The story centers around a major festival known as D4FES, hosting its first iteration for the first time in eight years. Six of the units are introduced in Chapter 1 of the "Road to D4FES" arc, while a seventh unit, Call of Artemis, is introduced in Chapter 2 of the same arc.
The core gameplay features five lines of tap and hold notes, similar to other lane-based rhythm games. Unique to this game is the addition of Fader and Disc notes, meant to better replicate the controls of a DJ station: Fader notes require the player to move the on-screen slider horizontally so that they catch the notes, Fader Flick notes require the player to flick the fader in the corresponding direction, Scratch notes fall on either of two dedicated lanes (for a total of seven lanes) require the player to flick across the left or right turntable depending on the note while moving the notes back a few pixels, while Scratch hold notes behave like standard hold notes but freeze the notes until the end of the hold.note
Like in other idol/gacha-based rhythm games, the player can choose to play in Free Live mode, which is the single-player mode, or Multi-Live mode, where the player matches up with up to three other players and try to contribute a total combined score. This game also features Medley Live mode, where the player chooses four songs that are mixed together into a roughly 2 1/2-minute medley.
The Premium Currency of this game is Diamonds; Diamonds are primarily used to roll the gacha for cards of varying rarity, but can also be spent on certain other features like restoring Voltage (what other mobile games would call "stamina") or purchasing sound effect sets. Diamonds can be acquired either through in-game missions and achievements, or by spending real money. Players can also spend real money on two different feature passes: D4PASS, which provides extra log-in bonuses and other extra features to the player, and Live Pass, which adds several features to make the game more like a conventional rhythm game (like fast/slow note hit display, the "Just Perfect" note rating, and accuracy-based scoring with no team parameter influence) as well as a practice mode and extra Medley preset slots and the option to listen to Medley song transitions to make sure they mix well together.
Groovy Mix features a variety of original songs produced to represent the franchise's seven main units, as well as a few other minor units. Similar to BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!, another Bushiroad-published game, there are covers of songs produced in the styles of the D4DJ units as well. Unlike GBP, this game also features original, non-cover licensed songs, and notably features songs and arranges thereof from other video games, including other rhythm games like WACCA, Performai (Japan version only), and Groove Coaster, and even retro games like Darius, R-Type, and City Connection.
D4DJ Groovy Mix provides examples of the following tropes:note
- Achievement Mockery: There are achievements for reaching cumulative milestones of Good, Bad, and Miss notes. Just to rub it in, each of these "achievements" awards only one coin.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Swipe notes and scratch notes will always be graded as Perfect (or Just Perfect if you have the Live Pass), Bad, or Miss, so as long as you're not horribly off with your timing you don't have to worry about when exactly you need to start performing the motions for these notes.
- Mana Kase's birthday is on May 18. However, the international version of the game did not get the update that introduced her unit, Call of Artemis, until May 26, 2022. To prevent players from having to wait almost an entire year, her birthday celebration events took place from May 30 to June 2, 2022.
- Normally, playing songs in a Medley Live disqualifies you from their score, combo, and play count missions. However, in event Medley Lives, songs you play will count towards play count missions, likely to compensate for the fact that grinding Medley events means you won't be playing regular songs as much. As of a Summer 2022 update, not only does this update to non-Event Medley play, you can also complete score missions in them too.
- Hold notes do not need to have the release timed correctly; as long as you hold to the end, you'll get a (Just) Perfect for the tail end of the note, even if you over-hold it. This is notable because nearly all other idol rhythm games punish over-holding of notes.
- The fader has a few to avoid it becoming too complex:
- You don't actually need to use the fader to track the line. You just need to make sure the fader is in the correct position when its note comes up. You can even just tap the fader at the right time.
- When you need to flick the fader, you only need to flick it in the correct direction. You don't even need to start from where the flick note is at.
- Similar to other rhythm games with a sliding hold note, where the note counts as being hit is about half a lane on either side from where it actually is. So if you see a zig-zag grouping that's a lane apart, you can put the fader in the middle and you'll get it as if it were a vertical line.
