Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Sonority Scouts - Prankfully Yours, 2025 Edition


Around the same time last year, I've read a random Japanese tweet standing for a position I've been sharing for quite a while: April Fools for your average rhythm game player is effectively a second Christmas day where the fanciest things happen for everyone, albeit for a really short time window.

Is it any different for this year, in the grand scheme of things? The answer is a click away...




At the long-running arcade jokey ringleaders of Sega's GEKI-Chu-Mai series, the keyword for all three series was one: cats! As such, the latest Maimai version got a couple of Internet-famous playable hits in Pallas Cat's Song and the Sand Cat's song.

Not even one expressly-dog-themed song was saved by the purry menace, getting one time-limited Utage variant!





The cat-based healing factor grows twofold in CHUNITHM avenue, as the "New!" family line turns into the "Mew!" one! This transition is also welcomed by the playable introduction of one cat-based Hatsune Miku song that definitely doesn't need one, alongside a WORLD'S END chart for an original cat-based song from the past, starring the art-named M.A.O as its vocalist. (Oh, and yes-you can set a realass cat as your avatar now.)

While we're on the subject, the whole Irorimodori girls unit's RPG sensation from the last April Fools comes back as a time-limited browser-playable treat! I hope your Japanese isn't as rusty, though, as it's still the only available language for it...




Last but not least, Ongeki's take on 'cats' was to let the center stage being taken by a couple of people who've made quite the splash with songs and silly cat animations on YouTube: the nicknamed composer Tanchiky and Karameru (からめる)!

The two have released their original song about an Ongeki machine's giant-robot adventures (with its own music video to boot!), while their ENERGY SYNERGY MATRIX that has shaken the BMS scene with its time-traveling cats got a Lv.0 Lunatic challenge to tackle.


On top of reviving all the pranks from the past year, SOUND VOLTEX cabs have received a simple yet effective makeover, in the trails of what was engaged in CHUNITHM last year... that's right: Yukkuri-fied navigators!

Just so you know, this apparently is also going to be an e-Amusement card design, coming out later this year...




We're hopping on the portable music gaming scene... and just like that, Vic the Rotaeno people came up with the best idea they've ever had: turning a boss song into a fast food clients queue!

You as the cashier -with guidance from ETIA.'s MVURBD and a few visual cues standing for "meal order combos"- are asked to serve characters from Rotaeno's main story in one of the wackiest challenges put on screen. It's all fun and games, but it begs the question if this is the first step to having burger pictures photoshopped into every single jacket art in the game, a few years from now...



Just like in the past few years, Phigros's yearly prank wasn't advertised on SNS but instead had its players figure out its whereabouts by themselves. In 2025, said hiding place was Likey's Dlyrotz, with one remixed version available to those failing the song and tapping the... uuuh... rather-unconventional rating symbol. See for yourself if this"SUPER ULTIMATE AMAZING AWESOME PRO MAX EXTRA REMIX" stands true for each of its highly-praising words!




Arcaea from lowiro is back with another 1-day-only new feature, winking at one of their previous stunts about the stamina-based World mode. A few years back for April Fools, players could delete it altogether, but this time it's possible to make it the only available mode in the game!

So have fun climbing the stamina-less step ladders, sseing rather unconventional messages and play restrictions that may or may not be occurring to you but once the game decides to crank up your pace to a notch, that's how you'll be met with their latest limited remix... alongside all other past charts, with the usual hearts-spam option in the song selection screen!



On Rayark's joke-y part, we only got their fill with Cytus II's social feed, now gathering applications for an examination of sorts to be granted access (or not) to a number of goodies. Just punch in your Forms application in one of the four available languages, via the link on the above tweet!




Wonder of all wonders, we're getting a Ravon-themed April 1st joke that is not wholly themed around ramen! It's also one of the more unique ones in recent times, considering how for multiple parties (Taiko very much included!) April Fools has become synonymous to Herculean feats of otoge prowess.

Is the game too hard for you? Then check out the brand-new 1x1 mode, where all inputs for every difficulty are neatly grouped at a hugeass square instead of the multiple ones scattered across the screen!



As usual, Muse Dash devs are grouping their latest song batch with some early April Fools silliness, kicking thing off a few days in advance with content from the upcoming RPG/quiz hybrid Muse Dash Legend.

Test your general otoge knowledge and your stats-increase addition by donning a new stencil-born character, as you hop up-and-down to the beat of another six-song serving!




The "new songs+joke" approach was also the one used by the makers of Paradigm: Reboot, our last guest for the day. Together with 4 more songs, you'll be able to meet and befriend a deer to become your ingame navigator. Play songs with it and make it fond of your playing skills in many a ways, which may end up in a number of different situations... each yielding out ending-specific deer skin unlocks, too!

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But yeah, that's pretty much it for this year. Across past guests of these lines, no new jokes for Lanota as it's prepping up its next main Story chapter release and I only shiver to find out what can happen worse to Taito's Groove Coaster. I mean, last year's April 1st signaled its end-of service for its arcade branch, how worse can it get- they're going to axe the ongoing mobile game now???

...but aye, I guess I should do something of a complete job to let this case rest. Let's see...

<<click click>>

Nothing recent here, huh...

<<click click click>>

News on their next game, yaddayaddayadda (I still think removing AD-LIBS completely was a bad idea)

<<click click click click>>

...oh GODDAMMIT, I was just trying to set up a joke-
Posted by Lokamp at 5:18 PM
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