Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The immediate hook is simple and reliable: lyrics roll by, a familiar song starts, and you try to trace its pitch and timing with a microphone in hand. Accuracy earns points, which makes even an otherwise casual performance feel like a challenge. You do not need to be a great singer to enjoy it, but you do need to be willing to commit to the song rather than mumble through the chorus.

Star Scream is the game’s best little flourish. Build the meter through solid singing, tilt the microphone when it is ready, and the vocal lines turn into stars for you to fill. It is a welcome moment of release in a format that can otherwise feel strict about following the guide lines. The leveling and medal rewards also give repeat performances some purpose beyond simply hearing a favorite song again.

Where it becomes more lively is with other people in the room. Solo, versus, and co-op cover the obvious ways to play, while a second singer can shake a microphone and jump in mid-track. Between verses, you may need to mimic your avatar’s motions or pretend to play a tambourine or maraca with the mic. These bits are silly rather than deep, but they suit a karaoke game: the point is to get everybody laughing, moving, and perhaps a little distracted from the score.

The downside is that much of this will feel very familiar if you already owned the first game. The mini-games are unchanged, and the central sing-the-lines routine has not been reinvented. Custom USB song importing and compatibility with much of the earlier downloadable catalog add flexibility, though importing songs from the first disc requires swapping discs after every track. That is an awkward bit of friction in something designed for a smooth party flow.

Graphics

Most of your attention stays on the lyrics, pitch lines, and timing markers over a background music video, which is exactly where it needs to be when you are trying to keep up with a chorus. The game can also swap out the original video for another visualization, while avatars—or silhouettes for players without one—appear between verses to demonstrate the motion prompts.

Story

There is no story campaign here. The progression comes from improving your scores, collecting medals, and building levels while working through a setlist made entirely of chart-topping songs.

That absence fits the format. A karaoke night does not need a narrative excuse to move from “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” to “U Can’t Touch This”; the songs themselves set the changing tone, from earnest ballads to deliberate camp.

The strongest through-line is the selection’s wide pop-culture sweep. You can go from Marvin Gaye and Roy Orbison to Rihanna, Kanye West, Coldplay, and Lady Gaga without leaving the disc, so different generations of guests are likely to find a moment that feels picked for them.

Overall Experience

Lips: Number One Hits is a better fit for a room full of friends than for someone hoping for a major evolution of the original. Put it on with people who know the songs and it has an easy, contagious energy: one person starts singing, another drops in, someone else makes noise with a controller, and suddenly the score matters more than anybody expected.

The setlist does most of the heavy lifting, and it does it well. Forty master tracks is a credible spread of pop, rock, hip-hop, oldies, and novelty-ready crowd-pleasers. Not every individual taste will be covered, but there is enough range that choosing the next song becomes part of the fun instead of a compromise.

Buy in if you want polished, social karaoke with a sturdy selection of hits and already enjoy the Lips formula. If you exhausted the first game and wanted brand-new modes, the familiar mini-games and core structure may make this feel more like a well-stocked follow-up than a necessary upgrade. For everyone else, it is a dependable excuse to sing loudly and badly with purpose.

Retro Replay Score

7.1/10