The gameplay takes place on a 5×3 grid, with notes coming in from any of the four cardinal directions. You hit notes by touching them when they overlap with the targets on the correct squares. Occasionally, you may have to press two or more simultaneous notes, marked in blue, and hold down on long notes.
Compare jubeat, which also uses a grid for displaying notes and for gameplay input, and Dynamix, which also uses the concept of notes coming from different directions (and which has a collaboration pack in this game).
RAVON provides examples of the following tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The Chip missions for playing songs' Core charts require you to get a B rank on the chart...or you can play it five times, if you can't get the rank. The same goes for the Overnight chart unlocks in Station and Asteroids, but then again, if you can't get a B on the Core chart, you're likely not prepared for Overnight.
- Sometimes notes will be "doubled up", that is, there are 2-4 notes that you have to press at the same time but they all have the same target square. For scoring and combo purposes, they are counted as as many notes as you see, however these notes will only count as one for the chart's Distribution diagram and Density rating to avoid tricking players into thinking that a chart will be more intensive than it actually is.
- April Fools' Day: Every April 1, the game switches over to a ramen theme:
- The logo is changed to instead read RAMEN.
- All of the song jackets are replaced with pictures of food, mainly ramen.
- Note targets are redesigned to look like chopsticks.
- The starfield background is replaced with flying bowls of ramen.
- Tap notes are designed to look like bamboo shoots (one of the ingredients of a typical ramen bowl, while hold notes look like ramen noodles when being picked up by chopsticks.
- Blue/Orange Contrast:
- The title screen features an orange-blue gradient.
- Notes are colored an orangeish-yellow, except when they're simultaneous with other notes, in which case they are colored blue.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory:
- Before the 2.0 update, Q-Chips, which are a Premium Currency purchased with real money, could be used in place of regular Chips for unlocking Core and Overnight charts. However, as of 2.0, which abolished chips, Q-Chips are no longer used to specifically unlock Cores and Overnights. Instead, they can be used to immediately unlock Side Chapter songs, which normally cost S-Fuel.
- Fuel Boost multiplies the amount of Fuel you get when playing a song. You can obtain them by completing missions, or you can purchase Fuel Boosts with in-app purchases.
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": Many elements of the game that are common to the rhythm game genre have unique space/astronomy-themed names:
- The unlock maps are named after constellations, galaxies, and other space objects: Station (as in a space station), Asteroids, Milky Way, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and Cancer.
- What other rhythm games call a "full combo" (no missed notes), this game calls a Nova. What other games call an "all Perfect" (all notes hit perfectly), this game calls a Super Nova.
- The Gameplay Grading uses stellar classifications for most letter ranks; in order of lowest to highest, they are: U, M, K, G, F, A, B, Onote .
- Difficulty Levels: Each song has three or four: Enjoy, Handzup, Core, and sometimes Overnight. Prior to version 2.0, charts did not have difficulty ratings, but 2.0 adds a "Tier" difficulty rating system, with each of the four difficulties using its own scale: 1-2 for Enjoy and Handzup, and 1-4 for Core and Overnight, with each tier also having a "plus" sub-tier. Note that the numbers are relative to other charts on that difficulty, not on an overall difficulty scale; a Tier 1 Core chart is still generally harder than a Tier 2+ Handzup chart. This system is necessary because Overnight charts use a different playfield with more tiles.
- Downloadable Content: Two kinds:
- Mission maps, on which you can complete objectives and spend the rewards on new songs.
- The Asteroids map, on which you can use Q-Chips, which are obtained by spending real money, to immediately unlock new songs.
- Earn Your Fun: Amongst the in-app purchases are Mission maps, which do not immediately unlock any new content. Instead, on each map, you have to gather Fuel by playing songs, complete missions to earn extra fuel and to earn Chips which are required for Core and Overnight charts, and spend Fuel and Chips on songs in each tier to move onto the next tier of songs and missions.
- Flawless Victory: Complete the chart without missing any notes to get a "Nova" clear status. Complete it with all Exacts (and thus a perfect score of 1,000,000) for "Super Nova".
