Here’s How You Dance in Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX

There’s always some customization element in Sega’s Hatsune Miku games. I’m not talking about the costume modules either. Rather, there’s some way to put a unique spin on either the in-game songs or your own music with some sort of creation tool. With the Project Diva line, you can make your own music videos and songs with MP3s. Project Mirai DX turns you into a choreographer.

You get to make your own dances in the Dance Studio in Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX’s town. There you can create and view dances. Create is the best place to start, and all of the songs you’ve unlocked appear there. As an aside – you have to unlock the additional vocal options for songs before they’ll appear as well. So if you’ve unlocked “Animal Fortune-telling,” you’ll also have to have earned the Rin, Luka, and Meiko versions before you can make dances for them. Likewise, each song has specific p. video and finish moves for it, which only become available after you unlock them.

Once you choose a song, you’ll have two creation options to go with, Simple and Advanced. The Simple option lets you press up, left, right, and down on the directional pad, with the directions respectively corresponding to active, cute, kool, and p. video dance moves. The X button adds a finishing move, and the Y puts a basic move in. Pressing the buttons assigned to moves will add a random move from that category in place in the dance. Pressing it again will change to a different random move. If you like what you’ve done, you can press the A button to repeat. The B button will cancel it. You add in moves while the song plays in the background.

The Advanced option is much more complex. With this option, all of the possible dance moves are assigned to specific categories on the touch screen, with little trading cards appearing for each one and the Y button offering a preview of the move. The song isn’t immediately playing, and you can place dance moves in all blocks for the song by tapping the left and right shoulder buttons. Pressing the B button brings up a menu that lets you rehearse from certain points or the start of the song. This method can take much longer, but allows for more precision and the ability to see every move. Unfortunately, in both cases, you can only have one Vocaloid dancing in a custom routine.

You can save up to five dances you’ve created and up to five from people you’ve StreetPassed or SpotPassed in Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX, for a grand total of 10. Only one dance you’ve created can be shared on your Profile Card with people you meet over StreetPass or SpotPass. If you’re watching a dance either you or someone else created, you’ll see the active Vocaloid performing it, and be able to take pictures of the performance and choose from five camera angles or an “auto” camera option.

Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai DX is coming to the Nintendo 3DS on September 8.