YMMV / Arcaea

• Americans Hate Tingle:
  • Despite being a hit in many Asian countries (especially Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam), and being successful enough to have collaborations with high-profile arcade rhythm games, it's a niche title at best in Western rhythm game circles. Most detractors, generally older players with the income for arcade and console rhythm games, dislike it for the same reason they dislike other mobile rhythm games: Mobile is often see as "not a real gaming platform", the idea of having to shell out for a tablet to enjoy the game in a more optimum manner is seen as a ripoff, and it runs on the model of "free to start, with additonal content available via microtransactions," a model routinely shunned by Western gamers for what they consider to be a devaluing of video games as an art form versus paying about $50-70 for a complete game (in contrast to the attitude displayed by low-income gamers in Asia, who feel uneasy about having to pay such a price just to try a game and instead stick to games that at least have content that can be played without spending (a lot of) money). It also doesn't help that the basic gameplay strongly resembles SOUND VOLTEX, and many Western rhythm game players would rather just play SOUND VOLTEX itself, an attitude driven by the Western rhythm game community's bootleg/piracy scene that allows players to (illegally) experience arcade rhythm games that are not officially available in their respective countries. While there are certainly a number of Western Arcaea players, in most Arcaea English-speaking communities, most players there will be of Asian nationalities rather than Western.
  • The Nintendo Switch version, on the other hand, received a ton of backlash from Southeast Asian players from the moment it was announced, as many of those players do not have game consoles due to the high cost of them relative to domestic wages and cost-of-living, not helped by game consoles typically not being released in those countries, meaning that one has to deal with import-induced price markups, so not only did this lead to cries of "why do I need to fork over 39.99 USD when the mobile version is free and which lets me pick and choose what to pay for" (as opposed to the Western idea of "I don't want to pay for my game in pieces, that's some predatory bullshit"), the inclusion of initially-Version-Exclusive Content drew ire from Southeast Asian players who didn't want to have to get a 300 USD console just for one specific DLC pack (although these Switch-exclusive songs would later be ported to the mobile versions). Sure, the game isn't exactly a smash hit in the West either, but at least over there, it was released to a somewhat warmer reception as opposed to outright backlash due to the stigma that mobile games have in more developed countries and gamers in countries like the United States being in better economic situations to afford game consoles. Much of the backlash has died down, although most SEA players still prefer the mobile version for having more up-to-date content.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Considering that it's a "boss" song in Groove Coaster, it's a bit surprsing that "Got hive of Ra" only received a Future 9+ chart rather than a 10.
• Awesome Art:
  • Plenty of the partner characters' artworks are dynamic and intricate, especially with the Costume Evolution throughout the game.
  • Many players praise the game for its amazing charts which give the songs personality, something that is not found in other rhythm games. Oftentimes, the charts' trace art will reflect the lyrics and theme in a way.
• Base-Breaking Character: Tempest Tairitsu, from a gameplay standpoint. Either she's appreciated for allowing much faster progression in World Mode, or she's hated because her unique skill forces a play-it-safe attitude with song selection, especially during event maps.
• Awesome Video Game Levels:
  • "Corruption" on Future is regarded by many as the pinnacle of Arc-focused charting, to the point where people have made fanmade charts that copypaste its Arcs into other songs.
  • "Malicious Mischance" on Future, due to its gimmick of basically "backstabbing" the player with notes coming from the front of the screen.
    It's behind you.
• Breather Level:
  • "Kanagawa Cyber Culvert" is a 9 on Future but has relatively simple patterns for a 9, mostly consisting of long Arc Notes coupled with steady patterns of Sky Notes. Expect it to be one of the first level 9 charts you get EX rank and Full Recall on.
  • "Give Me a Nightmare" was originally a Future 9; about the most difficult aspect of it is the zigzagging Arc Notes with Floor Notes, but if you can clear other 9's this chart is really not much of a challenge. It was later rerated to an 8 for the 4.0 update.
  • The CHUNITHM Collaboration folder has all "boss" songs, with all three Future charts being rated 10 or 10+. When the CHUNITHM collaboration was reran in 2020 and added a new CHUNITHM song to Memory Archive, "Teriqma", it was given a level 9 Future chart.
  • "HIVEMIND" Past not only has no Floor Notes, it doesn't even have any Sky Notes, so every note is either a Long Note or Arc Note. Since those can only be judged as either a shiny Pure or a Lost (not Far or imperfect Pure), any halfway decent player can get the perfect score of 10,000,995 easily. Combine this with Chuni Penguin's skill (+14 Fragments for clearing a song with a perfect score) and you have an easy way to farm Fragments, albeit a very repetitive one.
• Broken Base:
  • Whether the game is "meant" to be played with thumbs (on a smartphone) or with the phone or preferably a tablet laid down and with more than two fingers is an ongoing point of contention. Tablet players find the game nigh-unplayable with the thumbs method, while thumb players, particularly those with at least 11.00 Potential, fail to see what the problem is and consider tablet play to be "easy mode", and/or find it frustrating that tablet players have a leg on those who cannot afford the few hundred extra dollars to get a good tablet to play^note It's generally accepted that iPads are better for rhythm games than Android tablets but are significantly more expensive (which is a major sore point in the greater "iPhone vs Android" smartphone wars), while Android tablets are more prone to dropped inputs, and furthermore Android processes sounds in a way that makes hit sounds unfeasible..
  • There's been a consistent amount of discourse over the Potential mechanic, over whether it's an accurate measure of skill and whether having it be able to decrease is a good thing that encourages consistency or a bad thing that takes fun away from the game. Arcaea fan communities often end up in arguments about this, to the point where some use Potential to determine someone's worth in a community while others heavily discourage or outright ban discussion of Potential.
  • Arcaea Online, a subscription for 200 Memories (about 2 USD) per month. It's a premium service that grants players to extra features on the Arcaea web portal, most notably detailed analyses of their Potential and which songs contribute to it at any given moment. On one hand, there are players who appreicate being able to break down their Potential in a way that doesn't violate Arcaea's terms of use (as opposed to probers that are against such, and can get a player banned). Others, especially less-affluent players, think that the idea of paying for an official prober is a joke and that it's just lowiro being a bunch of greedy profit-chasers.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Is there an event map going on? Then expect everyone to use Tempest Tairitsu if they have her unlocked for her unmatched Step stat.
  • Once version 3.6.0 and the "Esoteric Order" DLC set came out, a lot of competitive players flocked over to having Lagrange as their partner, as her skill shows the player's projected score relative to the nearest grade, rather than the more traditional approach of showing points the player has racked up so far.
  • The note speed mechanic in the game allows players to choose how fast the notes slide across the lanes. For songs with notes that come very slowly, such as "memoryfactory.lzh," most players rather turn their speed up high instead of playing the original speed.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • For someone who only appeared in a memory, Cedric (Alice's real life brother) has a considerable amount of fans. It helps that he is the only non-partner with official artwork that clearly depicts him.
