YMMV / maimai

• Americans Hate Tingle: maimai is stupendously popular in Japan and has a decent following in other countries in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. However, interest for the US location tests from the more "hardcore" occidental music game crowd was quite low, with players instead favoring more Nintendo Hard games using falling or upward-scrolling notes (rather than maimai's radial-scrolling notes) such as DanceDanceRevolution, SOUND VOLTEX, and especially beatmania IIDX, and would much prefer to get CHUNITHM; even before the maimai loctest, interest for CHUNITHM was much higher. The circumstances of the loctest — no All.net, expensive pricing that was requested by SEGA, and a lot of missing songs — certainly do not help matters.
  
  That, and there's just the general apathy Americans have towards arcade games, as well as Japanese rhythm games due to lacking familiar licensed songs and more familiar gameplay such as Just Dance's motion-sensor dancing and Rock Band's band simulation. maimai has none of these, with only its small pool of Sonic the Hedgehog songs providing reason to care for most Americans who go to arcades, and the pool of original and Touhou songs are only of interest to a relatively small group of people.
• Awesome Music: It's a Rhythm Game, so this is expected:
  • "B.B.K.K.B.K.K." by nora2r, which made its commercial debut^note It was originally composed for BMS of Fighters, a compilation/competition for beatmania IIDX simulator songs in ORANGE. The "bass" and "kick" samples will be drilled into your head long after you finish playing the song.
  • The series' Signature Song "Garakuta Doll Play", introduced in GreeN. One of the first "boss" songs in the series, it's two minutes of relentless t+pazolite craziness at 256 BPM. It was popular enough to be crossed over into Groove Coaster, Taiko no Tatsujin, jubeat, and SOUND VOLTEX as part of a crossover event series. On top of that, it has an extended version!
  • "Caliburne~Story of the Legendary Sword" by Team Grimoire, introduced in ORANGE, just a few days before ORANGE plus is released. It starts as if it was a folk track, but once the hardcore element kicks in the tune gets very upbeat without ruining its folk nature.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog fans may recognize some popular series songs on the songlist, such as "Live & Learn", "Back 2 Back", "City Escape: Act 1", and "Reach For The Stars".
  • "CITRUS MONSTER" by D-Cee, or better known as C-Show from the BEMANI series, introduced in PiNK PLUS as a Challenge Track. The chart itself is very hard, but the song is very energetic and fun it could easily count as Best Boss Ever.
  • "felys final remix" by onoken, a modern update to the classic Artcore track "felys" (previously seen in BMS and Nostalgia (BEMANI)), introduced in DX SPLASH, is simply beautiful. In just under three minutes, it progresses from a fast drum-n-bass track to a beautiful Artcore piece.
  • "Oshama Scramble!", the series' other Signature Song, also by t+pazolite, is a playful and upbeat song with t+pazolite's signature crazy vocal samples and a head-banging first drop section. The double slide notes that are timed with the beat in that section have become such a memetically famous experience, that almost every crossover of Oshama Scramble in other rhythm games would reference maimai's double slide notes in that section in one way or another.
• Best Level Ever: "Back 2 Back" is a favorite amongst many players due to employing tons of slide notes especially ones with looping patterns, evoking the imagery of the 2-screen loops from Sonic Rush.
• Contested Sequel: Deluxe has been met with mixed reception from fans. Fans enjoy the improved hardware (especially for slide note detection) and new note types. Others dislike the idea of arcades having to chuck out all their existing maimai cabs, the larger cabinet dimensions, how out-of-place the new note types are, the bag holder replacing the camera, and the game having two separate versions, a main JP version and an International version for Greater China and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region with no DX Pass Maker i.e. "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Comparisons have been drawn to beatmania IIDX, another game that revamped an existing game's gameplay and requires a new cabinet and hardware, although the key difference is that IIDX was launched while beatmania was still in its infancy while maimai Deluxe was pushed out when the series had already become an established brand amongst the Asian music game community. This is to the point where in some countries, the original cabinets have vanished as opposed to being replaced by DX as Aime support is pulled for the legacy game. In Malaysia, there are only Cobay-owned arcades carrying DX compared to the first generation title which is still prevalent over AEON's arcades and CYC. Some arcades are even switching to the offline builds of Finale instead of upgrading to DX.
