This is only rated highly in comparison to other gacha games. Playing this game when you don't like gachas is like going to a 5 star bakery when you hate pastries. To reword: It's only a good video game in its niche.

The card artworks are really pretty, the characters are fully-fledged and compelling even if you're just in it for the Vocaloids, and the rhythm game aspect is easy to understand while still being relatively challenging. To top it off there's no uncomfortable waifubait interactions; rather, the player isn't a character in the story at all, which is something that I appreciate.

If you spent hours laying in your bed listening to Nashimoto-P as a teenager or are currently a teenager doing that and MOST IMPORTANTLY, you already like gacha rhythm games - please play this. It's not overrated.

THIS GAME CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE
after I started playing I started listening to Vocaloid all day every day
I used to be a masculine and stoic man who felt indifferent to anime females but now I am a masculine man who obsesses over anime females, this game literally helps me find banger songs and now I hang anime posters in my room and base my entire personality on anime girls !!!
I sucked when I started but now I'm the goat and I can clear any song on master difficulty that isnt like level 30+
quite literally a kawaii and sugoi moment

PROJECT SEKAI

When I first started it, at first I noticed a lot of melodramatic or cliche narratives choices which weren't healthy for a solid series. On the other hand, as events unfolded (specially nightcord at 25am), my opinion has changed because the game changed itself. Idk what the author was thinking during his early journey through the writing for using those lazy narrative ideas, but after the prologue ended, it turned into another title.
When I first came back to it, I wasn't that hopped in the game, so I began looking for clues in the plot to make myself curious (as I already said here I have difficulty with no-goal rule), and then, before I even realised, the goals were slowly appearing, one by one.... surprise after surprise, the characters were growing inside me (this is such a gay affirmation). Project Sekai is not strong at first, but all in all, a title that gets strong. So don't give up until you see new genesis, then you shall see how far they can go with such a simple story

NIGHTCORD AT 25AM

An experience 'outside' of the external world. Here we're swimming through the darkest memories of girls having a battle with their mental selves. Cinema 4, I can't decide my favorite character because each arc seems like one of them becomes my fav and then another arc come and other girl is my fav lol, they all are great and solid characters, but Mafuyu is without a doubt the most well explored and done character of they all excuse me. Such a great suspense they were planning how to do it for already many events, the build up was so well done, everything went so well that even the production suddenly improved af just for that arc's end. For the time I write this, I don't know if wxs will be able to beat it, but this journey was wholesome and worth it. It's kinda hard to put into words, but even so little time spent with those characters, I already felt like I was in such a journey of various things, accepting the way we are, being there for another person, that FIRST YOU FIGHT, THEN YOU RUN, AND THEN YOU FIGHT AGAIN like a cat. Seeing everything that happened with Mafuyu makes me reflect again on why I will always prefer to be sentimental for the rest of my life: because acting with the heart is acting with what we know best, it's acting with our true selves.

A BATTLE FOR THE HOPE - When I see nightcord at 25am, I think of ourselves working together to encounter that paradise, and that all of that is a journey meeting the true light. Find yourself with your own heart.

a part of niigo soundtracks are solid compositions (I even talk about bgms here) because they can really transmits what they want to, those songs helps to create this feeling of hope through the darkness using very interesting tones with the piano
also it has such great leitmotifs, and prob my favorite from the series after the title screen

It's also the best production in my opinion, every CG is absolutely cinema, and the soundtrack is really a degree above all the other groups

It's impressive how good the cast of characters is, from every group I played. There is not a SINGLE character there that I could think "ok this dude or this girl is the worst character in the cast", NO. All of them are lovable, consistent and well written characters, having great personalities and goals. Your affirmation of saying those characters are alive was really true.
I think project sekai suffers the same from other gacha games like blue archive and genshin impact. Maybe they all don't have a strong early story, but after some chapters they definitely step up a gear.
During niigo's half point, I already thought what to expect from the rest of the entire journey (the other groups' story and niigo's ending arc), but damn it was flying colors

WONDERLAND X SHOWTIME

Life is a journey of spectacle, as we're right now on stage performing our moves. Four members with different dreams came together to help each other get there. Even though a parting is near to come, the final destiny must be an ultimate reencounter. We manage to learn their development in evolving as a person (damn I remember nene being so shy at the beginning and already in one of the final events she was so proactive). I always wondered what the goal of WXS would be, and it seems it was a coming of age all this time. One of my favorite messages in fiction was when I learned we people live or for our dreams or for love. In WXS we could see that everyone there are living to accomplish their dreams. Tsukasa was the most enlightened protagonist of the series, but I want to draw attention to Emu, who is the personification of innocence and humility. Basically, THE PERFECT PERSON DOES EXIST.. IT'S HER... There is still a lot to explore from all of them. I believe WXS has more to say about the characters than the other two groups I've read.
On the other hand, I thought the coming of age was done too quickly (as I'm used to very big stories), so it wasn't enough for me to get emotional or feel much affection for the characters.
Therefore, the strong point of this group for me was the well-executed shows, mainly the one where Tsukasa sounds through the eyes (WE DON'T CRY!!!!!).