  • AI-Chan was initially only introduced as an April Fools joke on the April 1st of 2023. However, the character is so immensely popular that instead of becoming a one-time joke, it becomes a partner character on the April 2nd on the next year.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Rapid Sky Notes in the same position, usually called "jackhammers" in Rhythm Game jargon, are often called "trains" due to looking like trains or train tracks. "DX Choseinou Full Metal Shojo" is perhaps best known for this, as the segments with these "trains" sound like literal trains.
  • With regards to the creators, the charter Toaster is commonly referred to as Toter.
  • Memories are sometimes referred to as "Memes". In a similar vein, the song "Memory Forest" is sometimes called "Meme Forest".
  • Nono gets referred to as "Scam-chan" because in this game, her advertised Skill of awarding 2525 Fragments on an EX grade is negated by her 0.5 Frag stat that reduces the reward to 25 Fragments, something that is not informed in-game until you unlock her.
  • The yellow Arc Notes that replace purple ones when Colorblind Mode is on are sometimes referred to as "piss arcs".
  • Several songs have their own nicknames:
    • "#1f1e33" is often referred to as "Iffy".
    • It's also sometimes referred to as "Jaguar", due to community members misinterpreting the hex code in the title as a different, sorta-similar-sounding one. In truth, they weren't even that close... but the nickname stuck in some circles.
    • "Aegleseeker" is sometimes referred to as "Bagelseeker".
    • "Axium Crisis", shortened to AC, is sometimes called "Air Conditioner".
    • "GIMME DA BLOOD" is sometimes referred to as "GIMME DA PM"^note Pure Memory, "GIMME DA EX"^note EX grade, or some other variation of "GIMME DA (player's personal objective)". And for players who lose Potential on the song, "GIMME DA PTT (BACK)".
    • "Infinity Heaven" Beyond is sometimes referred to as "Infinity Hell".
    • "PRAGMATISM" gets the rather...interesting nickname of "Pregg".
    • Some players refer to "qualia -ideaesthesia-" as "wualia belyong" due to the Memetic Mutation explained below.
    • Laur's remix of "Sheriruth" is commonly dubbed as "Sherilaur" to distinguish the two.
• Fanfic Fuel: In the update that expanded the O.N.G.E.K.I. collaboration, story log 2-D was updated to make it clear that Tairitsu survives the fall from the top of the tower she was on, with a newfound feeling of heroism. The log still ends after that point with no further elaboration, leaving it to the player to interpret what she might do with that new feeling of resolve and the implications for the world of Arcaea.
• Fanon: A fair portion of the creative community considers Alice and Cedric's last name to be Liddell. The fact that one of Alice's associated songs is called "To: Alice Liddell" helps.
• Funny Moments:
  • "Bamboo" is one of the game's goofier songs and is all about loving bamboo. The chart frequently changes speed and is really jumpy, causing some players to call it one of the game's "meme charts."
  • With stories full of Tear Jerker and Break the Cutie moments, the short story "Colorful Dream" may come off as a Bizarro Episode for some. The story revolves around Ayu eating the Arcaea glass, which is as ridiculous as it sounds with humorous dialogue.
  • There are multiple weird gimmicks surrounding "dropdead." Before even heading into the song, the chart has a difficulty spread of Past 1, Present 9, and Future 8. Normally, the difficulties go up with a higher number, making "dropdead" the only song whose Present chart is a higher number than the Future chart. Not only that, the Past chart only has 44 notes and they all scroll at a slow speed. The Future chart is very gimmicky, whereas Present is relatively easier to play with — if you get used to the crosshand segments — further boggling players as the difficulties say otherwise. The sheer ridiculousness will make players chuckle.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Once Awakened (admittedly this takes a lot of Level Grinding and farming the required cores), Kou becomes the best Partner for Fragment farming in short sessions. At level 30, she has a Frag stat of 100, meaning she will double Fragment gain (1 Frag = 2%). On top of that, she also grants a 110-120% multiplier to your Play/Clear, First Clear, and Performance rewards depending on your score. All of this is applied before the multiplier applied by her Frag stat, making for an effective multiplier of 220-240%. You'd expect such high bonuses to be on a partner with the Hard skill, but Kou uses a Normal meter, allowing for risk-free farming (whereas Hard meters can end the song early). The only Partners who rival her Fragment gain are Pandora Nemesis, who has a maximum Frag stat of 105 (210% multiplier) but has a special Hard meter, and Ayu, who provides a random Fragment bonus typically spanning from -10 to 100 (with a tiny chance of 616 or 9999 fragments) while having a flat 50 Frag stat (no multiplier), and both are no longer obtainable, whereas Kou can be obtained any time you want.
    • With the release of the WACCA collaboration, we have the partner Elizabeth & Saya, who has a partner skill of "Earn +X Fragments per play. (increases for each consecutive play with this Partner)" Due to how that +X is determined, she can easily eclipse every other partner in the game for fragment generation. This +X begins at 0 but increases by 1 for every song you play using this partner, with no cap. She also has a frag stat above 50 (capping at 68), which means this +X value gets multiplied by up to 1.36x. And like Kou, she's a standard partner available to everyone that buys the collaboration pack (after clearing the prerequisite world map). The only caveat is you cannot use other partners while grinding or close the game (otherwise +X resets to 0), which makes Kou more suitable for shorter fragment grind sessions while Elizabeth & Saya is suitable for longer ones.
  • For general World Mode Progression, Grievous Lady Tairitsu is the go-to, with a Step stat of 102 at level 20 (translating to a 2.04x multiplier to your Steps) and the only downside of having a Hard gauge and needing to complete the Vicious Labyrinth Anamoly. Only a few other partners are capable of doing better: Awakened Lethe at level 30 only has a Step of 100 (and a downside of either Mirror Mode OR not seeing your score and combo, so they can't fail out of a song), while Ilith (Step 105, Level 20) and Awakened Regulus (Step 108, Level 30) both have a hard gauge AND were Event Partners, so if you don't already have them (and the Cores for the latter), you're SOL.
  • Tempest Tairitsu, added in 3.0, can do significantly better than Grievous Lady if you can handle her unique Hard Gauge. Depending on how much you've been leveling up characters, her step stat could be as high as 108 (a 2.16x multiplier) when you obtain her without even factoring in Event Partners and the two Soundtrack Partners (If those partners are included, her maximum Level 1 Step stat is a massive 130, for a 2.6x multiplier). This is because her Step stat is affected by the sum of the levels of all of the partners you have up to a sum of 600 levels (+60). Getting her to level 20 with the maximum Step Bonus puts her STEP at 160 (effective multiplier of 3.2x), by far the highest STEP in the game.
  • Lost Chapter Beyond seems built to subvert this, as maps have partner affinity multipliers that still apply even if the partner is sealed, encouraging the use of partners that have higher affinity multipliers. For instance, the first set of maps have a 1.5x affinity for base Tairitsu (OVER stat of 90 at level 30, for a final multiplier of 2.7x) and a 2.5x affinity for base Hikari (OVER stat of 71 at level 30, for a final multiplier of 3.55x).
