Hololive Dreams Isn’t Made for PC
I was so excited when Cover and QualiArts announced the Hololive Dreams PC and mobile game, as it seemed like it just made sense. So many of the Vtubers in the company are accomplished singers with fantastic music catalogs. Rhythm games can often be quite accessible. The initial character design seemed promising. And, since my iPad is old and frail, it being on a platform where I actually had space to start and continue playing it seemed promising! Except it’s not. Hololive Dreams is not good on PC due to an array of issues like poor controls and inputs, a lack of Member and Song Ranking support, and what feels like a pay-to-win gacha system.
We’re going to start with I consider the unforgivable sin of Hololive Dreams PC version, and that’s the control scheme. There’s no controller support. There’s no touchscreen support. You’re going to use your keyboard, and you’re (absolutely not) going to like it. This is because the lanes are tied to S, D, F, J, K. There are standard notes that involve a single tap. There are held notes. There are flick and slide notes. There are times when you’ll need to hold multiple ones at once. It isn’t comfortable! I wasn’t able to get it working right on my Lenovo Legion Go handheld gaming PC, so I’m guessing other, similar devices like the Steam Deck would feature similar issues. And, because of that terrible control scheme and lack of input options, I found I did much, much worse than I normally would on songs.
Held notes in Hololive Dreams on PC that involve sliding back and forth are my nightmare. Especially on any difficulty above Easy.
But also, I wasn’t getting the sorts of scores I expected due to the gacha system, regardless of whether I tried to go on Easy, Normal, Hard, or Expert difficulty. You need members for your deck, with one consisting of five cards. It costs 2,500 in-game diamonds currency per banner 10-pull. That comes out to about $20. While that sounds expensive, it isn’t the part that gets to me. A 10-pull in Umamusume: Pretty Derby costs $20.99 if you buy an in-game currency pack. The thing is that this is a mobile rhythm game not unlike Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage or older Love Live games where the characters you pull are added to a team that influence your score on songs and during events. Which in turn determine what you can earn and how much. There is a 5% drop rate for five-stars, which is more generous than some titles. However, for a guaranteed unit and spark, you need to pull 200 times on that exact banner to get points to redeem for the applicable character you want. Only pull 199 times and the banner expired? Well, at least you tried. Enjoy your 199 Holostickers or Special Holostickers!
Then, there are the other, more minor issues. Not being able to participate in the Online Rankings in the PC version of Hololive Dreams feels incredibly unfair. Especially when cosmetics and some rewards are tied to things like Member and Song Rankings. I felt no incentive whatsoever to engage in any events. There’s kernal-level anti-cheat, which is a bummer. While nothing happened the first time I attempted to load the game on a handheld gaming PC, I did get the warned false flag from antivirus due when I tried to play the game on a laptop. (Cover and QualiArts warn this can happen on the Steam page.)
You expect a degree of parity when a game is offered on multiple platforms, but the PC version of Hololive Dreams feels like a mess. It’s clearly a mobile-first game, from controls to rankings. If you play for even a half hour, you can see where the priorities lie. And, given it’s been about a month since launch, I worry there’s no chance of there being any sort of remedy for any of the many issues. If you’re interested, better to avoid it on a computer and head to your phone or tablet instead.
Hololive Dreams is available on the PC and mobile devices.