to the gameplay style that I personally think makes it easier to focus on both the visual events happening during the songs and keep track of the button presses. The cherry on top of everything that works wonderfully about the gameplay is the ranking system. I assume this is also a staple of rhythm games, but the way it's handled in Ho-kago Live is a lot more fair and forgiving than Osu or Friday Night Funkin'. In order to get a high rank, you just need to get as many good button presses as possible while avoiding as many bad or missed button presses as you can. And to get a perfect clear, you gotta avoid the bad/missed button presses entirely. And it's just right in terms of difficulty. The game never gets so fast that it's impossible to keep up with the button presses, and you can take plenty of bad/missed button presses before getting a game over, so it offers plenty of room to practice, and the game puts the most emphasis on a specific instrument based on the character you pick, so it's a lot more manageable to follow along to the rhythm of the song in question, but believe me when I say that getting high ranks is no easy task either.

Some of these can be absolutely brutal, especially when you're going for a perfect clear (I have PTSD from the amount of times I attempted getting a perfect clear on Giita ni Kubittake as Yui), and god bless your soul if you decide to play these songs on the harder difficulties, because those are definitely options if the normal difficulty was somehow too easy for you, but they are also incredibly rewarding when you eventually get them. Not only because of the lovely voice clips you get, but getting high ranks unlocks plenty of stuff, from cakes that you can pick between before a song and use during gameplay to make things easier, which is another really cool feature for those who are really struggling without being too lenient on the player, a bunch of costume customization options for HTT, and plenty more. Oh, and a smaller detail I want to touch on are the MCs, which are essentially just voice clips that are placed at ether the start or the end of the song, and they add to the immersion quite a bit. When they're placed at the start of the song, it feels like a nice warm-up for the song you're about to play, and when they're placed at the end, it's a great breather depending on how fast you had to press the buttons or how much you practised to get a high rank. Either way, it's great.

Now let's talk about the music, the thing that matters the most in a rhythm game. K-On is home to some of the greatest songs I've ever heard in my life, between the openings and endings between seasons, songs that played during a performance, miscellaneous songs exclusive to albums and EPs, and the character image songs where each HTT member gets their chance to shine with their own vocals. There's a huge range of absolute bangers across the discography, and there would have been no questions at all if Ho-kago Live merely just ripped edited down versions of the songs and called it a day. But it went the extra mile, going out of its way to remix every single song that you hear. And it's never jarring because these remixes are absolutely fantastic and fully keep the charm of the original songs intact. In fact, I actually prefer the remixes over the originals in some cases, particularly Curry Nochi Rice, Gita ni Kubittake and Mezase Happy 100%. That's how amazing these remixes are.

Not only did they provide absolute bangers of remixes to the songs, they also created incredible visual events to go with them. I already commented on how the artstyle and backgrounds were great, but I cannot overstate how well they all go with the songs that play over them. And there's plenty of appealing stuff beyond just those aspects that make them really cool. Each song offers a multitude of unique character animations to go with them, and it's always a joy to see how they play out. And one of the character image songs for each HTT member occasionally presents a slideshow of shots from the show, and the moments that they show off from the series give off a sense of growth and accomplishment, especially when the songs in question reach a point of triumph and hype energy, and it's genuinely one of the greatest feelings I could get from anything that I don't know how to properly describe.

Remember when I brought up how you could unlock costumes for the characters earlier? Well, that's the final thing I wanna talk about. This adds a huge level of appeal and charm to the game because you aren't just limited to HTT's school uniforms with this addition. You can go all out with picking between casual outfits, mixing and matching with accessories and hairstyles, or even choosing really cool outfits that go with the theming for songs like Hello Little Girl and Don't Say Lazy. This layer of customization is a very big one that enhances the feel of and charm of the game, and it gives out the best unlockable rewards in the game for getting high ranks.

Overall, K-On Ho-kago Live is a fantastically crafted game that perfectly captures the spirit of K-On in every aspect, and excels at being a rhythm game in its own right with incredibly put together gameplay that has a lot of options, methods and general replay value, captiviating and charming visuals, phenomenal remixes of already amazing songs, and solid customization in multiple areas. It has a lot to offer on all fronts, and it is definitely worth checking out if you are a fan of rhythm games and especially if you're a K-On fan.