  • An unexpected one: Chuni Penguin tops out at 88 Frag (1.76x multiplier) and also awards 14 Fragments if you get a perfect score (not just a Pure Memory, but all shiny Pures, meaning your score must be 10,000,000 + the number of notes). This would make that bonus Awesome, but Impractical...however the song "HIVEMIND" on PST has only Long and Arc Notes, meaning that as long as you don't miss (and for any relatively decent player this is not very difficult, as it's a level 4 chart), you will always get the maximum score. Due to the Frag multiplier applying after all of the other calculations (i.e. it affects her unique bonus, her Clear reward, and her Performance reward), you will get about 50 Fragments with each play. The only catches are that Chuni Penguin is a event-exclusive partner and one must be willing to play the same song over and over.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Officially, Arcaea is a Western product, with lowiro's headquarters being in the UK and a fair number of its staff working in the United States and one from Singapore. Even within dedicated rhythm game circles in the West, the game doesn't get a lot of attention, which might have to do with the Western rhythm game community being more focused around BEMANI, panel-based dance games, and other rhythm games on console, PC, and even arcade platforms than mobile rhythm games, on top of the Western "mobile games aren't real games" mentality. In Japan, the game graced both platforms' top game charts upon release; it helps that the game has more in common with Japanese rhythm games than American or European games of the same genre. Furthermore, the Japanese-language official Twitter account not only has about four times more followers than the English-language one, it also got the verified checkmark first, despite being around as long as the EN one. The success of Arcaea in Japan led to collaborations with Japanese arcade games, three of which are some of the highest-grossing rhythm games in Japan, made by one of the oldest and most well-known companies in Japanese video game history. The game is also pretty successful in Southeast Asia, to the point where in English-speaking Arcaea communities, you'll mostly meet players from SEA and the occasional player from the Americas or Europe.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • In the CHUNITHM collaboration area in Chapter 4, there is a flight of Restriction steps just before the end (where you unlock Tairitsu & Chuni Penguin)which only let you play "World Vanquisher". It's a 9+ on Future, so if you find that too hard for you, the next best option is to play the Present chart...which is a 5. For many players, this means either "get bodied" or "fall asleep to a chart that's too easy to be fun for me". Unless you are willing to use a Boost, which quadruples your progress at the cost of Memories, have fun playing "World Vanquisher" 4-6 times in a row. Not helping this is that World Vanquisher is one of the longest songs in the game, at 2'41".
  • Some songs aren't necessarily hard to clear, but have quirks that make scoring on them much harder than usual:
    • "Paradise", otherwise a pretty average Future 7, features a weird rhythm to its notes that can make it difficult to time them correctly.
    • "memoryfactory.lzh" is a slow track at 100 BPM and is one of a handful of tracks to limit the maximum scroll speed, making it very difficult to time hits. Many joke that it's even harder than "Grievous Lady".
    • "carmine:scythe" isn't necessarily a difficult clear by Level 9 standards, but it has a lot of double-tap patterns that make getting good scores challenging.
    • "DX Choseinou Full Metal Shojo" from the Groove Coaster collab is infamous for its "trains" of 1/16th Sky notes at the same position, requiring careful and difficult tapping to hit them with Pures.
    • "Got hive of Ra" isn't terribly challenging, being only a 9+ on Future, but with an inconsistent and nonstandard time signature and weird rhythms, it is one of the more difficult songs to score well on. It also has one of the lowest notecounts for a chart of its level, which may mean it's less physically taxing, but that also means that you have less room for error.
    • Of the level 11 "boss" charts, "Fracture Ray" FTR is perhaps one of the hardest to score on, due to the use of weird rhythms like quintiplets and septuplets. It took almost a year for top-tier players to achieve the maximum score on it.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • In the mobile version, the "If you can" challenge could be triggered on "Singularity" BYD despite it being a different song (specifically, the "Singularity VVVIP" remix). This was patched in the next update, however.
  • In the Switch version, the songs "nέo κósmo" and "Lightning Screw" are supposed to be unlocked through World Mode, but that flag is missing, as you only need the required Fragments to unlock the Past and Present charts and the song clear and grade prerequisites for the Future chart as well.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • There's quite a bit of fanart that pairs Hikari and Tairitsu together, which became a lot more uncomfortable to look at after the Black Fate update, as Tairitsu tries to kill Hikari, and the vice versa happens instead in the Final Verdict update. Of course, not every fan is deterred. It also helps that one ending of ''Silent Answer'' allows the two to be friends at last.
  • One of the songs in the CHUNITHM collaboration is named "World Vanquisher". Normally this would just be another song, but the final Main Story pack introduces "World Ender" and the Final Boss "Testify", with "Testify" being composed by the same one who composed "World Vanquisher". "Testify" is also tied directly to Hikari's Fatalis variant. The story eventually ends with the world of Arcaea being destroyed by Hikari.
  • One of the songs associated with Eto and Luna is "Live Fast Die Young" with Eto being the character on its jacket. Said characters are twin sisters who look like children at best. In "Final Verdict", we find out every single character present in Arcaea is dead...which naturally includes those two. They lived fast and died young to its most literal conclusion.
• High-Tier Scrappy: Tempest Tairitsu is by and far the best Partner for World Mode grinding; while her base Step stat tops at 100 at level 20, she also has a Step bonus equal to the sum of all Partners' levels divided by 10, capping out at 60, thus her Step stat can go as high as 160, or 50 more than the next highest-Step partner, Summer Ilith. The catch is that Temptest Tairitsu also has a special Hard gauge that is extremely punishing on multiple misses in a short period of time (even missing just five notes is enough to trigger a Track Lost if it happens in all but the densest of patterns). This creates headaches for those trying to grind event maps, as players have to pick easier charts if they want to min-max their grinding, instead of improving themselves on more difficult charts. Her very existence devalues older Step-focused partners; when the CHUNITHM event was reran two months after her debut, Regulus, who previously had the highest Step stat, ended up feeling like a Cosmetic Award at best. Compounding this is that the event rerun had a shorter time frame than the original run of the event, as if the developers expected players to come into the event with a maxed-out Tempest Tai.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Conflict" is one of the game's Arc Words: Tairitsu's name means such in Japanese and the two initial lane skins are Light and Conflict. Eight months after the game's release, "conflict" by Siromaru and Cranky, one of the most crossed-over songs in all of rhythm games, makes its Arcaea debut as a song with the Conflict skin. This became a twofer with the Tone Sphere collaboration, where songs from TS's Solarsphere chapter get Light lanes and songs from its Darksphere chapter get Conflict lanes, and "conflict" is a Solarsphere song, meaning that if it had been included as part of the collab, it would've been a Light song instead. As icing on the cake, the Tone Sphere song "A Light" gets Conflict lanes (due to being a Darksphere song) rather than Light ones.
  • "Ether Strike" has the sampled line "My guiding star." Two and a half years later, the song would cross over to maimai, which features Slide Notes with a guiding star that you have to follow with your hand.
  • The artist for the song jacket for "Libertas" is named wacca, much like the Marvelous rhythm game WACCA. Arcaea would later collaborate with WACCA.