- As a positive use of Hitbox Dissonance, the tap/hold/scratch inputs are actually a lane of infinite height from the judgment line. Meaning you only have to tap/hold/scratch anywhere above the judgment line for that note for it to count. This is likely because the judgment line is also really close to the fader input, and it's very easy to tap that by mistake. The only issue is because the notes come from a tilted perspective, it takes some time getting used to reading the notes vs. where to hit them.
- An option also is available to raise the height of the judgment line, making it so you can tap directly on it with little risk of grazing the fader accidentally.
- If you get a full combo, you're immediately told this upon hitting the last note. This is unlike other games which wait to tell you this. This makes it so you can't be cheap shotted by a sudden final burst of notes.
- The update that added the All Tap, All Fader, and All Disc badges retroactively applies them to songs that you already have Full Combos on.
- Normally, if someone disconnects from a Multi Live lobby before the song has started, the lobby will be disbanded. However, in Battle Live, a pre-song disconnect will not cancel the lobby, and the score targets will be adjusted to compensate. Battle Live takes away 1 Voltage when a lobby is formed (rather than when a song is started in Multi Live or completed in Free Live), so it would be unfair for the non-disconnecting platers to waste 1 Voltage because of another player quitting out.
- During Groovy Cup events, all players, regardless of if they have Live Pass or note, will have access to the Just Perfect mechanic and the Technical Score system, since the purpose of the event is to complete a set of songs with as high of a Technical Score as possible. Other features like Practice and early/late indicators are still locked behind the pass, however.
- This game lacks a "perfect lock" skill that widens the Perfect timing window, but counts Goods towards combo (unlike many similar games) as a counterbalance.
- Anti-Rage Quitting: In Battle Live, 1 Voltage is consumed when you match up (instead of only having it be used once the song starts), to discourage players from aborting (just because they got a song they didn't like, for example). Furthermore, as an incentive to stick it out to the end, you will always get a bonus to your event points for playing a Battle Live, even if you get 4th place.
- April Fools' Day:
- For 2023, Nyochio, the mascot cat who's commonly associated with Muni, basically takes over the game. All characters (including generic uninteractable NPCs) are replaced with Nyochios, some of the locales have Nyochio stickers on the walls, there's a xylophone made of rainbow-colored Nyochios in the Shopping District, and there's a limited-time "Perfectly Normal Tour" where Nyochios rain down on the screen as you play and it's impossible to actually fail (since the clear requirement for each stage is "Get (number that is much higher than the actual notecount) Great/Good/Bads or less"). Completing this Tour awards Stray Nyochios that can be exchanged for Nyochio-themed items.
- 2024 brings the "D4DJ Groovy Muscle" event, which revolves around Yuka and her two workout partners, Ibuki and Dalia, trying to promote her self-branded gym, the SASAGO GYM. The generic map NPCs become much larger and more muscular as a result of taking protein supplements (named characters are not affected). There's a series of event tours that, similar to the Nyochio tours, are impossible to lose due to the objective being to complete with fewer than 3350 Good/Bad/Miss notes ("335" is a Goroawase Number for "Sasago" and no chart has that many notes).
- Arrange Mode:
- Floor Challenge features a 20-member team (as opposed to a standard party of 4 main members and 4 support members), with multiple cards of the same member allowed, and in fact only allowing certain members (the permanent ones are unit-focused, while birthday ones only allow cards of the member celebrating her birthday). The goal is to beat a target score in order to collect the stage's reward and move onto the next.
- Multi Medley Live takes the single-player Medley Live and adapts it for multiplayer, with each of the four players contributing one song each, either of their choice or a random one (with NPCs only able to pick randomly). Multi Medley Live is only available for set events. Furthermore, this event format features a unique, higher-reward variant of the Veteran Room where in addition to each player needing at least 120,000 Unit Power, only Manual play can be used (i.e. no auto-play or Scratch Assist mods allowed).
