Kizuna Ai’s Touch the Beat

On October 12th, 2020 Kizuna Ai released her first game, a VR rhythm game for the Oculus Quest. And guess who just got their first VR headset. Hint: It’s me.

So I bought the Oculus Quest 2 about a week ago. When I tried to download the game, it was nowhere to be found in the store accessible through the headset. I tried searching online and the only other mention of the game was a single Reddit post where someone mentions using a VPN to access the game. It’s kind of a pain so I figured I’d share the steps to hopefully save someone else some headache.

Installation

You will need a VPN that can spoof a Japanese IP address. I used VPN Unlimited, but you can use whatever free or trial options you have available to you. Use the VPN to connect to a Japanese server from your computer. Once you’re connected, go to this page and click Purchase. It is currently free and includes 2 songs to start. You can also buy 4 more songs for $3.99 each in the app or buy a bundle with all 4 songs from the aforementioned link for $12.99.

Now put on your headset and you should be able to see Touch the Beat among your other Oculus apps and can choose to install it from there. The rest is pretty straightforward.

So a little info about the app and my first impressions.

Info

The game is in English with english menus and Ai-chan’s comments in the main menu and after the song are subbed. The songs themselves do not have lyrics or anything. It currently comes with 2 free songs(Hello Morning and Melty World). You have 3 modes to enjoy these 2 songs, Game, View, and Movie.

Game is your primary activity, it lets you play a Beat Saber-like rhythm game where you wave the glowsticks to hit the blocks flying towards you. Every successful note you hit will move Ai-chan a little closer to you. But if you miss a note she’ll be moved further back. They really know how to motivate a guy. A score is tracked along with combos and you are graded at the end of the song with a typical letter grade like C, B, A, S, SS. There are 3 difficulty levels Easy, Normal, and Hard with some stages only having certain difficulty options. You can also adjust the speed of the notes coming at you. The gameplay is simple but pretty good.

The View mode lets you watch her perform without any blocks or gameplay. You can see the entire song from up close but nothing much else to say.

The Movie mode is a different type of performance. For the 2 free included songs, it’s like being inside a music video. Hello Morning has an incredible 360 degree video where you’re whisked away as you fly through a beautiful space with Ai-chan. Clearly a lot of work went into this one video. Melty World is a simpler concert-like show on a Halloween themed stage but there’s some good energy in the performance. There is unfortunately a pretty big quality gap here for the paid DLC songs. The movie mode for the 4 paid DLC songs are screen captures of one of her live performances. The audio quality is considerably lower and she doesn’t pop out with 3D depth like in View mode. Yes you can look around at the stage but it’s really quite disappointing considering this is the content that was behind a paywall.

I wish we had more videos like Hello Morning. That would make the DLC worth it. As it is, I would say try the free version first as that gives you arguably the best content this app has to offer completely free. Then if you really like the rhythm game or just want more songs and want to support Ai-chan, then go for the DLC.

I think this app was a great idea. It makes great use of Ai-chan’s character and weaves in gameplay in a smart fashion. I would love more like it, either from Ai-chan herself releasing more DLC, or other vtubers following her lead, or even other companies like Bamco doing an idolmaster game in this style.