  • When the Absolute Reason song pack was first released^note March 21, 2019, Saya was very notable for her steadfast devotion to investigating Arcaea's origins, as well as being the first and only side story character at the time to do so. Come 2022, the Esoteric Order song pack was released and the main story has concluded^note (both of which reveal most, if not all of the most critical lore behind the game's story) and Saya (who hasn't received an awakening/story update since then) is still no closer to discovering the truth behind the world of Arcaea.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common criticism about "Nhelv" is that its Future chart copies some patterns from "Axium Crisis".
• Jerkass Woobie: Tairitsu might seem like a straightforward example of The Woobie, having been haunted by nothing but memories of despair and betrayal ever since she arrived to Arcaea. Until Adverse Prelude and Black Fate that is, where she attempts to destroy Arcaea and kill Hikari, and after knowing the suffering Arcaea causes for the other girls, she also tries to torture Hikari before actually attempting the kill out of sadism. It's also implied that she's already prepared to get someone killed at the end of Vicious Labyrinth. In the other hand, her death in Hikari's hands is by all means treated as a senseless tragedy, her arguments for destroy Arcaea are valid because of the continuous suffering it has caused for her and some of the other girls, she does have a rather tragic backstory of being ostracized by people over her powers and killed by a God who wiped out her world's population in an apocalyptic scenario, and at the end she was just a girl who wants to be happy and freed from sorrow for once. If her actions really justify it is depending on the player, but it's hard to not sympathize with her for all the suffering inflicted on her.
• Les Yay:
  • Many fans love to pair Hikari and Tairitsu together as a couple, and not even all the things that happen in Black Fate and Final Verdict had managed to discourage people from this. Helped by the first ending in "Silent Answer" has them finally becoming friends together.
  • Insight and Maya are also often paired together, the former acting like an extremely disturbing Stalker with a Crush manipulating and abducting a depressed girl not withstanding.
• Like You Would Really Do It: Whether due to knowing that it would be too much of a Downer Ending to end the story on, the loss of Partners being a Scrappy Mechanic, or attempting to cope with Tairitsu's death, almost nobody believed that she would remain dead after Final Verdict. Sure enough, the Silent Answer epilogue that was released a few days later brings Tairitsu back, along with her as a Partner.
• Low-Tier Letdown: The three partners from the second phase of the CHUNITHM collaboration are used for Self-Imposed Challenge at best because none of them have stats exceeding 100, despite all of them having twists on the standard Hard gauge. Seele Haze gets the worst of this, as while she has 100 Overdrive, it's pointless since other Partners can exceed her Overdrive with Affinity multipliers and there are no Beyond maps that apply Affinity to her; in fact, every map has at least one Partner with a x2.0 Affinity, and you can seal a Partner to lock their stats at 50 meaning they can easily meet or exceed Seele's Overdrive without the drawback of a Harder Than Hard gauge. Likewise, other Overdrive-focused Partners aren't taken for their Overdrive stat for the same reason, although Lagrange gets more mileage than other Partners with similar quality due to her unique take on the score counter.
• Memetic Molester: Insight becomes this shortly after her introduction because of her Stalker without a Crush tendencies towards Maya and seemingly knowing everything about her. It reaches the point where Toaster himself made a tweet to make fun of it. Once "Nameless Passion" (a song associated with Insight) came out, several players even noticed the title's romantic undertones.
• Memetic Psychopath: After the Final Verdict update came out, Hikari of all people becomes this. It's mostly because she ends up killing Tairitsu, and in the alternate ending, goes insane because of it. It's not uncommon for Fatalis Hikari to be treated like a Yandere due to Black Comedy and drawn with blood stained on her face, dress or hands.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • POTENTIAL -0.01^ExplanationThe game has a Potential system which gives the player a rating based on their best performances as well as on their most recent performances; similar to MMR in online games and Elo for Chess, but applied to a single-player game. Failing to beat a personal best, as well as failing to meet or exceed EX grade on easier songs, can potentially cause the player's Potential to decrease. Sometimes you will beat a personal best...only to lose Potential anyway. As such, Potential is a source of competitive Paranoia Fuel for many players.
  • Nono scam^{Explanation (spoilers)}One of the unlockable partners in the CHUNITHM Collaboration Temporary Online Content event is Nono, whose Skill awards 2525 Fragments if the player gets an EX rank. Naturally a lot of players try to grind for her...only to be bamboozled when they discover that, due to a Frag stat of 0.5 (x0.01 multiplier) that never increases even when leveling her up, she will only ever give 25 Fragments.
  • Ayu eats Fragments^ExplanationAyu's unique skill gives a random amount of extra Fragments when completing a song. Problem is, some of those random amounts are negative. This was described by the artist themselves, sowiti, as eating, and ever since players refer to Ayu as a Fragment eater.
  • If you can.^ExplanationA sample in the song "Singularity". Should the player meet certain conditions, Luna will appear on-screen and mouth this exact phrase. This quickly earned her a reputation for saying "If you can" just for the hell of it.
  • It's behind you.^ExplanationA sample in the song "Malicious Mischance". In the song's Future chart, this corresponds to a recurring Scripted Event where the chart scrolls backwards onto one or two Sky Notes, meant to represent Ilith's malicious back-stabbing tendencies. This sample is often paired up with videos of people being ambushed from behind.
  • -0.25 Potential on a PM^ExplanationThe Switch port was revealed to have different, likely glitched Potential calculation upon release, with the most publicized example being Laur losing 0.25 PTT for getting a Pure Memory (all Pures) on "Nhelv" FTR. Mind you, "Nhelv" FTR is a fairly high-end chart rated level 9+, and Laur had 6.84 Potential when this happened, so even without the safeguard that prevents Potential loss on an EX grade or a Hard gauge-induced Track Lost, his Potential would not decrease this much in the mobile version.
  • Deleting Floor Notes^ExplanationThe charts for "HIVEMIND" quickly gained notoriety for having no Floor Notes at all, leading to the charter Nitro getting memed on for "deleting Floor Notes" for a variety of reasons. While he did explain the action on Twitter, this hasn't stopped him from being memed on.
  • And in that light, I find deliverance.^{Explanation (spoilers)}Meeting certain conditions when playing "Aegleseeker" causes the game to pull off a special effect partway through the song, wherein the screen fades out, the words "And in that light, I find deliverance" appear, and the top of the HUD disappears for the remainder of the song. The line quickly became quickly quoted en masse and snowcloned, usually in the format of "And in that light, I find _____."
  • No Homo ^ExplanationMisheard lyrics from Last|Eternity. Not helped by Hikari and Tairitsu often being portrayed in a Les Yay fashion.
  • Tairitsu donuts/kebab ^{Explanation (spoilers)}Final Verdict ends with Hikari killing Tairitsu by skewering her with a sword through her chest, leaving a gaping, hole-like wound on it. The scene was so shockingly heartbreaking on its own that many resorted to using Black Comedy on it.
  • wualia belyong^ExplanationA misspelling of "qualia beyond" (referring to "qualia -ideaesthsia-" on Beyond difficulty) that quickly gained memetic status when a moderator in the official Discord server pinned it by mistake.