- Battle Live, another event-exclusive mode, is similar to Multi Live, however the four players also try to compete for the best score; players each get an event point bonus based on their rank. Unlike other modes, using Voltage is mandatory, and additionally 1 Voltage is used when matching up to further discourage ragequitting (you can still only use up to 5 Voltage per Live, so the Voltage slider at the difficulty select only goes up to +4).
- This game manages to have an Arrange Gacha, the Audition Gacha. Rather than the traditional system of "draw 1-10 times", you do ten 10-draws that are free...at first, and you don't actually get anything you pull just yet. Once you've done your tenth 10-draw, the game gives you the option to choosing which of the ten results to accept and add to your inventory with either an Audition Gacha stamp or 3,000 paid Diamonds, with the other nine results being discarded.
- Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic: Event banners for the gacha have a pity mechanic: After 30 rolls, the rate of getting 3-star cards will increase. Every 100 rolls, you're guaranteed to get a 4-star card (or 4-star SP, if the featured cards are of that rarity). Every 300 rolls, you will be able to outright claim any one of the featured cards for the banner. For some banners like birthday and Navigation banners, the "Select" threshold will be reduced, usually to 150.
- Boring, but Practical:
- 3-star cards may not have the fancy animations of 4-star cards, and they only max out at level 60 rather than 80, but it is much easier to Limit Break them as you only need one Crystal each time, and because the drop rates for 3-star cards are substantially higher than that of 4-star cards, you can further power them up through Extra Training, which can make them exceed 4-star cards that don't have any Extra Training (good luck trying to get a second copy of the same 4-star card). 3-star cards also appear routinely as event exchange items or rewards, meaning that diligent grinding can get one a 3-star card with Extra Training lv4 without having to pray to the Random Number God. Finally, RAVE events typically have 3-star cards as a trending category, meanind that 3-star cards can really pull your weight when grinding for audience score, especially when they're common enough that you can get Extra Training on them more easily than 4-star cards.
- Auto-play is immensely useful if you don't have the mental energy to actually play charts at the moment, as you can still earn rewards not based on combo. While your reward output will be slightly smaller since you're missing out on the combo bonuses for score, it can still allow you to grind without needing your focus entirely on the game. Auto-play is a godsend in events in particular, as it makes the process of farming event points far less physically taxing; while you will take a small penalty to your event point gain, it's a small price to pay for being able to stay competitive even if you're busy with other activities. However, an update in 2023 now awards significant bonuses for combos in Manual mode (as in, you can almost double your event points if you play manual and nail a Full Combo), which implicitly penalizes players who are trying to tier with autoplay. However it's still useful if you just want to do your daily missions or just want the diamond rewards for score and play count.
- In Poker events, One Pair isn't the most exciting hand to get, and one might be tempted to use 1 Voltage to reset their hand sooner to try for, say, a Straight or a Flush, but it still multiplies your coin gain for the hand by 10, which is far better than forming no winning hand and only getting a multiplier of 1.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory:
- Normally you can only play one stage of each Groovy Mix Tour per day, but you can play additional stages for 150 Diamonds each.
- Buying a D4PASS provides, among other perks, an addition 1000 Tension (on top of the base 1000) at the start of each song, making it easier to clear songs; note that the extra 1000 Tension does not apply to Stage Qualifier courses. It also adds 5-Voltage Energy Drinks as part of the daily login bonus to facilitate event grinding.
- Live Pass unlocks all songs that are not locked behind story chapters, eliminating the need to grind for items to buy them.
- One of the most blatant examples is Bingo events where SP Cards are available. Each time you roll the event's associated banner, you get one SP Card (so if you do a 10-roll, you get 10 SP Cards). Using an SP Card in place of a regular card gives you rewards consisting solely of large Event Point bonuses (as opposed to, say, Coins or Pieces). As a result, top-tierers in SP Bingo events will almost always be gacha whalers; just having a lot of Voltage-refill items won't help you place well in those events.
- Company Cross References: This game features several Tokyo 7th Sisters songs, and are labeled as such rather than "Other" like most other songs that are not original songs or D4DJ covers of licensed songs. This is because Donuts Games also worked on that franchise's mobile game.
- Crossover:
- With hololive as it features some hololive original songs, to the point that an official crossover event was announced.
