Video game karaoke fans have relied on the Let's Sing series for their singing fix for over a decade. It hasn't changed much since its original Wii incarnation, but that's exactly what fans are looking for. For people who own a modern system, Let's Sing 2027 is pretty much an instant purchase, but for everyone else, your mileage may vary.

As mentioned, the game mechanics are going to be familiar if you've played any karaoke-style video game or any full-blown rhythm games that featured singing. Hook up a USB microphone, headset, or connect your phone to the console using the Let's Sing companion app, select a song, and start singing. The music video plays in the background while the lyrics are displayed on the bottom of the screen and the note lines. The notes go by horizontally, and you use your voice to match the requested pitch. Filling up the note lines gives you points with a temporary score multiplier if you successfully fill up a number of notes in a row. By the end of a song, you're given your final score that translates into a star rating.

There is one mechanical option that will be a big thing for karaoke enthusiasts: the ability to mess with the vocal track. By default, the track is audible at all times, so it's no different than what you'd find in older titles or a karaoke game. You can choose to lower the volume of the vocal track so it's still somewhat audible, but your own voice will easily overpower it. You can also eliminate the vocal track to get an instrumental version of the song to sing along with. While most players will go with the defaults, having those options available is brilliant and shows that there's some work being done beyond compiling a bunch of tunes and calling it a day.

Since this is a yearly series, the song list of 35 songs qualifies as a "greatest hits" list of the past few years: Sabrina Carpenter with Espresso, Teddy Swims with The Door, two Lady Gaga songs with Abracadabra and Die With A Smile featuring Bruno Mars, and Raye with Where Is My Husband! It's a good selection, but don't expect much with genre diversity.

The first thing you'll notice is that the song list will mix these tracks with songs from the VIP Pass. Taking a page from the Just Dance series, Let's Sing features a subscription service that features around 151 more songs to sing, and the list looks rather appealing:  The Cardigans with My Favourite Game, Aqua with Barbie Girl, and Lionel Richie with All Night Long. There are some karaoke mainstays, and while it feels smart to put these hits behind a subscription, it still feels bad for those who want to get away from yet another subscription and would rather get these songs individually. At least the game gives you a free month of the service, so you can give it a spin before making a commitment. One thing to note is that if you go through the VIP Pass list for the last few games, none of the songs from the previous games in the 2020s are on the service, so those past releases are still essential purchases for karaoke enthusiasts who are trying to build up a bigger library.

The multitude of songs presents a problem when it comes to the song selection menu in that it is needlessly tedious. The horizontal scrolling method with only two visible lines is a pain, since the song arrangements initially make no sense. Highlighting a song gives you a preview, but that doesn't work all the time, as some of the songs from the VIP Pass play nothing when you hover over them. When you select a song, you're given the song difficulty, and the selection menu shrinks down to one row. You move forward to change your options, and you must to finalize everything and go through a decently sized loading screen before you can finally start singing. For a game that is meant for a party atmosphere, the process for jumping from one song to another is slow, and some pruning of the menus to consolidate some of the screens would've made things feel snappier.

The game comes with three different modes. Classic mode is where up to four people can sing the same song in a standard points competition. Feat. has up to four people singing the song with all of the points pooled up, though some songs have people sing different parts, which is especially prominent during some of the duets, like luther from Kendrick Lamar and SZA.

Party mode is a misnomer, since it is actually a campaign mode for up to two players. The story is that a former musician named DJ Hush has drowned the town in silence, and it is up to you to bring back the music. The game tries to spice up things by having some minigames, like temporarily hiding the singing notes from view. The mode allows you to select any songs you want to use, so you aren't forced to sing something you hate. It's fine but otherwise skippable, especially since the story is all done through text with bland art, and the scenes go on far too long to be engaging.

All of this is wrapped up in an XP system that results in the unlocking of some customization elements. You'll unlock things like the titles and backgrounds for your profile, which is cute but feels unnecessary, since there's no online versus component. You can also unlock different costumes for the game's avatars, but those are all presets, so you can't mix and match pieces, even though you'll only see your avatar's head and shoulders during a song instead of their whole body. Overall, it's there for those addicted to some sort of progression system, but it feels inconsequential otherwise.

Let's Sing 2027 is fine enough as a karaoke video game. The song list is decent, even if some of the more desirable songs are locked away behind a subscription service, and the mechanics are as solid as ever. The modes are fine, but the standard Classic mode is enough for most people, and while the XP system is cute, it can be safely ignored by most. The menu system is the game's Achilles heel, since it is so needlessly convoluted. In short, the game is good enough for karaoke enthusiasts, but it could have been so much better.

Score: 6.5/10