  • Who is Tenniel? ^{Explanation (spoilers)}At the end of Ephemeral Page, Alice and Tenniel's story, it is revealed that Tenniel is a mere illusion and not a real person, something that he kept away from Alice just to make sure she won't feel bad about it. Many people were excited to see a male character in Arcaea, and a partner at that when all of the characters before him were exclusively women, only to get their expectations get smashed into the ground when they read the story.
  • Who is that girl?^{Explanation (spoilers)}Tairitsu's death at the end of Final Verdict results in all partner variants of her being deleted and unusable. Any time Tairitsu is mentioned, some people joke by acting as if she never existed.
  • “Sayonara Hatsukoi” Beyond 12 ^{Explanation (spoilers)}”Sayonara Hatsukoi” has the same BPM as “Testify,” the game’s final boss song with the highest difficulty of Beyond 12. Some players joke about the former getting a Beyond chart of the same difficulty.
• Mis-blamed: The Chinese localization of the story was reported by Chinese-speaking fans to have a lot of problems, a lot of which was directed at YamiNa, who was the translation lead at the time of the localizations. What wasn't really publicized by the developers at the time was that the story translations had been outsourced to Active Gaming Media, and furthermore YamiNa had to meet extremely tight deadlines to patch up the numerous translation problems they encoutered. Eventually, AGM was credited in-game so that players know who was actually responsible for the Chinese translations.
• Moment of Awesome: The very fact that this game had a collaboration with CHUNITHM. To put it in perspective: CHUNITHM is one of the most popular rhythm games in Japan, made by one of the oldest and most famous names in video games. Arcaea had only been out for two years at the time of the original collaboration, and is produced by a relatively small team, the staff of which are fans of rhythm games themselves. This got taken a step further in the winter of 2020-2021, which features collaborations with maimai, CHUNITHM, and O.N.G.E.K.I., in other words collaborations with three games in such a short period of time.
• Narm: Some players feel that "Testify" is anti-climatic due to the singer's accent and odd pronunciation of English, which does not make the climax nearly as epic.
• Player Punch:
  • After completing "Final Verdict", in order to drive home the point that Tairitsu is dead, the game deletes all non-collaboration versions of her from your partner list (her collaboration versions still exist, but her name is rendered in mojibake). While the game warns the player that unlocking "Testify" is a choice with irreversible consequences, nobody expected the warning to refer to removing a character from the game in a way that integrates story with gameplay. In the few days between the pack's release and the "Silent Answer" epilogue that brings her back, the Arcaea community pooled their time and dedication together to brute-force something, anything that could even hint to reviving her.
  • Even in the "Silent Answer" epilogue where Tairitsu's death is undone, the game still has the guts to throw one last surprise - a secret Downer Ending where everyone ends up dead, insane or lost. This isn't even the only thing that makes it so heartbreaking — the ending also reveals that the real Hikari is a sad and depressed girl who can't save herself despite her Reality Warper powers and likely still remains this way even if the real Tairitsu is saved. And no, if you want to unlock every song in the game, you have to get this ending because there are two exclusive unlock songs for it.
  • To an extent, The Reveal that Tenniel is an illusion that looked like Alice's real brother can be considered this. It almost feels like that the game doesn't even stop at trying to break Alice, they have to give a Hope Spot to the player that there's a male partner in Arcaea only to drive it into the ground and crush it...until Luin was introduced to finally amend that.
• Polished Port: Although the Nintendo Switch port was controversial upon announcement due to much of the fanbase being younger players in developing countries (mainly Southeast Asian countries) with little to no income not being able to afford a Switch^note Many of these players flock to mobile games since they run on devices they may already own and are generally free to start, as opposed to traditional-sales-model games in which the player must spend somewhere around 30-60 USD before they can even try the game. Not helping matters is that Nintendo does not officially release the Switch in many of those developing countries, meaning that the Switch is an import in those countries, and thus price-hiked to hell and back and the inclusion of initially-Version-Exclusive Content, the port has proven to be a smooth transition to a home console, featuring a thoughtfully-designed traditional-gamepad control scheme alongside the existing touchscreen control scheme, and revamping various features to no longer require an internet connection (other than for purchasing DLC and updating the game, obviously). The removal of the Stamina mechanic alleviates the pain of having to wait hours to take another go at World mode, and Temporary Online Content Partners no longer having limited windows to unlock them is a boon for players who may not have the time to complete time-limited maps.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Maya's story has the poor girl being transported to Arcaea after her world ended, was hit by every single horrible memory possible, while being plagued by Survivor Guilt from her world's end and the desire to just end it all. Remove all the fantastic elements, and you'll have a pretty accurate portrayal of the mental state of a girl who's actually dealing with depression.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Restriction tiles in World mode. They limit you to playing a specific song pack or a specific single song. This is not too bad, as the game's just trying to encourage you to play different songs instead of the same old ones. But it becomes a problem when it's multiple Restriction tiles in a row and they all have the same song. You can use a Boost to quadruple your Step gain but it costs Memories, and you can use the Play+ function to use more Stamina to gain a Step multiplier but you can only do it in Chapter 1.
  • Another problematic tile type in World Mode is Fixed Speed, in which the game locks your speed multiplier to a fixed setting. While this can be an interesting challenge, plays in Fixed Speed can still affect your Potential, meaning you can lose Potential because you played under Fake Difficulty conditions that naturally reduce your score. While you can avoid losing Potential by simply getting EX ranks, you'll probably end up playing easier songs just to do so, which in turn gives you less distance and you can potentially have to play the Fixed Speed challenge again.
  • Potential. Potential is meant to be a measure of player skill, but the main thing that causes a lot of salt is that Potential can decrease if your recent plays are pretty bad, causing many players to get frustrated over the game because they're not playing as well as they normally do. For these players, Potential takes fun away from the game and turns it into a job they get reprimanded for if they aren't up to snuff. The most you can do is hide Potential from display, but the mechanics will still work in the background, plus certain unlocks like Lost Chapter and the Future Chart for "SAIKYO STRONGER" have Potential requirements. The scrappiness of this mechanic only worsened come the Final Verdict update, as one of the requirements to unlock the final song is to achieve a play result that exceeds your current Potential, forcing players to play at their absolute best; those who are rusty at the game are forced to make intentionally-poor plays on up to 30 different songs (keep in mind that using a Partner with a Hard gauge and failing out early doesn't affect Potential, which means having to sit through each and every one of these songs, which can take about an hour and a half of nonstop bombing thus turning an Anti-Frustration Feature back at the player) just to have a chance at completing the objective.
    • As well as that, the Potential system still functions during Link Plays. Some players feel that this is unnecessary because Link Play is for having fun with other people, and that Potential should not be held against them. Even the Paranoia Fuel does not stop while having fun.
  • Completing the Final Verdict storyline removes all non-collaboration versions of Tairitsu from your partner list. This angered the playerbase, especially those with a maxed-out Temptest Tairitsu (at 160 Step, maxed out Tempest is easily the most efficient partner for World Mode, with the second best Partner, Summer Ilith, having 110 Step). You can get them back at the end of the game, but you'll have to go straight to completing the epilogue before then.