- Another collab event features five characters from various units cosplaying from The Quintessential Quintuplets.
- A collab for Performai features songs from those games. The Japanese version additionally has hit sounds from those three games, as well as cabinets of those games for in-game Club decorations.
- There have been two crossovers with Pretty Cure; one based on HeartCatch Pretty Cure! and one based on Tropical-Rouge! Pretty Cure.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Failing a song is much less consequential than in other Bushiroad rhythm games. Draining the Tension Gauge does heavily reduce standard-scoring point gains from that point forward, and missions that require a clear are disqualified. However, the song will continue on to the end (even in a single-player game, and the game doesn't even ask you to pay Diamonds to continue the song), the player can still earn rewards and complete missions not based on clears (such as score and combo rewards) or remaining Tension Gauge, and if the player has Live Pass, Technical Scoring is completely unaffected. You don't even need to be in a Multi Live to get the benefit; the only exceptions are Groovy Mix Tours with a "finish with any Tension Gauge left" objective and Stage Qualifier courses, which will cut the song short if you drain out.
- Drought Level of Doom: The courses for Stages 6-9 and Peak class do not have any life recovery, unlike the courses for Grades 5-1 and Stages 1-5. Furthermore, even getting Greats will reduce your life, 10 Tension out of 1000 to be exact, meaning you can fail the course just from getting 100 non-Perfects or less, even if you never miss any notes.
- Exploding Closet: In the event story "Trick or Sexy!", while Maho is over at Marika's house, Maho opens Marika's closet after the latter asks her to find a particular object she needs help recovering, and ends up being buried in Marika's belongings. A previous event story established Marika as being absolutely terrible at keeping her room clean, so she just "cleans" her room by stuffing items she doesn't need at the moment into her closet.
- Fission Mailed: Season 7, Chapter 7 of the side:nova story has an in-story Live, similar to that of the other side:origin and side:nova stories, with the song being Abyssmare's "I AM THE BEST"...but its Hard chart is rated 999 out of 15 and the chart is on auto-play. Except the auto-play fails to hit any of the notes (something that has never happened in the game before), the vocals are missing, and the song fades out halfway to a "Live Failed" result. This represents Neo's breakdown on-stage at D4FES. USA and Abyssmare's subsequent failure to improvise, resulting in their performance being cut short.
- Flawless Victory: The game displays a "Full Combo!" splash upon hitting the last note if the player achieves one (i.e. no Bad or Miss notes). Similar splashes appear for a "Great Full Combo" (Full Combo with no Good notes) and a "Perfect Full Combo" (Full Combo with only Perfects (and/or Just Perfects if using a Live Pass)). A later update has separate indicators for hitting all tap/hold notes, for hitting all scratch notes, and for hitting all fader notes. Note that in order to get a (Perfect/Great) Full Combo, the player must be using Manual mode, as auto-played notes don't count towards combo, although the player can still get badges for the note types they didn't set to auto.
- Foregone Conclusion: In RONDO's part of the "Road to D4FES." Chapter 1 story, early on Aoi and Hiiro meet a vocalist named Yuki Sakura, who is to become part of their unit as their vocalist. However, promotional materials show Tsubaki as the unit's eventual permanent vocalist, so you know Yuki won't be part of the group for long, made more obvious by her lack of a character potrait.
- Foregone Victory:
- The first stage of Groovy Mix Tour is on full autoplay, so the score requirement is superficial and it's not possible to fail at all short of quitting early. This makes it convenient for the "Clear Groovy Mix Tour Once" daily mission.
- The April Fools' Day tour stages are all impossible to lose due to the fail condition being a number of Great/Good/Bad judgements that well exceeds the number of notes.
- Foreign Exchange Student: The four members of the all-American Abyssmare unit end up transferring to Yoba Academy at the end of side:nova Season 7.
- Freemium: In two different flavors:
- The D4PASS gives the player a wide variety of extra rewards, increases the Tension gauge by 1,000 (in other words, a 100% increase), and unlocks Stage Qualifiers for Stages 1 through 10.