- Food Porn: During the April Fools' Day RAMEN mode, song jackets are replaced with picture of ramen bowls. Mostly. There are a few non-ramen pictures, most notably the one for "Intruder" which features pizza with large chunks of pineapple on top (referring to the memetic "does pineapple belong on pizza" debate) and is presented unceremoniously in a cardboard box.
- Gimmick Level: "Fragments" is an inversion. All of its charts have notes that descend from above and land only on the bottom row of tiles, much like a more traditional vertical-scrolling rhythm game. That does not mean the charts are easier, however.
- Harder Than Hard: Every song has a fourth difficulty level, Overnight. Unlike the other three difficulty levels, Overnight uses a 6×4 field. Most Overnight charts can be unlocked by clearing the song's corresponding Core chart with a B rank or playing it 5 times, with non-default, non-Asteroid songs additionally requiring spending Fuel to unlock. Not only do Overnight charts have more notes and more complex rhythms, but they feature chords of three or more notes at once, whereas on Core you only ever have to press up to two notes at the same time. Because Overnight charts are fundamentally different from Enjoy, Handzup, and Core charts, you have separate ratings for E/H/C charts and for Overnight charts.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: In order of easiest to hardest, the difficulty levels are Enjoy, Handzup, and Core. Some songs have an additional difficulty level: Overnight.
- Life Meter: The 2.0 update introduces Overdrive mode, which adds a lifebar that decreases when inaccurately hitting or missing notes. Letting it fall to 0 ends the song prematurely, while clearing the song awards the Overdrive clear status if you haven't already gotten a Nova or Supernova. Cascade courses, in which you play three songs of a specific difficulty back-to-back, also feature a lifebar, but which carries over between each song.
- Money Multiplier:
- Fuel Boosts, which multiply how much Fuel you get when playing a song. You can earn them through missions or through in-app purchases.
- As you complete missions within a Chapter, you'll gain a multiplier to your Fuel gain that persists whether you use Fuel Boost or not.
- Non-Indicative Name: Due to score grades being named after stellar classifications rather than using the traditional F(-E)-D-C-B-A(-S) model, some of the letter grades may not be obvious in terms of how good they are:
- An F grade is actually pretty good, requiring 900,000 points out of 1 million. Some missions have "achieve F grade or higher on this song" as a requirement.
- A B grade (980,000 points) is higher than an A grade (950,000 points).
- Portmanteau: The title is one of "rave" and "nova" spelled backwards.
- Purple Is Powerful:
- Difficulty levels are color-coded, with the hardest one, Overnight, being colored purple.
- O rank, the highest letter rank attainable on a song, uses a purple font.
- Scoring Points: The maximum score for each chart is 1 million points. Each note is worth a fixed number of points, inversely proportional to the number of notes. An Exact hit is worth the full value of the note, a Great hit is worth 60% as many points as an Exact, a Near hit is worth 20% as many points as an Exact, and a Lost (miss) is worth no points. There are no combo-based bonuses.
- Sequel Song: "White : Revolve" by adaptor is this to his earlier song "Black : Magnam" from Dynamix. "Black : Magnam" would later be crossed over to this game as part of the Dynamix collaboration, with one of the Chapter III Missions, "Do you remember Black : Magnam?" requiring you to play "White : Revolve".
- Shout-Out: The song "Rapture" by Roy Mikelate samples Andrew Ryan's "I chose Rapture" speech from Bioshock 1.
- Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Version 1.9 introduces optional hit sounds, which play when you hit notes. The hit sound will vary in pitch depending on how accurately you hit the note.
- Stellar Name: Many elements of the game are named after various astronomical terms, including gameplay terms. For example, the score grades are named after star spectral types
rather than the conventional F-A (and sometimes S) system, and the mission maps are named after galaxies or constellations. - Weird Currency: Fuel, which is money in all but name. You earn it by playing songs and completing missions, and you spend it on song unlocks. Each Chapter has its own Fuel; to earn fuel for a specific Chapter, you have to activate it first (which will also deactivate the Chapter that you previously activated). There is also S-Fuel, which can be spent on any Chapter's unlocks and which is one of two ways to unlock Side Chapter songs (the other being Q-Chips), and can be obtained by doing Cascade sets and converted from Chapter fuel with an exchange rate of 5 Chapter fuel units for each unit of S-Fuel.