• Dancing Bear: The laundry machine cabinet design is by far the most well-known aspect of the game.
• Even Better Sequel: maimai was quite successful, then subsequent installments has given more features, but PiNK and its Updated Re-release includes so many helpful features and awesome interface.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • In the US, maimai is largely ignored by more "hardcore" music game players who would rather play CHUNITHM and will only support the potential US release so that CHUNITHM can get tested and released in the country as well.
  • In Asia, particularly English-speaking parts of it, maimai players and players of other arcade rhythm games like SOUND VOLTEX and Groove Coaster seem to look at each other with contempt on a regular basis, partly due to the latter complaining about how rowdy maimai players can be and comparing them to osu! players in terms of refusal to try other music games and being extremely vocal in being fans of the game to the point of causing Hype Backlash.
• Fan Nickname: The cabinets are sometimes called "washing machines", due to the striking resemblance to them.
• Friendly Fandoms: Two sides of the coin. Just as how the more hardcore maimai players are sworn enemies with hardcore players of other rhythm games, there are also casual players who play maimai along with other rhythm games just because they appreciate the genre as a whole.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The game is stupidly popular in Japan and the ASEAN region, to the point where many players sat around on arcade floors just waiting for the PiNK update to drop.
• Heartwarming Moment: "系ぎて" may become the next That One Level for many players, but carries a very different theme in stark contrast to the other Level 15 Re:Master song, "PANDORA PARADOXXX". While "PANDORA PARADOXXX" is a song with a serious and dark atmosphere, the PV shows a dark and destroyed world in it, the PV of "系ぎて" instead shows the barren world coming back to life with a bright and colorful atmosphere, ending with a shot of a now-blue Earth. The music, while also intense, is also very hopeful and upbeat. Furthermore, the unlocking condition of this song (before March 21st when this song would be opened to public) is to play with other players who have unlocked this song, fitting the song's title "connecting each other", and truly makes a wonderful way to end a generation.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • There's a BMS song named MilK by モリモリあつし (Morimori Atsushi) from BOFU2015. Incidentally, one of the first songs revealed for MiLK's release is the song itself.
  • One of the unofficial Chinese builds of classic maimai features the song "MopeMope" by LeaF. Then Splash PLUS would introduce it in an official build.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!: One complaint about Deluxe is how bloated the Achievement scoring system feels compared to the classic series. It becomes much easier to obtain higher ranks to the point where for many players, getting a AAA rank (94.0000-96.9999%) rather than an S or higher feels like failing the chart outright.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Many American players of other rhythm games were mostly just interested in maimai's stateside debut because of the fact that CHUNITHM could come next.
  • The unique videos for Vocaloid songs are often dance covers (踊ってみた/Odottemita) from Nico Nico Douga. In addition, notes in Easy mode follows the direction of dance movements. This spawned a small subset of players who play Easy mode to do the dance moves shown in the video.
  • From Deluxe onwards, there are titles awarded from missing only one time in each song, such as "Hated by Notes" for Kanzaki Iori's "Hated by Life".
  • There also exists a small subset of players who only play the Pop, Anime or Game tracks because they're fans of the pop group, anime or game.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The cabinets' strong resemblance to washing machines is a long-running meme amongst observers and players.
  • This... is Mythos. This... is tradition. ^ExplanationMYTHOS' iconic intro, which has overly long hold notes followed by a male voice saying several sentences.
  • KIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! ^ExplanationFrom the song Axeria. The scream signifies the beginning of the hard part of the song, and also the only part to have breaks.
  • The theme song of MiLK is "Magical Flavor", an upbeat love confession song whose PV introduces the game's three mascots to the player. The version of the PV used to announce the update even has staff production credits overlaid. Japanese players quickly joked that the whole setup resembled an Eroge opening sequence.