- The Live Pass unlocks all songs that are not Story unlocks, unlocks a Practice mode that lets the player freely practice sections of songs, and shows whether you hit a note too early or too late as well as a breakdown of that at the end of the song. Previously, Technical Score and the Just Perfect judgement were also locked behind Live Pass, but a 2023 update made them available to all players.
- Gameplay Automation: For players of Groovy Mix who find the unusually complex controlsnote too overwhelming, there are assist features to automate some of the note types, or even all of them for "Audience" mode. However, auto-played notes don't count towards the player's combo or Technical Score, the player cannot get a Full Combo with assists enabled, and the quantity of rewards is reduced. These assistance modifiers are unavailable for Stage Qualifier courses, as the point of them is to test the player's skills. You will still earn points and therefore scoring rewards for the auto-played notes, and it will count as a clear for purposes of "clear song" missions, so it's a good way to farm resources and EXP if you absolutely don't want to play the rhythm game component at the moment, or even at all.
- Gimmick Level:
- The two Rhythm Doctor collaboration songs exclusive to the English-language version, "wish i could care less" and "Super Battleworn Insomniac", have Easy charts that have idiosyncratic difficulty ratings, being "rated" as "1N" and "XN" (rather than the traditional scale of 1-15 with "plus" sub-ratings from 10-14), referencing Rhythm Doctor's level numbering structure. Both charts exclusively have notes that fall on the center lane and replicate the interface of Rhythm Doctor.
- Abyssmare songs exclusively feature dragging hold notes (meaning that you press down and then have to follow the note as it crosses over to other lanes). In songs where they collaborate with other units, like the "LOVE!HUG!GROOVY!" series, only their parts have drag-holds.
- Glass Cannon: Life Boost is a passive card skill that gives you a constant buff to your score gain...but also, contrary to its name, makes you lose more Tension when you break combo.
- Guilt-Based Gaming: An optional notification type sends you a smartphone notification if you go more than 24 hours without logging in (which is useful for keeping up with daily login bonuses). Normally the message has a neutral tone: "24 hours have passed since the last login." However, if you have a Navigator card set as your profile card, you will get notifications from that character instead, and the "24 hours since last login" message becomes a message from that character expressing worry (i.e. that you dumped them) or anger that you haven't logged in in a while.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: During RAVE events, you may encounter a "Dominator" NPC opponent with "Unmeasurable" stats. Challenging this event will guarantee a loss. What keeps this from being Schmuck Bait is that you will gain a substantial boost to your Matching Bonus, and you will actually get more rewards than challenging a regular opponent, so you actually want to challenge this type of opponent.
- An Interior Designer Is You: One of the features of the game is the Club, in which you can customize the decorations of the stage with items you've acquired. This isn't just some sidequest, as the customizations do appear in the background of the gameplay interface, as well as on the two turntables that represent the outer two lanes. Originally, you had to set the items on your stage to get the bonuses, but a later update makes it so that the highest-boosting item from each category will be applied to your buffs when playing, so that you can decorate your stage however you want without compromising your buffs. Normally, your customizations are shown when playing, but when playing another player's Medley setlist, their customizations will appear instead.
- Kaizo Trap: "Floor Killer (After Party Remix)" appears to end with one last held note in the background audio, but then a few more notes show up on the chart. Hopefully you've noticed that if you have a Full Combo up to this point, the FC splash (which instantly plays out when you hit the last note) hasn't appeared yet.