  • Link Play can be this at times. It is Arcaea's only form of multiplayer mode and it is recommended that all players in the game room own the same songs. If one person in the room does not own a certain song, the entire room cannot play it. This often frustrates Arcaea players of all backgrounds — those who purchased songs might not enjoy having to play free songs, while some strictly free-to-play players feel as if they need to spend money to have fun at all. Not to mention, the Potential system is still active while you're trying to have fun with peers.
  • If the game detects you trying to cheese Arc notes, such as by switching fingers or using multiple fingers on one Arc note, it will turn that Arc red, rendering it unresponsive to your input for a split-second. A sound idea in theory, but sometimes, especially with regards to Arc notes that come close to one another, the game may redden an Arc even though you have not actually tried to cheat it, causing you to lose a significant amount of points for no good reason (and depending on the Partner, this can also send you into a premature TRACK LOST).
• Self-Imposed Challenge: In the Beyond chapter, your Recollection Rate will decrease on Fars if you aren't using a Partner that already causes this (like Regulus). Notably, Pandora Nemesis loses gauge equal to half a Lost if you get a Far, meaning that Pandora in Beyond chapter has the most sadistic version of the Recollection Rate gauge aside from Zero Hikari, as you need to not only not miss notes but also not get Fars either (in fact, you can get a Track Lost even if you were en route to an EX+ rank, depending on the chart's notecount). There is no practical benefit to this as her Overdrive stat tops out at a relatively average 79 and there are no maps where she gets an Affinity multiplier, but the option to play as Pandora in Beyond exists if you're feeling really masochistic.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The 3.8.6 update on September 29, 2021 introduced an unexpected crossover, 2 tracks from Umineko: When They Cry.
  • During June 28 and July 19, there was an unexpected 2-part collaboration between Arcaea and Cytus II. This is notable since Rayark rhythm games have never been considered a viable option for an Arcaea collab prior.
  • The Final Verdict pack that comes with the 4.0 update:
    • Gameplay-wise: Songs that suddenly increase the number of lanes from 4 to 6, and a whole roster of unlocks consisting of songs at BEYOND 11 difficulty. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, because completing its unlocks will temporarily delete nearly all of your Tairitsu partners. Yes, including her Tempest variant. AND the Final Boss song "Testify" is a BEYOND 12, a high level unseen on anything else in the game.
    • Story-wise: The episode starts off from the deathmatch between Tairitsu and Hikari, then quickly jumps off a cliff into one of the most depressing scenarios possible in a Rhythm Game story. Once you complete all of the Final Verdict unlocks, you're instantly greeted with a picture of Hikari fatally stabbing Tairitsu with a sword, followed by Hikari suffering from a vicious Heroic BSoD knowing she's no different from Tairitsu at that point. And then as mentioned above, the game deletes your Tairitsu partners, and tells you that every character you loved and cared about are Dead All Along. This is not even getting into the bonus ending that plays when you choose "Accept Arcaea", a full-blown Downer Ending with several major, shocking reveals, mentions of suicide and references to nihilism. As a result, comparisons the main story with the likes of Puella Magi Madoka Magica or other infamous Disguised Horror Stories began to arise, but it doesn't even try to use the tropes commonly used in said works. It just manages to be a ball-bustingly and shockingly depressing tragedy and that's all it needs.
  • The O.N.G.E.K.I. pack's second chapter has "Good bye, Merry-Go-Round." Its Future chart has out of bound sky notes which took players by surprise since non-April Fools charts usually do not have that.
  • Chapter 2 of the WACCA collab introduces a new partner, Luin, who is the first proper male Partner in the game. This is notable because while Tenniel exists, he technically doesn't, being an Imaginary Friend of Alice, and despite their masculine looks, Areus is actually agender, so it's such a shock that a male character with no strings attached finally exists in the game (with the only real caveat being that he's a crossover character).
• Signature Song:
  • "Grievous Lady", as the game's first Anomaly song and the first one to have a chart rated level 10 on the pre-3.0 scale (now 11).
  • "Singularity", due to the extremely memetic "If you can" sample, where the Luna challenge plays if the condition for the challenge is met.
  • "Malicious Mischance" is also well-remembered for a voice sample, namely the "It's behind you" that plays as the game effectively stabs you In the Back.
  • "Testify" is the Final Boss song, and it marks itself as exceptional in every aspect, from being the game's first BEYOND 12, to its appropriately extreme difficulty, to its tragic lyrics and the absolutely depressing cutscene that follows after unlocking it.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Considering the sheer amount of content that's been crossed over from the Performai trilogy, Arcaea might as well be the fourth game in that series.
  • The main story can be considered a Darker and Edgier take on Sound Voltex III: Gravity Wars's story, where the series mascot Rasis also tries to Befriend the Enemy (with a way less depressing outcome).
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: The Arcaea community, especially higher-level players, pretty much exclusively use Tempest Tairitsu for World Mode grinding due to her Game-Breaker Step stat (up to 160 on mobile and 215 on Switch). While there's nothing wrong with this in particular, a vocal subset of these players like to argue that anyone grinding World Mode and not using Tempest only has "I haven't unlocked her yet" as a valid excuse and that otherwise, using any other partner (especially non-Hard partners, even ones with adequate Step parameters like Haruna and Lethe on mobile and Saya on Switch) is a doing a disservice to oneself. This ignores the fact that Tempest Tairitsu has the massive drawback of a Tempest gauge that will furiously punish chains of missed notes, even just 2 or 3 of them, as well as the fact that not everyone is a pro at Arcaea for whom a Track Lost with any gauge is a total non-issue.
• Tainted by the Preview: The announcement of the Nintendo Switch port was met with backlash from much of the playerbase, due to much of said playerbase consisting of those who don't own consoles due to them being too expensive for their or their families' income. Further displeasure was leveled at the announcement featuring an (initially-)exclusive song pack, i.e. "I'm not spending $300 on a console I don't have and $40 on this edition of the game just to play a handful of songs"; others complained that this port was taking time and resources away from development of the existing mobile versions. Most of these complaints come from Southeast Asian players, while Western players saw this as a reasonably-priced package and the exclusives to be understandable to help it stand out from the mobile version. These complaints have largely died down since, but the mobile version is still preferred by most players, mainly because that version gets content updates first.
• That One Attack:
  • The dreaded four-note hold, which consists of the first and fourth floor columns and two Arc Notes right above them. If you are playing with thumbs (and you likely will be if you're playing on a phone rather than a tablet), this forces you to suddenly use extra fingers.^note Or some Outside-the-Box Tactic creative handiwork. See below.
    • Dantalion subverts its own That One Attack, by putting the four-note hold at the end of the track and having it approach really slowly, giving the player plenty of time to prepare.
    • Tempestissimo's Future chart, on the other hand, does the exact opposite of the latter point; having it approach so quickly that it's infeasible to hit on a sightread.
