History YMMV / Arcaea

* NightmareFuel: The effects of [[spoiler:positive Arcaea overdose]] in Chapter 1-ZR, the bad ending for the Luminous Sky chapter. [[spoiler:She's so [[GoneHorriblyRight overloaded with memories of happiness]] that it dulls her mind until she's rendered a [[EmptyShell mindless husk]].]]

* NightmareFuel: The effects of [[spoler:positive Arcaea overdose]] in Chapter 1-ZR, the bad ending for the Luminous Sky chapter. [[spoiler:She's so [[GoneHorriblyRight overloaded with memories of happiness]] that it dulls her mind until she's rendered a [[EmptyShell mindless husk]].]]

* GoddamnedBoss: In the ''CHUNITHM'' collaboration area in Chapter 4, there is a flight of Restriction steps just before the end 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 [[BribingYourWayToVictory costs Memories]], have fun playing "World Vanquisher" 4-6 times in a row.

* GoddamnedBoss: In the ''CHUNITHM'' collaboration area in Chapter 4, there is a flight of Restriction steps just before the end 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".

* GoddamnedBoss: In the ''CHUNITHM'' collaboration area in Chapter 4, there is a flight of Restriction steps just before the end 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 either means "get bodied" or "fall asleep to a chart that's too easy to be fun for me".

* GoddamnedBoss: In the ''CHUNITHM''collaboration area in Chapter 4, there is a flight of Restriction steps just before the end 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 either means "get bodied" or "fall asleep to a chart that's too easy to be fun for me".

** "Red and Blue" on Future. The "LEFT=BLUE RED=RIGHT"[[note]]replace RED with YELLOW if ColorblindMode is on[[/note]] phrase in the chart credit doesn't mean "if you ''somehow'' forgot how Arcs work at this level..."; there are many segments where Arcs will start on the oppposite side as expected, otherwise 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.

** "Red and Blue" on Future. The "LEFT=BLUE RED=RIGHT"[[note]]replace RED with YELLOW if ColorblindMode is on[[/note]] phrase in the chart credit doesn't mean "if you ''somehow'' forgot how Arcs work at this level..."; there are many segments where Arcs will start on the oppposite side as expected, otherwise 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. This makes it one of the hardest non-plus Level 9 charts in the game.

** "Red and Blue" on Future. The "LEFT=BLUE RED=RIGHT"[[note]]replace RED with YELLOW if ColorblindMode is on[[/note]] phrase in the chart credit doesn't mean "if you somehow forgot how Arcs work at this level...", it's there to inform you that your left hand should always hit blue Arcs and your right hand should always hit pink arcs because there are many segments where Arcs will start on the oppposite side as expected, otherwise you may, for example, reflexively hit a blue Arc with your right hand but now you can't hit that pink Arc to the right of it. This makes it one of the hardest non-plus Level 9 charts in the game.

** Following "memoryfactory.lzh" from the same composer, "dropdead" chimes in at '''50'''BPM. Its super-slow chart makes figuring out what's going on really hard to accomplish.
*** Not to mention the ''Present'' chart actually having a '''harder''' rating than the ''Future'' chart...

* ScrappyMechanic: 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 [[BribingYourWayToVictory it costs Memories]], and you can use Play+ mode to use more Stamina to gain a Step multiplier but you can only do it in Chapter 1.

* BrokenBase: 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.[[note]]Several members of the dev team typically play the game on their phones and have stated that their charts are designed to be playable with thumbs; make of that as you will.[[/note]] 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 basically tell tablet players to "git gud", 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 [[FandomRivalry wars]]), while Android tablets are more prone to dropped inputs, and furthermore Android processes sounds in a way that makes [[SoundCodedForYourConvenience hit sounds]] unfeasible.[[/note]].

* BrokenBase: 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.[[note]]Several members of the dev team typically play the game on their phones; make of that as you will.[[/note]] 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 basically tell tablet players to "git gud", 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 [[FandomRivalry wars]]), while Android tablets are more prone to dropped inputs, and furthermore Android processes sounds in a way that makes [[SoundCodedForYourConvenience hit sounds]] unfeasible.[[/note]].

* BrokenBase: 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 basically tell tablet players to "git gud", 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 [[FandomRivalry wars]]), while Android tablets are more prone to dropped inputs, and furthermore Android processes sounds in a way that makes [[SoundCodedForYourConvenience hit sounds]] unfeasible.[[/note]].

* BrokenBase: 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 basically tell tablet players to "git gud", 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 [[SoundCodedForYourConvenience hit sounds]] unfeasible.[[/note]].

* BrokenBase: 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 basically tell tablet players to "git gud".

** [="SOUNDWiTCH"=] has hard patterns and also very difficult to time, making it hard to score well.

** "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 [[spoiler"Grievous Lady"]].

** "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.

** "SOUNDWiTCH" has hard patterns and also very difficult to time.

** "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.

** "memoryhead.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.

* ThatOneLevel: "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.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: In the West, the game is largely a niche title, but 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 five times more followers than the English-language one, it's also a ''verified account''.