A COMING AGE THROUGH THE LIGHT - When I see wonderland x showtime, I think of ourselves being in the paradise, living our lives at the triumphant level searching for our dreams. Live your golden time, flourish your best moment, till it turn into memories.

LIGHT UP THE FIRE: VIVID BAD SQUAD

The best and most emotional event in the entire game for me, period. I'm getting chills just from writing it right now. This was PEAK Project Sekai, it PEAKED right here. You transform a story that had a boring objective with no expectation of improvement, where everything remained the same, into the tracks to compete among the best stories in the game. A single, JUST A TINY SINGLE twist made VBS story go up to tiers of the top of this series.
This story completely deceived the viewer with a totally unexpected tale that is a spectacular shock factor. On a path towards success in a calm and hopeful way, a major revealing obstacle brings us back as if to the beginning itself. Through this, we see how we were deceived from the beginning and the entire direction that the VBS story was taking was practically all justified and everything makes sense. Futile flasbacks that looked like it were going nowhere? Just random events of they improving? IT WAS THE HISTORY BEING WRITTEN as a beautiful passing of the baton to the next to continue the LEGEND of those who marked a generation. A group where their side characters are FUNDAMENTAL in the plot, showing truly the definition of Passion. The whole drama was spectacularly well created and reminded me a little of KEY during its golden age.
Throwed half of project sekai weakness to hell. It didn't failed building up even for a bit, the structure worked because the events were mostly long, and the fast and consistent pacing that marked the event being completely solid from beginning to the end.
Though, it's kinda bizarre to notice why the fuck An is not the protagonist of this group. Maybe they are planning something for Kohane, but in my eyes it doesn't make sense so far. It should've been between Akito or An, both fundamental characters of the group, while Kohane and Toya works more like supporting ones. Or for the better, let's just say the protagonists were RAW Weekend all this time
bro *********** in the final part of light up the fire was the most emotional part of the entire game imo
and yeah this group has the best side characters of any other, without ANY doubt. It's not exaggerate to say that Vivid Bad Squad is a story about side characters.

Obviously, a single event does not justify the flawed pacing of everything that has happened so far, but it's a game changing, and standalone the BEST event story in the game. Light up the fire saves Vivid Bad Squad once for all, with a masterful writing.

THE LEGEND IS PASSED DOWN FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION - Never forget the flame that fuels your passion for what you love, the fire whose warms for the sake of responsibility as you carry the dreams of those who can no longer.

Catching the last hand of this adventure, it's a thorny one, as the series' main problem is its structure since the beginning. It doesn't has an immersive writing imo, and most of the things are extremely direct and simple. Even though they build a character progression for an entire arc, they don't build the scenes very well due to the fact the medium they are in has limitations. It wouldn't probably be that good putting monologues or these things to enhance a scene for kids or in a gacha (?) idk, but I think you understood about what I'm coming here. In short, I found the build up scenes too superficial, even though it's a solid character development. Like, tsukasa crying scene, he basically said about his inspirations 30 minutes before that, so it wasn't enough time for me caring the much he cared about it, unfortunately. The literally only exception to this was mafuyu with her mom and mostly the legendary VBS event
And yeah the fact we don't care that much of some bands too 💀 💀

Overall, from a series that I never thought I would read, to the best gacha game out there

my favorite characters were tsukasa, emu and mizuki, these are the top 3
FAVORITE GROUP ORDER: Niigo > VBS > WXS
niigo is finished as the first, best in almost everything, with also the most interesting conflicts in project sekai.
VBS is being the 2nd option you guys still don't understand how epic that event was, MAYBE ANIMA-KUN UNDERSTANDS A LITTLE BECAUSE I SPAMMED HIM 250 MESSAGES WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING, it delivered a thing that was out of the world, that was project sekai at its 100%
WXS the third, even though more consistent than VBS, it was not as emotional or impactful, even though the cast of characters are almost a pair with niigo.
It's only the beginning. I'm really feeling the best of project sekai is yet to come, and I wll be there no matter what.

Such a minuscule text is not enough to say all the good things about this game, but consider this as a humble letter from someone who liked it 🧎‍♂️🌹