  • Some of the harder charts feature unique quirks, such as notes lagging or glitching, as well as notes that suddenly appear at the input line(s). At best, this can take players by slight surprise; at worst, players might not be prepared to take action and thus lose their combo streak.
  • "Ether Strike" on Future has a segment of about 20 seconds with lots of triple- and quadruple-press notes, which can cause problems for players on phones especially if they are trying to unlock "Fracture Ray". It can be comboed with thumbs only, but it requires lots of quick movements and exploiting the game giving you a brief period to recover a dropped hold or Arc before it gives you Losts.
  • "Red and Blue and Green", already a hell of a Joke Level that makes use of three Arc colors and chords of more than 2 fingers at once, has one final trick at the end consisting of two Arcs in a long double-helix pattern that spins 900 degrees and is best done by rotating your device.
• That One Boss: While Tempestissimo’s difficulty spread is fairly standard for a story boss song, its anomaly unlock is by far the hardest in the game. Because of how the song changes to the next highest difficulty halfway through, even completing on the easiest difficulty requires clearing the second half on present with a difficult of 9. This wouldn’t be so bad except for how the gauge turns to Tempest Tairitsu’s particularly punishing hard gauge and there is no percentage completion upon failing partway through.^note This however, applies if you're playing on the Future 10+ to Beyond 11 difficulty This is the hardest task required for story completion by a mile, and comes in stark contrast to the other unlocks which could be completed by a beginner. And if you are attempting to do this in anything other than the easiest difficulty? Be prepared to deal with something potentially way out of your skill bracket, because the chart will transition into from their Present 9 and Future 10+ to their Future 10+ and Beyond 11 charts respectively instead, which are notorious to be some of the hardest around their level.
• That One Level: Some charts are a wee bit too difficult for the level they're rated.
  • Level 8:
    • "Anokumene" on Future difficulty was originally rated an 8, and many players disagreed with it due to having some surprisingly fast patterns for a level 8 chart. The 1.5 update thankfully changed the difficulty to a 9.
    • Following "memoryfactory.lzh" from the same composer, "dropdead" chimes in at 50BPM. Past reduces your scroll speed to 10% of your setting, but it only has 44 notes (that's an average density of about one note every two seconds) so it's no big deal. Present has no effect on your speed setting, but it's a level 9 chart with a lot of extended cross-hand patterns. Future is level 8, so players may walk in expecting an easier chart than Present...only to find that their speed is cut to 25% except during parts where the scroll skyrockets beyond 100%, so the chart is either a slow, unreadable mess or a nightmare of reaction times and nothing in between.
    • As of 4.0, the Future chart of "Chronostasis" was demoted from 9. Some of the players find this move questionable, as its dense floor notes does not make this song feel like an 8.
    • "Vexeria" has a level 8 Beyond chart...which is sorely misleading, featuring lots of awkward rhythms and Arc nodes that have players insisting it deserves a 9 instead.
  • Level 9/9+ (formerly 9):
    • "SOUNDWiTCH" has hard patterns and also very difficult to time, making it hard to score well. Rerated to a 9+ in 3.0
    • "Red and Blue" on Future. The "LEFT=BLUE RED=RIGHT"^note replace RED with YELLOW if Colorblind Mode is on phrase in the chart credit is there for a very good reason: there are many segments where Arcs will start on the oppposite side as expected. You may, for example, reflexively hit a blue Arc that's on the right side with your right hand but now you can't hit that pink Arc that's even further on the right.
    • "Modelista" on Future routinely throws vertical chords and other fast patterns that combine floor and Sky notes, as well as several sections with jackhammers that can easily drain your Recollection Rate, and a speed-up section that can catch unwary players off-guard. Many regard it as one of the hardest level 9 songs in the game, rivaling even level 9+ charts. The developers seem to agree, as it is one of four charts to have a "chart constant" (a hidden chart-specific value that determines Step gain and how playing the chart will affect your Potential) of 10.0, the highest for any level 9 chart, and the 10.0-10.9 range is typically reserved for level 9+ charts. With the change to the difficulty scale in version 3.0, Modelista was finally rerated to a 10 (in line with the lower 9+ charts prior to that version).
    • "Yosakura Fubuki" on Future has a lot of fast spiral and diagonal arch patterns that require you to be alert at all times. At the end is a bunch of diagonal Arcs to the left that require you to alternate hands, easily sending a slow player below 70% Recollection Rate at the last second.
    • "Filament" features very disorienting and quick Arcs with Sky Notes as well as alternating arc-long-arc-long patterns where you can miss for no apparent reason. It was buffed to a 9+ in 3.0, but some players feel that's not enough.
    • "SUPERNOVA" on Future isn't particularly technical, it just has a ton of Floor and Sky Notes, which can easily exhaust you.
    • "Nhelv" features fast Arcs that can be painful (i.e. friction burns) to try to hit without using Cheese Strategies and awkward rhythms, as well as patterns lifted straight from "Axium Crisis", a level 10+ song. It is generally regarded as the hardest song in the game that doesn't require you to spend money.
    • "Lazy Addiction" on Future seems pretty normal for a 9...right until the end where a bunch of complex patterns show up, leading to complaints that the chart warrants a 9+ rating instead.
    • "amygdata" Future 9 features Arc notes that have an extra-dense concentration of ticks. Missing any of these "caterpillar" notes is not only very damaging to your score, but can also be fatal when using a Hard gauge. As well as that, the song intentionally glitches briefly during the second half, which can take players by surprise. As of 4.0, it has been moved to Future 9+.
  • An example that's not due to one specific chart: "World Vanquisher" has a pretty horrible spread of difficulties. with the Past chart being rated a 2, the Present chart a 5, and the Future chart a 10+. For the majority of players, this means all of its charts are either far too easy, or too difficult. Worse yet, maps with CHUNITHM unlocks may throw Restriction tiles that have only "World Vanquisher" available. Sometimes, four or five of them in a row. And depending on whether you have a maxed out (or close to it) Tempest Tairitsu, you may have to play "World Vanquisher" as many as 6-7 times in a row.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Unlocking map 2-3 requires the player to complete a challenge on the song "Singularity", where Luna appears, mouths "If you can", and you pass if you complete the next 20 seconds with less than a target number of misses dependent on Eto's level (the higher-leveled she is, the more misses are allowed). The requirements to reach this challenge depend on the player's Potential: If it's less than 5.00, you can unlock it on any difficulty, and if it's at least 5.00 and less than 10.00 you can unlock it on Present or Future. Pity the fool who attempts to reach this challenge with 10.00 Potential or greater, as that locks the challenge exclusively to Future difficulty, a 10+ that a typical 10.00 Potential player (who isn't "sandbagging"^note playing poorly on purpose to trick a game's rating system into lowering their rating or "smurfing"^note experienced player creating an alternate account with fresh stats) has virtually no chance of clearing. Somewhat mitigated in the Switch port; since the game keeps separate performance profiles for Joy-Con and Touch modes, one could simply play exclusively in one mode until they unlock "Singularity" (and by extension Eto, since Singularity is on the same map as her and further up the map), and then attempt the challenge with the other mode with that mode's profile at 0.00 PTT at any difficulty they want.