  • 15 ^ExplanationDuring the 2024 KING of Performai The 5th event, the new song "系ぎて" was revealed as only the second 15 in series history. The introductory sequence for the song featured a giant red 15 appearing on-screen on the song's splash screen to reveal the difficulty, leading to one of the players backing away from the machine in shock. Naturally, other users started editing the clip so that the player would be jumpscared by other things, or even unique intros also featuring a large red number of the difficulty for the custom chart for another game.
• Nintendo Hard: maimai can seem like a "casual" rhythm game at first thanks to the large number of licensed songs — VOCALOID, Touhou Project, and anime songs in particular — but it can get to be very challenging at the higher levels thanks to a combination of a radial/"polar" note scrolling style (as opposed to the more traditional "falling" notes of games such as IIDX and Sound Voltex) and slide notes that not only make confusing patterns that must be quickly slid while doing other notes, but can also hurt your hands unless you wear gloves. Like Project Diva (also a SEGA game), you need an 80% or higher to pass each song. At least there's no Life Meter...unless you're playing "Challenge Tracks" where you're allowed a limited number of non-Perfect judgements before the game kills you, and if you attempt a Challenge Track as soon as it's out you will lose as soon as you get one non-Perfect (picture the "Attack! Perfect Full Combo" challenges from DDR, but applied to a wider range of songs).
  • In Deluxe it's far easier to get high score thanks to the wide judgement window and the hold notes being reworked to be less frustrating, to the point that you can easily get an S rank or above. Nevertheless, clearing the hardest songs with an All Perfect and high Deluxe Score (based on the amount of Critical Perfects you get) is still a great challenge.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • "FULL COMBO!", "ALL PERFECT!", and "100% SYNCHRONIZED!"
  • A cheering sound can be heard when you get a Critical Perfect on a Break Note.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The screams of "OH MY GODDDDDDDDD!!" towards the end of "Garakuta Doll Play" that are repeated three times in a row.
  • The Challenge Track Doll wAndering iN tHe NighTmARe, from the creepy music to the horror movie-esque PV, definitely qualifies.
  • Partway through "QZKago Requiem", the track and video seem to glitch out and fast-forward, before being replaced by silence and a blue screen. Then a maimai GreeN results screen shows up, and that glitches out too while the announcer voice degrades into Laughing Mad before the actual track starts back up.
    "Result: Fantastic Clear! Rank SS HAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
  • "MopeMope" got added in Splash, with all the Mood Whiplash elemnts as the song switches between a childish jingle and hellish hardcore electronica. The music video makes use of some pixelation censors, which actually makes it look even more violent. Perhaps for the better, the climax of the song had its video replaced imagery entirely with a peaceful video of a nice boat.
• Older Than They Think: "B.B.K.K.B.K.K." is often thought of as a maimai song, but it originally debuted in a BMS contest. The same goes for Jack-The-Ripper and DRAGONLADY.
• Salvaged Gameplay Mechanic: Hold notes in the "classic" maimai games were criticized for not only requiring timing the start of the note but also the release of the note, which made getting high scores and All Perfect runs trickier than players were comfortable with. Furthermore, releasing a hold even for a brief moment would drop the hold and count it as a Good. The Deluxe era now gives players a brief chance to re-hold a dropped hold without affecting the judgement, and now allows over-holding a hold note and still getting a Critical Perfect.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Hold notes can be problematic in classic maimai games. Not only do you have to press with correct timing, you also have to release with correct timing. Over-holding the note will degrade the note down to a Good. Also, if you let go of the note for even just a frame, the entire note is dropped, again for a Good, and this can happen if the touchscreen or the buttons are faulty. Deluxe corrects this by no longer penalizing over-holds and also allowing the player to recover a hold note if they release it in the middle.
  • On each cabinet pair, if only one player is playing, the other side is unavailable for play until the player has finished their session. This is because each cab pair only has one computer in it and that computer cannot handle two separate play sessions at once.
  • The U.S. location tests were notorious for a couple of "features" that many feel were why the loctests failed terribly:
    • They charged roughly 1.50 USD (before bulk-purchase and loyalty discounts) for one song. To compare, it's the rough equivalent of 1 USD or even slightly less for three songs in most parts of the Asia Pacific, and at Round 1 locations in the United States, most other music games charge 1.50 USD as well, but for three songs at least. Only one song per credit also meant that players could not unlock Re:Master charts.
