There's nothing outwardly wrong with Arcaea. The presentation is beautiful, there are some foot-tapping tracks in there, and there's certainly a generous amount of content to enjoy. It's just way too late to the party for something that isn't meaningfully different to its peers. The music's enjoyable, but not stand-out, the gameplay is too-familiar and while it does have a lot of pretty girls and that is a very nice thing, is not going to help it become a memorable, standout example of a genre that the Switch is already over-subscribed with.
Arcaea is one of the best rythem games I've ever played, amazing soundtrack, a lot of choice, there is a total of over 200 songs! All of the charts are charted perfectly with the music. The game has a great choice of difficulty options, so anyone can pick up this game and enjoy, whether you are an hardcore player or a casual one, Arcaea's three difficulty options got you covered.
Arcaea is immediately a rhythm game titan. Top tier rhythm game in general, and one of the best on Switch. If you like rhythm games at all don't sleep on this one. It's a must own for rhythm game fans. Right up there along side Cytus, Voez, and Taiko.
The main catch to Arcaea is that it's a Kshootmania style game (Think Sound Voltex). 4 keys come scroll down that you hit to the beat much Musynx or Beatmania or DDR in reverse. 2 lasers also scroll down the screen that you need to follow with your finger, along with "sky notes" which are regular notes that are a little above the traditonal play field. It's hard to explain via text, but visually it makes a ton of sense and doesn't take any time at all to acclimate to.
The lasers and sky notes are SO much fun. The lasers go up, down, left and right, and on the high tiers it gets REALLY crazy. You'll be hitting regular notes while doing the lasers, you'll be hitting sky notes and regular notes together, and any other combination you can think of.
Arcaea does an AMAZING job with the skill curve. It is not an easy rhythm game at all, but they ease you in great. On the low tiers you'll only do the 4 main buttons and the lasers. The lasers will only move left and right. As you up the difficulty it slowly adds more and more. I've played rhythm games for a long time and most games I can skip to the highest difficulty after a few hours. In Arcaea I settled in the middle of the mid-tier difficulty, and the charts even on low difficulties are very well made.
Arcaea's price is very reasonable at $40 US. You get 150+ songs and as of now there is no DLC. I personally hope to see some DLC down the line. You can also get Arcaea on mobile as a free2play game. Their monetization in the mobile version isn't awful either. It is significantly more expensive than the Switch version if you want all the songs though.
The only complaint that I have is the lack of online leaderboards. High score chasing is what rhythm games are all about, and online leaderboards adds SO much to the competition. There are leaderboards on the mobile version, so I hope this is a future update for Switch.
10/10
WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS?! GO BUY ARCAEA!!!
A must-play fir anyone in the rhythm game genre. The price is justified imo because apart from the new DLC everything is included and there are no transactions. It would be a 10 if it had online connectivity like its mobile counterpart, but other than that it’s the same experience.
S Tier music game. Must have for genre fans, sorry... (because the game have high price)
More than 150 musics, gameplay is so fun (and hard !) the progression makes you play all the game mode, and for that reason it's one of the best progressions for music games on Switch.
But some things are a little confuse... how many point you get in world music, where to go in beggining...
But still the best music game that I played since Voez.
SummaryExperience a new dimension of rhythm game in a forgotten world filled with memories... Touch, hold, slide—and, for the first time ever, use the Joy-Con™ controllers to glide through the world of Arcaea. Feel the rhythm in a vast collection of songs now fully available on Nintendo Switch™, and follow the fateful story of the girls lost in...