There's not much I can say about this latest title in the DJ Max Portable series because it is very much like Clazziquai Edition so this will be a very short review.

Interestingly enough, upon starting Black Square it asks if you've played Clazziquai Edition before and if you answer yes, the difficulty is set to normal but if you answer no, it's set to hard (you can still change it later). It's presuming anyone who buys this knows what they're in for and that is, a rhythm game full of challenges for DJMP veterans.

The first distinction will clearly be the sleek black interface and shiny silver icons but it still makes use of a sliding menu. Moving onto the game itself, you'll find all the new features that made the rhythm game easier for beginners in CE have been removed. That means there are no more "auto" gears that lets you survive longer for those high combos or the new simplified fever system. In fact, the gears pretty much don't do anything besides give you a nice avatar when using the online scoreboards. The only gear that does do something are the fever gears which allows you to set the maximum fever level you can reach and I've seen up to level seven so far.

Songs feel longer now with an increase in the frequency of notes. Even on the early low level 4B songs, you'll find lots of notes packed together more often and now there are green notes for bonus points depending on how good your accuracy is when hitting them. A little extra feature to help spread out the rankings. There's also a greater use of the analogue stick so that there are arrows telling you which direction to flick it instead of giving you the freedom of holding it in any direction you want.

I've been playing DJMP since the first title for some time now and can just manage the mid-level 6B songs so I'm not too bad at the game. Even so, I've found myself struggling quite a bit through the challenges. I've barely managed to make my way through to the fourth club because of the high requirements such as reaching seven times fever or getting high combos of five thousand on hard songs.

I'm finding with every new release of DJMP, there are fewer songs that I actually like with the exception of Clazziquai. Black Square too has few songs I like but, judging by the conditions laid out in the challenges, it definitely looks like a title that will satisfy the more experienced DJMP players.

Time Played 10 hours

Likes

• It's still DJ Max Portable.
• Demanding challenges for veterans (?)
  

Dislikes

• Little room for beginners.
• Still no reward medals.