TLDR
Download only if you played this on touch screen, enjoy the game and are willing to play the steam version for everything outside of actually playing the rhythm game (ie minigames, gacha, doing dailies)
Intro
Hololive Dreams is a Gacha Rhythm Game made with touch screen devices in mind. Its main gameplay is very similar to that of Project Sekai and Rhythm Hive where the notes get bigger as they come nearer to the judgement line. While there are guiding lines to help one better visualise where the notes are on the screen, it does not has strict lanes. Outside the main gameplay, it has a variety of minigames as well as a main story to follow along. The game has a confined 3D world where everything is situated in, and you can navigate towards various points either by using the minimap to fast travel, or by going throughout the world.
Visuals
The visuals are excellent, with great key art for the characters and a pretty well done 3D chibi model of the characters. The animations hold up really well for a PC port of a mobile game and really elevates the gacha experience whenever you pull a 5 star character. Experiencing the main story and other cutscenes is also wonderful on Desktop compared to mobile. Even the 3D model in the overworld looks crisp.
Audio
Outside the songs you play, the soundtrack, while limited, is really good. You get an instrumental cover of all the main songs of each girl whenever you open them in the holomem menu. Outside of that, the soundtrack is pretty limited since theres isn't more than 1 song per location. The sound effects in the game are all good, though I do wish there was more variety in the hit noises available for the rhythm game. The voice lines are great though cutscenes are not fully voiced (eg the voice might be just "wow" while the dialogue is "wow, thats amazing" or smth). The voice lines in cutscenes is more limited for some characters compared to others (mainly graduated talents having either no or fewer voice lines than other members).
Gacha
The Gacha Pulling animations is great, with the 5* pulling experience feeling wonderful especially on PC. The gacha rates are pretty good, with each banner as of now having a collective 5% chance of pulling any 5* character, with featured characters having a higher individual chance of being pulled. Outside the ticket pulls, doing 10 pulls guarantee at least a 4* as well. Rates do not increase with more pulls, but there is a pity system which lets you redeem specific banner characters if you have done 200 pulls on the banner (this doesn't transfer over once the banner ends).
While you do get a lot of pulls initially, once you finish the main quests, the amount you get slows down dramatically, and you basically only get them when completing and getting high ranks in songs the first time, levelling up and achievements. This means that as of now, the only ways to farm for gems/pulls as a free to play player once you exhaust the limited pool of gems are waiting for new song releases to get the gems from, the game giving them for free (eg compensation for maintenance, etc), events or the 100 gem you get on the 10th day of the daily login. This means that it is highly recommended to save up on diamonds and only use them on limited time banners featuring characters you really want (eg your oshi or a good outfit), and to try and save enough for 200 pulls to guarantee the character you want.
For paid players, the only ways to get gems for now is from doing the "battle" pass (enough for 20 pulls) and gem top ups. In terms of value for money, it goes battle pass > release celebration diamond sale (where the cheaper one has a better diamond to dollar value due to it giving more bonus diamonds % wise of the base top up) > normal diamond top up (with the bigger top up being better value)
Gameplay
Main Game: This is the weakest part of the game. Due to the game being made with touch screen in mind, it makes the steam version feel like it was not thought of when it was developed. Without dedicated lanes, it means notes are arbitrarily assigned based on the location, leading to some notes being able to be tapped with 2 different keys. While this seem fine, it does mean that the charting was not made with the keyboard experience in mind, leading to some sections being full of jack hammers (1 key being spammed) where the transition from 1 key to the next one seems abrupt and hard to tell. Flick notes are basically just hold notes where they don't check the timing of the intial press meaning you dont really need to time them as the game will auto play them if you hold the right key. The charting of some songs have really intricate hold note patterns, which doesn't translate well into the steam version.
All of this leads to some sections feeling really easy to cheese compared to the touch screen version, while others are basically impossible to play.
If the gameplay was similar to BanG Dream or DJMax, this could have been mitigated. So unless they rework the gameplay (not likely) or modifying the chart (also unlikely) for the steam version, it only really leaves the community made charts of songs for a PC gameplay or until they provide support for the steam deck.
Minigames: The minigames, while simplistic and limited for now, feel great to play on PC, with the Hoppin Rope specifically being significantly better than playing on mobile due to the greater accuracy with inputs. Playing Pokajan is also really nice but is about the same as the mobile version, sans the convenience of being able to play it lying down. The other 2 mini games are also alright to play at a minimum but I still prefer playing them on a touch screen device.
Other Gameplay: While it gets a bit of getting used to, navigating the different menues is pretty alright and moving around as a 3D character is pretty good once you get used to the sensitivity of the camera. Outside of playing songs, doing quests is also pretty good on PC.
Main Story: While the art is fantastic, the voice acting as described above is limited. Furthermore, many of the talents are characterised by a simplistic generalisation of their personalities, with only a fascimile of the charm they have from their livestreams. The plot of the main story boils down to "Wow! We got a theme park for THE FANS! We're gonna make this the bestest place of all time!" with rainbow and happiness. There's not much actual conflict any of the talent faces since having any fictional drama or character events could cause PR issues with the real talents. I eventually skipped most of the cutscenes and only watched key moments, which is a real shame since the cutscene navigation is actually pretty unique. Its basically a video where you can change the play speed, or click on the right to skip to the next dialogue section fully displayed or left click to go back to the previous dialogue section. You can also manually scrub back on the video, or click the skip cutscene button. While it might seem clunky, its actually really nice if you want to speed read the dialogue, and need to go back if you do it too fast. I basically only did this for unlocking Pokajan and for progression rewards.
Overall
As of now, I would highly discourage playing the steam version of the game and to instead play it on your phone or tablet if you were to do so. If you do not like gacha mechanics or aren't into rhythm games, I would also skip this game (even though Pokajan is pretty addictive).
I'd only recommend getting the steam version of the game if you currently play and enjoy the game on your touch screen device, and use the steam version as a supplement in order to clear your dailies, and use up the energy for song rewards by auto playing tracks or playing the minigames. This is especially so due to the large battery drain the game has and how there are performance issues due to overheating on mobile devices.