- Kyu and Dan Ranks: Groovy Mix features them, known as Grades (for kyu ranks) and Stages (for dan ranks) in the English version. You have to play a set of 3 or 4 songs of similar difficulty on Manual mode in succession, and make it to the end without your lifebar reaching 0; the amount of life gained or lost for each type of judgement depends on the course (easier courses allow recovering health when hitting notes, but harder courses don't, and eventually start taking life away on a Good or even a Great). Completing the course awards a Grade/Stage title based on it. Grades 5 through 1 are available for free, while Stages 1 through 9 and the Peak class require a D4PASS. Note that unsubscribing from D4PASS will lock you back out of missions for Stage 1 and above once your paid period expires, but you can keep a Stage 1-10 title equipped as long as you don't switch it out. Courses are refreshed every season, but you keep any Stage Qualifier titles you earned from prior seasons. Legacy info
- Mood Whiplash: Medley Live has you putting four songs together in a medley that lasts a little over two minutes long. One can easily invoke this by, for example, playing a slower and more sentimental song like "prayer" followed immediately by the much more hyper and idol-like "Dig Delight!" or one of the many variations of "LOVE!HUG!GROOVY!!" And this trope is inevitable in Medley Multi-Lives, where each of the four players contribures a song to the medley, meaning all four players will have their own idea of what they want to play, often extremely contrasting ones.
- Non-Indicative Name: The "Life Boost" passive skill not only does not increase your Tension Gauge nor does it otherwise heal you in any way, but it actually causes you to lose more Tension when you get combo breaks. Rather, the skill refers to the fact that you're trading defense for a persistent Score Multiplier.
- Over 100% Completion: If using Technical Score, the maximum score appears to be 1,000,000, at which point the player earns a Technical Score Rank of SS. However the actual max is 1,005,000 if the player gets all Just Perfects (which are worth 1,005,000/N notes, where N is the number of notes; a Perfect scores 1,000,000/N). It's actually nigh-impossible for a Live Pass player to get exactly 1,000,000 in practice, since you cannot get non-Just Perfects on notes other than tap and hold (including Scratch hold) notes. A non-Live Pass player can get exactly 1,000,000 Technical Score since they cannot get Just Perfects, but the 1,000,000 score will only be shown if in a Multi-Live and if another player who does have Live Pass checks Member Scores with the Technical Score toggle turned on, as it will still show Technical Score for all players, not just ones with Live Pass.
- Rank Inflation: The Live Pass unlocks the Just Perfect judgement above regular Perfect, which adds 0.5% more Technical Score than a Perfect.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In the final chapter of the side:nova arc, the greedy and selfish music producer Sho Mitsuhashi is on the receiving end of these from three different parties:
- When he offers to be UniChØrd's producer, they, with Lumina leading the charge, bluntly refuse, pointing out that he's been jumping from failure to failure and only wants to use them for another attempt at his own personal success.Sho: Plays may have changed, yet I remain fortunate. I found you, Lumina. You will be better than Neo. The fudning allocated to Abyssmare, all yours. Let's expedite things. Use Neo and Abyssmare as scapegoats and stepping stones to further...
Lumina: You lose one hundred Lumina points!
Sho: What?!
Lumina: I let you blather, and off the mask came. You lack respect for the artist. To you, there are mere tools to satisfy your sad needs. - Then, at the conclusion of the duel between UniChØrd and Abyssmare at Yoba Academy, his former unitmates from L.M.O. and his own son Ku — who is in charge of the current iterations of D4FES., corner him and call him out for thinking he could find better success by leaving Japan and going to the U.S. To paraphrase, if Sho had just stayed in Japan with them, he would've been in charge of a very successful DJ unit.
- The final one comes from Neo, whose unit he walked out on after her breakdown at D4FES. USA (and who had just pulled herself away from the Despair Event Horizon caused by his actions). Intertwining with L.M.O.'s own remarks, she tells him that she sees potential in him, but he needs to stop trying to chasing his past, i.e. trying to produce someone who's like Dennojo or Aria, and instead produce something/someone that can stand on their own merits.
- When he offers to be UniChØrd's producer, they, with Lumina leading the charge, bluntly refuse, pointing out that he's been jumping from failure to failure and only wants to use them for another attempt at his own personal success.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: In Lyrical Lily's "Road to D4FES." chapter 1 story, the newly-formed group is busted by the nuns for holding parties in secret, and it seems as if they're going to be punished, likely expelled, for actions deemed un-"ladylike" and heretical. That is, until they meet up with the headmistress of Arisugawa Academy, who turns out to be the same "Elderly Nun" who had been providing Miyu with moral support and who was the one who donated the DJ equipment (which was her late brother's) the unit discovered in hopes that someone else would put it to good use again. She pardons all four students of any wrongdoing, seeing their activities as something that transcends worn-in academy customs and clearly brings joy to the student body, and encourages them to continue with their careers. Her subordinates are surprised at her decision, being the ones who were angry at the four members of LyriLily, but ultimately choose to back off and register the unit as an official club of the school.
