The newly released music game “O2Jam Online” recently had its release on Steam. In the meantime, the game has a very negative reception on the platform with only 4% positive reviews. The main reasons for the criticism are apparently the monetization system and the gameplay.
O2Jam Online is a rhythm game that had its release on Steam on January 17, 2023. It is a sequel to a series that originally came out for PC in the 2000s. However, in 2012, the public servers were shut down. Except for a few fan servers, the franchise seemed to be dead.
Later, there was a mobile version that was meant to revive the series. Now, with O2Jam Online, a new PC version has come out that represents a remake of a game from 2003.
Here you can see a gameplay trailer of the game:
How is O2Jam Online rated? The rhythm game is rated extremely negatively on Steam. Out of a total of 1,116 player opinions, only 4% are positive (as of January 25, 2023, via Steam).
Users write in the comments what they criticize about the game:
- Bearzerker: “Don’t buy a subscription; it charges every day. Valve should remove this soon”.
- iFritCipher: “The game itself is called O2Jam Online, but there is no multiplayer. The interface is quite okay, but the notes and especially the 3D diagonal falling notes are not good. They are too large as they take up the entire screen. The custom keys you set sometimes reset to the default keys in-game, which is annoying. There are slight delays in the synchronization of notes and music. The colors of the notes, especially the middle one in the 5K and 7K, are the same color as the side notes, which makes it unnecessarily difficult and confusing”.
- Kiyohime: “This is not the O2Jam we all loved before. This is just a prettied-up mobile version ported to PC, with terrible paywalls, terrible UI, sync issues, and everything bad. The only nostalgic thing is the music, which you can just listen to on O2Mania or another private server. […]”.
Why are players so disappointed? The biggest problem in O2Jam Online is probably the monetization. Although the game is free-to-play, unlocking many songs reportedly costs real money according to the comments. Additionally, the purchased songs apparently remain available for only a few days, and there is no option for permanent unlocking.
Also, the gameplay is not fun for many players. In addition to issues with the game mechanics, insufficient synchronization with the songs has been mentioned, making playing a track difficult.
Moreover, despite the title, it is purely a single-player game and has only a few online components, such as a leaderboard and the subscription system.
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