There’s a little proverb that gets taught in musical theatre: when you’re speaking, and you feel emotion swell up inside you so much that ordinary speech is not enough, you start to sing. Singing is the cathartic equivalent of screaming – a beautiful expression of the state of the soul. This year, more than ever, when we have stayed in our homes and screamed in our hearts, the power of singing has the capacity to provide reflection and healing. It’s with this generous mindset that I approached Let’s Sing 2021, and not with the utterly tragic memories of disappointment from playing Let’s Sing Presents Queen just last month.

To preface, I do recommend at least skim-reading my review of the previous karaoke party title in this series, as this is essentially the same game with a different hat. The Let’s Sing games carry on the tradition of singing games established by the SingStar franchise in the 2000s, allowing players to sing along with their favourite hits and compete for high scores with excellent vocal production.

That’s not to say that there are no opportunities for fun in Let’s Sing 2021. The endorphins you get from screaming your lungs out are a real chemical rush, and I had a few moments of pure joy with the title. The World Contest mode, in particular, gives a much-needed sense of challenge. Absolutely wiping the floor with some anonymous player through the power of Lizzo is a uniquely satisfying experience only second to open mic karaoke. It’s just that these moments are few and far between, and while they’re facilitated by the game they’re not made any better by the game – you have to battle through Let’s Sing 2021’s shonky mechanics to find the golden nuggets of vocal joy.

A saving grace of Let’s Sing 2021 is its excellent library of songs. The thirty tracks on offer are a delightfully varied bunch of recent pop hits, less recent classic pop bangers, and karaoke faves. It made me feel old when I scrolled through and realised I recognised maybe half of the songs, but this is exactly the kind of experience I crave from this sort of all-ages party game. In a family setting with multiple generations present, there should be a bunch of songs that only the kids know as well as a heap of classics. I was initially excited that you can extend your song library through purchases until I saw the pricing structure. The base game sets you back $60, while each song pack of 5 songs is around $7. If you were to buy every song pack, that’s around $80 of extra purchases. There’s no option to purchase individual tracks, you have to buy a pack based around a theme like “90s Classics”. I hate this. Want to belt out The Cranberries’ Zombie with your mates? Gotta buy a bunch of other songs you don’t want as well. Ick. Wasteful.

I’m once again unimpressed with Let’s Sing 2021. I tried to approach it with an open mind, and I was excited by its track list, but too many issues prevent this experience from being anything more than a frustrating mess. In this case, the emotion that’s too strong for speech is one of disappointment.