clickbliss — DJMAX RESPECT V Impressions

DJMAX RESPECT V Impressions

DJMAX RESPECT V
Publisher: Neowiz
Developer: Neowiz
PC

2019 was a good year for rhythm games. Sound Voltex saw its fifth iteration released, Groove Coaster made its way to the Nintendo Switch and lastly, DJMAX made a return to the PC.

I could make a pun about how Neowiz deserves some respect for porting over DJMAX Respect over to the PC, but that would just be lame. The word respect can’t be thrown around in a meaningless fashion. To achieve that title, you need to earn it as they would say.

But enough from taking quotes from a fortune cookie, how does DJMAX Respect V fare?

As Amr mentioned in their impressions, upon start-up of the game you are greeted with an anti-cheat (XIGNCODE3) software - or botnet as some of you would prefer to call it. Unless if you are offline, this program won’t hinder your experience. But for those who like to game on the go, this is an absolute travesty.

Not counting the mobile games and Technika Tune for the PlayStation Vita, the last traditional DJMAX game for portable release was back in 2010. Having a fully-fledged DJMAX game on your laptop that you can play on a whim during your commutes would be wonderful, but alas that isn’t the case here.

But even saying this is a fully-fledged title is debatable.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about the new AIR mode. Imagine a radio station combined with NicoNico, that is what AIR mode is. You can jump into a song and start playing - heck you don’t even have to play at all. You can just watch the notes fly by and comment away. AIR Mode is great for beginners and veteran players as you can use this mode to practice on songs as you won’t fail no matter how hard you try. Personally, I use it to discover new songs that I wouldn’t even have touched since I have a bad habit of playing songs I like over and over again.

Despite this, there are some notable modes absent. As of the publication of this impression (1.13.20), mission, arcade and online mode are missing. While this game is still in its pre-release phase, the absence of those modes will become very apparent after a few rounds of freestyle mode.

There are also some issues with controller remapping. If you are using a controller, you can’t remap the side notes for anything else than an analog stick. There are ways to bypass this limitation, but no one should use other software to play a game properly.

In spite of the missing features, the game still boasts a large diverse music library spanning over 120 to choose from. Some veteran DJMAX players may be a bit disappointed to find out that some of these songs do not contain key-sounds. However, this is due to Neowiz not having access to the source files of those tracks.

But what about the actual gameplay you ask? The short answer is, it plays and handles like a DJMAX game, and there is nothing more one should ask. It may be unforgiving at times, but remains one of the most rewarding rhythm game experiences out there.

It is bluntly obvious that this game is still at an early stage. Its missing features and always-online requirement is something to be left desired. At times I felt like this game would be better off without the “RESPECT” moniker. In my head, I kept comparing this to its PlayStation 4 counterpart and it doesn’t live up to that. If this were named anything else, it would be a decent DJMAX game because it wouldn’t come with the associated baggage.

Until the game is updated to add-in some of its missing features, I wouldn’t recommend this game. Check out the PlayStation 4 release instead, you’ll get a more complete package and an overall better experience.

You can check out our review on the PlayStation 4 release by Amr and myself here.