Bushiroad is bringing us yet another great anime rhythm game.
From the creators of Love Live School Idol Festival, and hot on the heels of the recent announcement of Klab’s English localization of Utapri Utano Princesama Shining Live, Bushiroads has recently announced plans to localize BanG Dream Girls Band Party.
More details can be found on the official website at https://bang-dream-gbp-en.bushiroad.com/
Not only are we getting the mobile game, but also English versions of the Weib Schwarz card decks:
[RELEASE ANNOUNCEMENT]
The girls from the upcoming mobile game “BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!” are joining the Weiß Schwarz stage! Featuring the vibrant scenes from the mobile game!BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! TD+/BP on sale April 27th 2018!https://t.co/a9mUCYhoB1 pic.twitter.com/E0vI5P0qDQ
— Bushiroad Global (@BushiroadGlobal) January 12, 2018
The mobile game will be available in Spring 2018 on Android and IOS
Check out the English Release Trailer Below:
More information can be found in the English fan wikia based on the Japanese versions of the game at http://bandori.wikia.com/wiki/BanG_Dream!_Girls_Band_Party!
I have not played the Japanese versions myself just yet. I’ve read that it is the highest grossing mobile game in Japan right now.
From what I have seen in the wikia and official website, the game features a lot of fun unique elements that make it a slight step up from Love Live School Idol Festival.
The feature I’m most excited about is the costumes. Each time you get a 3 or 4 star or higher card, you unlock a new costume for your characters that you can equip and see on their chibi or cameo appearances while playing the game.
Other differences between Love Live include “Multi-Lives” the ability to play online in real time with other players – I know Love Live School Idol Festival offers this ability during certain events, but in GBP, it is always available.
You can also trade in your duplicate cards for seals which can be exchanged for limited event items
The biggest difference between GBP and LLSIF is that there are no song types currently, so it doesn’t matter which girls are in your party, even though each girl has her own attributes such as Powerful, Pure, Cool, and Happy. These attributes determine your score multipliers. But you no longer get the bonus of let’s say using a team with primarily high “Pure” cards in a “Pure Song”. However, to get the most out of your score multiplier, it is best to keep a team of same attribute idols. Such as “Pure” or Cool, because of the items you can equip that boost single attributes. You can also further maximize your score by keeping your team all within the same band such as Poppin Party or Pastel Pallets or Roselia. This is because you can buy special band equipment that enhances members’ stats from specific band groups and only 1 type of each item can be equipped at a time, forcing you to choose which band you want to focus on.
This may change, as the game is still relatively new at this time.
You can also, not only unlock songs by reading the main story and playing the game, but also unlock new songs by purchasing additional songs with special in-game currency.
There are areas you can explore and items you can place in these areas as well that will impact your band members’ stats as mentioned above.
GBP is a multi-media project, similar to Love Live School Idol Festival. It includes real bands comprised of the characters seiyuu’s (voice actresses), as well as an anime, card game, and mobile game, and various merchandising.
The announcement of an English version of Girls Band Party makes me so happy and excited. I still hold out hope that some day Bandai will release English versions of their Idolm@ster games – other than the $60 ones that they used to sell in the app stores. I mean, come on, just give us English versions of the free to play games, and collect money from us “dumb Americans” who want to spend $$$ on virtual “waifu” lol. Idolm@ster still remains my favorite idol game, mostly just because of the artwork, I mean, being able to see the girls actually performing on stage, like in Idolm@ster Theater Days is amazing!! Live 2D is the best thing to happen to anime games! 🙂