  • Unlocking "Ether Strike" FTR on the Switch version. In the mobile version, you merely have to clear "Halcyon" FTR. "Halcyon" is rated level 10+ while "Ether Strike" is only rated a 10, but you can at least mitigate the difficulty by using a Partner with an Easy gauge. In the Switch version, however, you also have to get a AA rank (9.5 million points) on it, which you can't use Partner skills to get help on. This is generally regarded as one of the most loathed changes from the mobile to Switch versions.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • While the Switch version is generally regarded as a Polished Port, it does have some complaints from players, such as:
    • The removal of all collaboration content for games that don't also have an actively-maintained Switch version.^note Lanota is not one of them, as its Switch port's updates were discontinued shortly after launch. While understandable, it reduces the value of this version for a fair number of players.
    • The changed requirements for some unlocks, with some of those requirements being made more difficult. Some FTR charts that previously just required clearing another song on FTR now also require clearing said another song with a AA grade. "Ether Strike" FTR is one of the worst examples, as the song you play to unlock it, "Halcyon" FTR, is harder than "Ether Strike".
    • Also an example of It's Easy, So It Sucks!: The Switch version has none of the Beyond charts other than for "Tempestissimo" and the "Final Verdict" songs. This is despite the update that introduced Beyond chapter being introduced about 11 months prior to the Switch version's initial release.
  • The April Fools' Day songs eventually became available for non-AFD play by unlocking them in Lost Chapter; they are Beyond charts for the original, non-remixed songs (for example, "Ignotus" BYD is "Ignotus Afterburn"). Their non-AFD charts are toned down and given actual difficulty ratings (and chart constants, thus allowing playing these songs to affect your Potential), which is understandable...except for "Red and Blue and Green", with many players lamenting that its BYD version loses its signature green arc gimmick.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many players have noted that of the three Performai collaborations, the first maimai collaboration got the short end of the stick. The O.N.G.E.K.I. collaboration features four songs and a partner. The CHUNITHM collaboration that ran later features four new songs (albeit with one in Memory Archive) and three new partners, and this is on top of existing collab content that was introduced in earlier iterations, which already consists of four songs (one in Memory Archive) and SEVEN partners, bringing the total quantity of CHUNITHM content to 8 songs and 10 partners (to compare, Groove Coaster, which has the second highest number of partners for a collaboration, has only two partners in its collab). maimai gets four songs and no partners! You'd think that Sega would at least put in one or two of the Navigator partners such as Ras and Derakkuma, or Milk and Shama from "Oshama Scramble!" ^note Milk and Shama are added into the game as partners in March 3, 2023 which is part of the collaboration and is one of maimai's most iconic songs, but nope. While it is possible for the maimai collab to one day get a Pack Append like CHUNITHM did, this shows that the developers don't seem to care much about maimai compared to the other games and it feels as if they did the bare minimum to meet contractual obligations with SEGA.
• Underused Game Mechanic: An increasing number of rhythm games have "minus scoring", where the score starts out at maximum and decreases whenever you get non-perfect hits; the idea behind this is that it lets you see how much more you can afford to mess up before you no longer qualify for the score or grade you want. Arcaea has such a feature...but you can only have it if you unlock DORO*C, who is a limited-time unlock Partner, and furthermore DORO*C has very poor stats making this "minus score" display Cool, but Inefficient if you want to play World Mode or farm Fragments.
• Unexpected Character:
  • Given that Anomaly songs tend to be ethereal in nature, most fans weren't expecting t+pazolite and his Signature Style of speedcore for the Black Fate Anomaly, especially when his previous tracks in the game have been part of collaborations rather than original tracks.
  • Tenniel (as part of the Alice & Tenniel pair) gave many fans a shock because while there had been a male character before, he was only mentioned in a one-off scene in the Absolute Reason side story. Tenniel, on the other hand, has a portrait and is a Partner. Granted, he turns out to be an Imaginary Friend of Alice, but the fact remains that the game even has a male character design in the first place.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • When Ayu was revealed, a number of people thought Ayu was a male crossdresser, possibly due to the short hair.
  • Areus from CHUNITHM is thought to be Arcaea's second male partner after Tenniel, due to having a masculine design with an uncensored chest. However, supplemental material on the official CHUNITHM website states that Areus does not have a specific gender.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Arcaea is rated as a 4+ before being raised to 12+ post-Final Verdict on the app store, and does seem like an innocent-looking and aesthetically elegant rhythm game at first glance. However, the game's story is incredibly dark and might border on Utsuge levels at times, and some of the charts are so immensely difficult that anyone at the age of 12 or below will have trouble playing or comprehending them, meaning that this game is really intended for people at least 16 years old or higher. The Switch port tend to fall into this more often due to the platform being more "family-friendly" than mobile phones which generally fall on the exact opposite of this trope.
• What the Hell, Costuming Department?: Lethe's awakened form has comically long heels under the front of her shoes. Given how she mostly flies around on her scythe, there is pretty much no function for them.
• The Woobie:
  • The game seems to have a knack with breaking down Hikari as hard as it could. Initially, she's just a stock example of The Cutie who just wants to view happy memories from the Arcaea, only for the positive Arcaea overdose to almost render her catatonic before an Anomaly snaps her out from it — and this is just the beginning. It only goes From Bad to Worse when she meets Tairitsu and thought that they could become friends, only for the other girl to try torturing and killing her regardless of cost. Tairitsu pushed Hikari hard enough that she impulsively kills her with a glass sword and falls into a breakdown believing that she was the villain all along. Thankfully she's saved in the normal ending, but in the bonus ending she's not so lucky, having been overwhelmed by guilt that she turns into a nihilistic goddess watching over Arcaea's frozen or lost denizens for the sake of.
  • Then there's the real Hikari, a.k.a. "the Creator of Arcaea". A girl who was depressed for undisclosed reasons, she contemplated suicide, but it didn't quite work out for her, so she wished for a place where she could be happy instead. Unfortunately, she doesn't even know the world exists and couldn't even get in, with the partner Hikari taking her place. To put insult to injury, even if the copy Hikari and the real Tairitsu does get their happy ending as intended, the real Hikari is presumably still left crying in a corner...
  • Alice stands out as far as side stories go. On top of having to face the Awful Truth that her "brother" Tenniel was a fake and he was just hiding it just to not make her feel bad, her reason of death is even worse. Turns out she was a terminally ill girl who was accompanied by her brother Cedric. Even worse, they last saw each other four days before her death. In the end, neither of them didn't get to say goodbye. It's notable because unlike Tairitsu and Vita's reason of death, it's a perfectly realistic way to die.
  • Maya's experience is even worse than Alice's and is an all-around depressing read. Her home planet was destroyed and she was killed, and after that she was suddenly hit by all sorts of horrible voices and memories that gradually destroy her sanity until she's a wreck and just wants to end it all. Remove the fantastic elements in that story, and you'll get a realistic portrayal of a girl dealing with depression.

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