How does it compare to the previous releases?
With the release of the latest Let’s Sing game, people may be wondering whether this instalment has lived up to expectations. Let’s Sing 2021 features 30 hot tracks that the young and old alike can warble along to.
After playing Let’s Sing: Queen last month, I had the chance to learn and enjoy this style of game. Unlike Let’s Sing: Queen, Let’s Sing 2021 has a wide array of artists and different genres of music.
Playability
Let’s Sing 2021 plays similarly to Let’s Sing Queen. It was straightforward knowing you need to sing the correct note to be awarded points, the higher your score, the better you have done. Successfully hitting a golden note gives you 5 times as many points as a regular note. You can also see your score multiplier on the left-hand side of the screen, which can reach 5x the standard amount.
I decided to start off with, what I thought, would be a relatively easy song. "High Hopes" by Panic! At the Disco is a firm favourite in our household. It wasn’t until I attempted to sing it in tune that I realised how complex a song really was. Brushing myself off, I continued on to "Thunder" by Imagine Dragons. Yet again, another song I thought was easy turned out to be the opposite. Don’t get me started on "Somewhere I Belong" by Linkin Park. I don’t think I did them any justice in my rendition. Thankfully, my attempts at "Good as Hell" and "Dance Monkey" proved quite fortuitous and I was back on track.
It seems like the songs are more difficult purely because of the different styles, genres and vocal ranges. Depending on what your own vocal range is, this can affect how well you are able to complete songs. I did find that changing the octave you sing in can help and still be represented as correct.
Feena tried her hand too and really found it enjoyable. Unlike before, a lot of the songs used are ones that she knows, meaning Let’s Sing 2021 will appeal to younger generations. She gave it her all, scoring Gold on most of the songs she attempted. We both also came to the conclusion that Shawn Mendes clearly doesn’t need oxygen, because it was tricky finding time to breathe in "If I Can’t Have You."
Eventually, when it was time for a breather, she had only one response regarding the game: "When can we play again?"
When you play against others in feat mode, against an AI in classic mode, or online with others, you can also see what their score is to check whether you are winning or losing and by how much.
Let’s Sing 2021 introduces three new stats:
- In-Tune Notes - The percentage of notes you sang that were in key
- Golden Notes - The percentage of gold bars that you successfully managed
- Perfect Singing - How good it was overall
I am proud to say that, even if just for a moment, I did manage to achieve being Rank 1 in the online mode. Needless to say, I can assume that my crown has most likely been stolen as I write this. I prefer games like that, where there is never one set winner miles ahead of the rest and anyone has a shot at being number 1.
Track List
Let’s Sing 2021 has a large list of thirty songs available at launch. Feena and I knew the majority of the tracklist, such as "Dance Monkey", "Good as Hell", and "Too Good at Goodbyes". Feena didn’t recognise some songs that were originally released before she was born (2011) and there was only about three I hadn’t heard of. Still, Let’s Sing 2021 incorporates a wide variety of songs to attempt that we have at least heard of.
Due to this, we would say the song choices are fantastic. It would be nice if there was some form of in-game currency that you could use to buy additional songs with. There are several popular songs we both agreed we would love to have a shot at but sadly are not included on the tracklist. There is a button that takes you to the PlayStation Store to purchase more content. However, clicking it simply brings up a notification that there is no content available. This gives reason to DLC being purchasable in the near future.
New Mode
One new mode that we didn’t see in Let’s Sing: Queen is the Legend mode. This gives challenges that need to be completed to beat different versions of the avatars. To accomplish this, you must fulfil the requirements of each individual challenge, where you can gain between 1 and 3 stars. Successfully beating each set of challenges upgrades the costume set for the avatar that you were facing.
As an example, I was randomly given the song "High Hopes" where I had to beat an avatar. Once successfully beaten an avatar, you progress further through the stages, one by one. There is no option for you to go to any future stage you want, which does give the game a sense of accomplishment, rather than just mindlessly levelling up and getting points. I found this feature quite fun, especially the mystery of not knowing what your next song will be until you reach it.
Accuracy
One of my main peeves with Let’s Sing: Queen was that you didn’t need to be even remotely accurate in the lyrics to achieve high marks. This was something that I had hoped would be rectified in Let’s Sing 2021 - unfortunately, this does not appear to have been rectified.
While it’s suitable for someone like Feena who - at her age - doesn’t yet have the ability to read the lyrics as quickly as I can and still get a score, it does feel a little cheap.
I tested this using Lizzo’s "Good as Hell". Throughout the song, I mostly hummed as opposed to singing. During the verses, circles came up for the words, as opposed to bars, because they are so short. I giggled here, made other sounds, and deliberately stayed out of tune, yet the majority were still deemed accurate.
The end result was shocking. Not only was my score over 300,000 (bearing in mind that when I attempt to sing it properly, I gained over 450,000), the three stats also couldn’t possibly be accurate:
- In-Tune Notes - 77%
- Golden Notes - 85%
- Perfect Singing - 34%
I know that most of the verses were out of tune as I just bumbled along. I most likely hit the golden notes that it stated, as these were mainly in the chorus. My biggest gripe is with the “perfect” singing. I don’t feel that humming, giggling and making odd sounds counts as perfect singing. So, again, it would be nice if they could incorporate something like voice recognition in future games to prevent cheating by humming.
Stability
As with previous games, we connected to Let’s Sing 2021 using the same mobile app as before. The only difference here is that we clicked Let’s Sing 2021 as opposed to Let’s Sing: Queen. We used the same phones as last time, a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge for me and a Cubot R15 for Feena. Again, we found that both phones were able to connect to the app successfully and pick up our singing. There wasn’t any lag, which was a bonus.
I did have one stability issue, where an error message occurred on-screen, closing the game after I had just killed (or murdered, your choice) "Somewhere I Belong". This bug was reported and, after opening the game, I had no further issues, except for the progress of that song being lost. The bug hasn’t appeared since.
Game Rating
As with Let’s Sing Queen, Let’s Sing 2021 is rated 12. We have a feeling this may be due to the language used in Lizzo’s "Good as Hell". While this is the general age rating, I do believe that the game can be enjoyed by younger players, as proven by Feena’s involvement. This would, however, come down to parental choice and discretion.