- Regional Bonus:
- Unusually for an Idol Genre rhythm game, some songs are exclusive to the English version of the game (i.e. unavailable in the Japanese version), such as the K-pop songs, "HERE COMES HOPE" by IRyS, and the Rhythm Doctor collaboration songs.
- Some events are exclusive to the overseas versions, such as the "Welcome back! M4id, Br!de or Me!?" event, although heavily downplayed in that they are just mishmashes of Japan-exclusive events.
- Scoring Points: In addition to the tradition of gacha-based mobile rhythm games having a scoring system that is partly influenced by what cards you have equipped, there is also Technical Score (previously part of Live Pass but later made available for all players), a scoring system based exclusively on note accuracy. The maximum Technical Score appears to be out of 1,000,000 points, but hitting notes with Just Perfect accuracy allows you to get up to 1,005,000 points.
- Scunthorpe Problem: Inverted with RAVE events where condition for a Trend is "songs with a particular word" in them. The game only checks that the required sequence of characters is in the title, and will still count if it's part of a longer word. This means unintended songs can be used to fulfill Trends, particularly in the English-language version:
- One Trend category was songs with 'cat' in the title. You could fulfill it with songs like "I Shall Be a Cat" and "CAT'S EYE"...as well as "The Catcher in the Rhyme" and "JUST COMMUNICATION".
- Another trend category was songs with spelled-out numbers in them, i.e. "one", "two", "three", and so on. Songs like "One's Believing", "Find Your One Way", and "SEVENTH HEAVEN" counted...and so did "HONEY" and, by extension, "Cutie Honey".
- Secret Level: There are some secret songs unlocked by creating a Medley of a specific permutation of songs; note that as a result, they cannot be played in Multi Lives:
- Making a medley of "Dig Delight!" and the three versions of "LOVE!HUG!GROOVY!" will unlock the full version of the latter. At nearly 7 minutes long, it is the longest playable song in a game where other songs are only about two to two-and-a-half minutes long, which is why it's unavailable in Multi-Live. Also a Brutal Bonus Level, having the game's only Hard 14+ chart and on Expert, it's the only song to be rated level 16+! Oh, and there's another verson with the side:nova units that's 8 minutes and 40 seconds long!
- Making a medley that alternates between "Give Me Awesome!!!!" and "Help Me, ERINNNNNN!!" results in "Awesome, ERINNNNNN!!!!", a mashup of the aforementioned songs. It should be noted that the version of "Help me, ERINNNNNN!!" used in this game is a cover featuring Happy Around!, rather than the beatMARIO original.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: In the event story "Clash! The Battle of the Kunoichi!", Shinobu discovers a scroll from her grandfather while tidying up the studio. The scroll is a story that reveals that her family is descended from a line of ninjas and kunoichi. Unfortunately for her and her unit-mates who got emotionally invested in the story, they then notice the final line on the scroll: "By Dennojo Inuyose, Grade 5, Class 3." Angered that her supposed ninja lineage was all just a piece of classwork by her imaginative grandfather, Shinobu rips the scroll up.
- Shout-Out:
- Redo has an interesting one to go with the main protagonist's "Groundhog Day" Loop ability. Right after the bridge into the final chorus, there's a scratch note. In-game, scratch notes push the note chart up a bit, effectively "rewinding" the note chart. However this particular scratch note rewinds the entire final section of notes, which is mostly a copy of the chorus played earlier.
- The untrained card illustration
for the "ZOMBIE STRIKE!!-Chainsaw-" Miiko card is a clear replica of the "Here's Johnny!" scene from The Shining, with Miiko and Nagisa in place of Jack and Wendy, and Miiko's signature chainsaw replacing the axe.
