It’s been a minute since I’ve been able to talk with some positivity about where the future of Let’s Sing is moving. For the longest time it was fairly stagnant, like the early 2000’s FIFA games. Middling updates and a focus purely on the playlists ensured that it was never really taking huge strides forward and as such, became more and more difficult to recommend to those who are looking for a fun karaoke experience in their own home.
Let’s Sing 2024 changes everything, and feels like a proper evolution of the series. And, in the immortal words of Lizzo, it’s about damn time.
So what makes Let’s Sing 2024 stand out? Well, if you’re a budding pop superstar, you can’t really go wrong here. The first thing the game will ask you to do is make a character in the style of Rayman, it would seem (you’re just a head and some hands, all you really need if you’re going to make it in pop music, apparently), and you’re going to walk your own path in the brand new Career mode. This is where the game goes from limp to Limp Bizkit. Sorry about that, I couldn’t think of anything else and well Limp Bizkit were fun. Once. A long time ago. Anyway.
You begin as an unknown making your way onto the career ladder with very little knowledge or experience of the industry. Soon enough you get discovered and get to work in the studio (you don’t get to work on your own music, just the included songs, but it’s fun). Throughout your competition will drag you down, talk about you behind your back and try to knock your star from atop the Christmas tree but so long as you continue to bang out the tunes you will rise and rise like Leona Lewis. I’m old. I can’t think of another pop star at this moment.
This is where the more traditional Let’s Sing experience begins. As the song starts all you have to do is match the key and the pitch and you’ll be knocking out the high scores in no time. Once again it doesn’t register belting it like Mariah Carey, if you can’t hit those notes just sing it in your lowest semitone and the game will still register it as a successful attempt so long as you stay in key.
Still, that’s just a personal gripe. Completing songs will reward you with fans and a handy screen where you can keep track of your progress such as notes completed, number of combos, XP gains and unlockables for your characters such as clothes and make-up styles.
Within the Career Mode then to tackle this the game asks you to do some vocal warm-ups and breathing exercises, essentially teaching you how to sing (kind of). It’s not a substantial way and if you’d like to learn to sing this probably isn’t the way to go about it but I commend the effort to combine lessons into the songs chosen. It’s a little hidden away and perhaps you won’t automatically notice it, but if you want to learn how to relax your vocal chords before belting out Whitney Houston songs, Let’s Sing 2024 has your back, again in a middling, ‘it’s-an-option-if-you-want-to-indulge-it’ kind of way.
From a presentation standpoint, Let’s Sing 2024 is about as straightforward as it gets. The menus are easy enough to hop around in and there are plenty of options available, sadly it’s all fairly basic with their neon backgrounds. Your audience is just little heads (similar to the weird pod things in the crowd in Rocket League) and away from standing on the stage and having a small feeling like you’re a goddamn rockstar everything else feels fairly bland. Your ‘social media’ channels are abysmal and as such feel like late-on inclusions that take away from the Career Mode, which is genuinely good. There are just some odd design choices throughout that really needed an extra conversation or two to fully polish.
And back to the characters. Everyone is just a head and it’s so odd. Don’t expect 1:1 lip-syncing either because well, that appears to be far away from the Let’s Sing series as a Falling in Reverse tie-in spin-off. The people you meet along the way all love a bit of a natter at you and it just feels so off. It’s 2023, even FIFA has this down and footballers just talk an absolute lot of nonsense. Even more so than popstars.
So there are odd design choices all over the place and whilst we are aware budgets and times are a thing to take into consideration, with Let’s Sing 2024 being a kind of flagship evolution in the series, it would have been nice to see that stretch to the characters and the UI itself. In Career Mode you won’t see the music videos in the background as the focus is on your disembodied popstar and the weird blobs they’re singing at. It’s something you need to get used to if you’re more of a Let’s Sing player than say, Guitar Hero. It feels similar in terms of presentation and it’s a shame that more love wasn’t put into really blowing up the popstar aspect of Let’s Sing. You don’t ever feel like a living legend because everything around you looks so cheap in comparison.
Away from the Career, another highlight, as ever, is the setlist and there’s a smorgasbord of tracks available to power through and it’s perhaps one of the strongest in some time. From BTS’s absolute banger Dynamite to The Offspring’s Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), it’s a hell of a collection of modern hits and classic tunes from the likes of Queen (Another One Bites The Dust), Ace of Base (The Sign), and Colours of The Wind from Disney’s Pocahontas. It’s quite the melting pot and if you buy the physical edition of the game you’ll automatically get an extra bunch of tracks including Linkin Park’s unreleased-but-now-released track Lost, Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere and Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball. And Ed Sheeran. Obviously. It’s a solid mixture of songs which shouldn’t work together but somehow do, and the songs chosen remain the ultimate strength of these games overall.
Then there’s LSFest or Local Stage which will take you online and sing with strangers, and of course, there’s the straight-up karaoke mode where you can take on any of the songs whenever you wish. It’s super fun singing The Offspring at the top of your lungs for game review purposes, that’s for sure.
So at last Let’s Sing 2024 has taken strides to move forward and as such, has created a new mode for a game that was desperately in need of some fresh energy. It’s the very basics so far and the hope is there can be more evolution in future titles, but for now, this is a solid reset for the series and the setlist is killer, which is the most important thing overall.
See you on the stage.
Let’s Sing 2024 brings new modes and a killer setlist to the stage which gives it wings for another year. This one feels like an evolution of the series, even if the presentation is lacking and the songs are once again a little too easy to cheat your way through. Still, if you want to feel like a rockstar there isn’t much competition out there, so grab the mic, put on the wig and have an absolute blast.
Let’s Sing 2024 is available now on PS4/PS5 (reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X and Nintendo Switch.
Developer: Voxier
Publisher: Plaion
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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