Love Live! School idol festival 2 MIRACLE LIVE! is a Rhythm Game developed by GREE, INC. and published by Bushiroad for the Android and iOS platforms as part of the Love Live! multimedia franchise and a direct sequel to Love Live! School idol festival. It was first announced at the September 2022 SIF Thanksgiving Festival and was released in Japan on April 15th, 2023 and will be released worldwide in February 2024.
Much like its predecessor, the rhythm gameplay revolves around the player's team of 9 idols, each member of which is represented by a circular rhythm icon, with the 9 icons forming a semi-circle. As notes spawn from the top of the screen towards the icons, the player must hit their corresponding icons when the notes overlap to score points. There are five note judgements: Perfect, Great, Good, Bad, and Miss, with anything below a “Good” notes breaking the player's combo and “Bad” or “Miss” notes inflicting damage to the Life Meter in addition to breaking the combo. Occasionally, there are hold notes that must be held down and then released when the note ends, and double notes that must be hit at the same time (indicated by a line connecting the notes together), as well as star notes that deplete extra HP if the player does not get a “Perfect” or “Great” when tapping them. The song is cleared when the player reaches the end with HP remaining, and failed if you run out.
Unlike most standard rhythm games (but similar to other mobile rhythm games created in the wake of the success of the original game), the player's score is not strictly dictated by note accuracy or combo. Each member has three different Attributes: Smile, Pure, and Cool, and each song is aligned with one of those three Attributes. The maximum value for hitting a note depends on the song's Attribute and how much value each member has in that attribute, so for example, the player should use a team with a high Smile stat for songs that have a Smile attribute.
The game features all 41 main girls from μ's, Aqours, Nijigasaki High School Idol Club and Liella!, as well as Yu Takasaki (who was previously exclusive to the Nijigasaki anime). The game also features the franchise's complete discography at the time of its launch with over 500 songs, including music from rival units, the School Idol Musical, the 5th generation Link! Like! Love Live! project, and Yohane the Parhelion -SUNSHINE in the MIRROR-.
It has an official website here
. An English website can be found here.
A promotional video for the game (in Japanese) can be found here.
On January 25, 2024, Bushiroad announced that the Japanese version of the game will be shutting down on March 31 of the same year. Similarly, the global version will still launch in February 2024, but will shut down three months later on May 31, giving the game the dubious honor of having its end-of-service date announced before the game has even been released in the first place. Japanese accounts were given the option of converting their SIF2 Titles to Stickers in Link! Like! Love Live!.
This game contains examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Unlike the original game, LP consumption per song is always fixed at a base 10 LP per song regardless of difficulty. In addition, it is now possible to use LP in large batches and receive rewards accordingly, allowing you to save substantial amounts of grinding time. A Skip Ticket feature similar to ALL STARS has also been implemented, allowing you to farm without having to play songs.
- The Idolization mechanic has been updated to use a new currency called Penlights. Unlike Idolize in the original SIF, which explicitly requires you to pull duplicate cards, Penlights can be acquired from duplicates but can also be earned in various ways such as Title rewards and song achievements as well as random drops, allowing you to Idolize cards without relying on gacha.
- LP is not consumed if you fail or restart a Live, which gives players the opportunity to practice harder songs without the risk of draining their LP bar entirely.
- Art Evolution:
- This can be seen in the story sprites, since they were all drawn at different points over a ten year period. The art style change is very noticeable when comparing the μ's sprites (from 2013) to the Liella! 2nd generation sprites (newly drawn for SIF2).
- Scouting boxes now come accompanied with fully animated videos, with Honoka, Chika, Ayumu, or Kanon presenting your scouting results.
- Art Shift:
- The game seemingly cannot decide on whether to prefer the ALL STARS or anime designs for the Nijigasaki cast. In-game cutscenes use their ALL STARS appearances, and Yu Takasaki gets a brand new sprite for consistency with the rest of the girls. However, their cards use their anime appearances, causing them to stand out rather glaringly when compared to everyone else's cards. This is especially apparent on the key visual, where the differences in style between Ayumu and the rest of the girls are that much more obvious.
- The new animated scouting videos attempt to replicate each anime's respective art styles, with varying results. While Honoka and Chika's cutscenes are virtually perfect matches, Ayumu's cutscene appears a touch more detailed than the Nijigasaki anime, and Kanon's cutscene has fairly obvious stylistic differences from Superstar!!.
- Art-Shifted Sequel: The new card art for this game is drawn in a slightly different style to the art from its predecessor and ALL STARS. The easiest difference to notice is the shading, however there are some minor differences in how the girls’ faces and the costume detailing are drawn.
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": A song is referred to as a "Live Show".
- Canon Immigrant: Yu Takasaki was exclusive to the Nijigasaki anime series and had never before appeared outside of it.
- Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Every attribute has an assigned color: red for Smile, green for Pure, and blue for Cool.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Those who are used in ALL STARS to hold down the long note must release the note precisely in order for the note or combo to count.
- Featureless Protagonist: The game features its own faceless main character, similar to ALL STARS, although they are two distinct entities.
- Mission-Pack Sequel: SIF2 is essentially identical in structure and gameplay to the original SIF at its core. The only things changed are the presentation, story, characters, and expanded song list.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics:
- The artwork for pre-Liella characters featured in story cutscenes are identical to their appearance from Love Live! School Idol Festival ALL STARS but animated in Live2D.
- μ's and Aqours have cards taken directly from the original School Idol Festival, with their appearance altered to fit the updated horizontal format for SIF2 cards.
- Most, if not all of the note charts for songs that were already in the original SIF were simply ported wholesale to SIF2.
- Old Save Bonus: Players of the original School Idol Festival (except European players) and later ALL STARS could perform a data transfer from both games to the sequel prior to their closure in March 2023 and June 2023 respectively. Players who transfer their data carry over their Album data (but not the actual cards) and collected Titles, the latter of which can be used on SIF2 profile cards. Transferred accounts also receive a bonus of 10x Gacha Tickets based on the number of days logged in.
- Permanently Missable Content:
- Players who've missed participating in the previous event will have no longer access to these stories, in addition of previously obtainable free UR, backgrounds, and stamps, which were never showed again. This is finally averted when all event stories will be unlocked to everyone during SIF2's final month before the termination and the previous obtainable event cards can be obtained again for the last time in the final token event, however previous obtainable backgrounds and stamps didn't make a return.
- One of Nozomi's exclusive UR card was only obtainable in a metaverse app for a limited time and remained unobtainble after.
- No Fair Cheating:
- Clearing "LIVE with a smile!" sung by Aqours, Nijigasaki, and Liella! altogether will not be counted towards the daily mission requiring to clear any individual group's song.
- Using Star Assist in Star Challenge will nullify players from achieving All Perfect Combo and the scores will not be register on their song's hi-score.
- Short-Runners: The global version of this game probably has the most extreme example of this trope, as both its launch date and end-of-service were announced on the same day. It is only expected to last for three months before it shuts down on May 31st, 2024. Justified though, as the original Japanese version will be shut down on March 2024.