- Some Dexterity Required: Groovy Mix has a considerably higher skill floor than most other mobile rhythm games (whose gameplay usually just consists of "hit tap notes and hold notes as they scroll down the lanes"). Fader notes don't always have to be held down, only to guide the fader to the notes, and many songs will hammer this lesson in by introducing straight trails with patterns of tap or hold notes that mandate using two hands for them; it's common for a new player to try to hold down the trail while hitting the other notes, resulting in missing either the regular notes, the fader notes, or both. Another aspect that catches newbies off guard are the turntable notes. Scratch notes actually jostle the chart back a little, while hold turntable notes freeze the main lanes in place until the note passes. Even if you have lots of experience in other rhythm games, you will need to try the easier songs and with lower scroll speed multipliers first to get a hang of the game's signature gimmicks. Perhaps to mitigate this, the game has features to automate notes by note type, although using them carries scoring penalties, with auto-played notes not counting towards combo.
All of that said, this game's charts are explicitly designed around handheld play with thumbs, and players have achieved Perfect Full Combos on even the hardest songs in the game with thumbs only. The only time a pattern may force 3 or more fingers is when playing on Normal modenote (as opposed to Manual), but that's more of a quirk of an assist modifier (which converts some types of non-tap notes into taps) rather than a deliberate design choice. - Story Difficulty Setting: It is possible to play the game as a visual novel by just leaving the rhythm game part in Audience mode. While you won't get rewards based on combo, you'll still earn points and most other rewards, including unit EXP (for Main Story), Bond EXP (for character stories), and event points (for Event Stories). By turning gameplay sound effects off, the game basically becomes a visual novel with a music player.
- Streamer-Friendly Mode: Turning "Streamer Mode" on will hide any OST and cover tracks that may run afoul of copyright issues on streaming services and platforms for players that are recording/streaming.
- Support Party Member: Call of Artemis 4-star cards have the unique property of having passive skills that apply even if they are in Support Member slots as opposed to the main slots (other characters must be in a main slot for their passives to kick in, otherwise only their power parameters will apply). This allows them to be used with just about any build without disrupting synergies related to club item and event bonuses.
- Temporary Online Content: Some licensed songs have a limited window of time in which you can purchase them. This is especially the case with any of the Holo Live songs. Though once you purchase the songs you can keep them indefinitely.
- Video Game Delegation Penalty:
- Using auto-play modifiers can make it easier to clear the song and to get score-based and clear-based rewards, however auto-played notes don't count towards your combo and thus prevent achieving a Full Combo. The amount of Bond points you get also decreases, as does the amount of Event Points you get if playing during an event. If you have Live Pass, auto-played notes also don't count towards Technical Score either.
- An implicit form of this was implemented in 2023 in the form of a combo bonus that awards extra event points. The bonus for this can easily equal or even exceed the base event point gain, making it a must to use Manual mode most of the time if you intend to achieve high tier ranks in the events.
- Video Game Tutorial: New players are required to play one. It comes in three different difficulty levels, each tailored to differing levels of prior rhythm game experience. Easier tutorials explain how each type of note works, while harder tutorials expect players to quickly pick up the five note types and are more focused around techniques expected in harder songs. The fourth tutorial (on Expert) is meant to teach some of the trickier patterns that are to be expected in higher-level charts.
- Violation of Common Sense: Challenging Abyssmare "Dominator" opponents in RAVE, who have "Unmeasurable" stats, will always result in a loss...and a large quantity of rewards, more than defeating regular opponents, so there's no reason not to challenge them when they appear.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: The very first Groovy Mix Tour stage in Groovy Mix is on Audience mode, meaning that the entire chart is on auto-play. It does have a score requirement, but it's superfluous; you just need to let the song play to the end to clear the stage. If you have no new Tour stages to play, you can play this stage to effortlessly complete the "Play Groovy Mix Tour" daily mission (as well as 1/2 of the "Play 2 songs" daily mission).
PERFECT FULL COMBO
ALL DISC — ALL TAP — ALL FADER
LIVE SUCCESS
One, two, three, let's go!