    • Of the six music folders, only three (Game & Variety, SEGA, and Original & Joypolis) were available, apparently because SEGA declined to enable an option in the operator menu that allows the rest of the folders to be playable (it's also highly likely that this was due to licensing issues).
  • Sync Play in classic maimai. On the surface it's a Co-Op Multiplayer mode where the team gains Sync by hitting notes no more than one timing windows apart. In practice, since nobody can read minds well enough to synchronize on the order of frames, going for 100% Sync would require players to get All Perfect to guarantee it. But the biggest problem is that all players have to play on the exact same difficulty, unlike VS Play which allows players to pick whatever difficulty they want. This was changed in Deluxe by simply consolidating Sync Play mechanics into VS Play, with Full Sync being awarded for a Full Combo by all players and Full Sync DX being the new name for 100% Sync.
  • maimai DX moved the camera to...the center of the cabinet, and it's just only used for pictures rather than video, unlike in the original versions.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Earning Achievement points in Deluxe is notably easier than in classic maimai, for several reasons:
  • Hold notes no longer require releasing at the correct time and they can be picked up again if you release them prematurely.
  • The more advanced touchscreen hardware makes it less likely that the game will fail to properly register a slide.
  • Deluxe charts have "EX Notes" that are considerably easier to get Critical Perfects on.
  • The timing windows for Touch notes are surprisingly wide.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: In maimai and maimai PLUS the song level was 10. When GreeN came out, it was raised to 11. When Garakuta Doll Play and System "Z" came in, it was raised to the current 12, with GreeN PLUS re-rating many songs.
  • Come MURASAKi, all songs are now re-rated to the maximum of 12+, initially.
  • Our Wrenally, the second MURASAKi Challenge Track bumps it up to lv 13. MURASAKi PLUS then re-rates several of its songs to 13.
  • PANDORA PARADOXXX, the seventh PANDORA BOXXX song bumps that up to 13+. After clearing PANDORA PARADOXXX, all six PANDORA BOXXX songs will have Re:Masters unlocked, and they are all rated 13+ as well. Clearing those in turn reveals the Re:Master chart of PANDORA PARADOXXX, rated at 14.
  • Deluxe removes the Simple difficulty, greatly reducing the number of charts that are accessible to Rhythm Game newcomers. The PLUS version expanded the difficulty scale from 1 to 15, and some charts were re-rated to fit the new scale.
• That One Attack:
  • Black Out Expert, rated an 11 (out of 14). For the first 60 seconds, it plays like a tough 10. The next 10 seconds consists of a very fast pattern of 16th note taps that jumps about the screen rapidly. The fanmade maimai wiki rates this one of the hardest non-boss song Expert charts for good reason.
  • VERTeX Master has a segment near the end of the song where the chart delivers a nonstop barrage of eighth notes and seemingly random slides at 256bpm.
  • Garakuta Doll Play Master has a part where the slides jump everywhere on the screen. This section is so hard, someone made a tutorial solely dedicated to explain that section.
  • Takahase! Meijin-Man Master. After a pause, you'll be greeted by a barrage of notes in only one button and it lasts for 3 seconds. (Link)
    • The Challenge Track HERA in MURASAKi also has it twice, and without a pause either. (Link)
• That One Boss: Our Wrenally, one of the Challenge Track in MURASAKi. It is the first level 13 song in the whole game and it's only the second Challenge Track of the game. The song itself has a slow BPM but very brutal chart, requiring you to know when to start sliding as slides are tied to song BPM.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Critics of Deluxe don't like that the camera now points directly at the player without showing the screen, or that there's now a phone holder where the overhead camera is on the original cabinet. Furthermore the camera is now only used for pictures rather than video, and many players appreciate the old hardware as it's an easy way to capture their own plays for self-analysis and showing off online. The new hardware and cabinet is also a problem for many, mainly because it means arcades having to throw out all their existing cabinets for new ones.
• Viewer Pronunciation Confusion: Players who are not familiar with Japanese may pronounce "系ぎて" as "Keigite"; it's in fact "Tsunagite", which means "to connect (each other)".