Alright, I've been grinding maimai lately and noticed something kinda wild. Honestly, this goes for any rhythm game where the story isn't hard-coded into the gameplay—if the lore doesn't scream for attention, people just straight up ignore it and treat it as a pure tapping simulator.
Like, look at Cytus II. The story presence there is so massive you literally can't miss it. But then you look at maimai, Phigros, Chunithm, or even pjsk (where they actually speak human language but the visual novel parts are miles long and optional)—everyone is just in a loop of: insert coin ➡️ play songs ➡️ leave.
I know some of y'all are gonna say, "But maimai literally has a lore website? You're just making excuses cuz you're lazy."
Excuse me?? Yes, the lore exists, but it's ALL IN JAPANESE. The devs refuse to speak human language! I literally had to scrape the text from God-knows-where and feed it into AI just to get a summary. RIP my Sky Street lore... why must the devs cryptic code everything?
The saddest part? Someone actually made translation videos. And it's not even some random account—it's a well-known KOL in the rhythm game community. The result? Views under 10k, likes under 100.
The reality check is insane. Is everyone really just queuing up just to tap buttons, grind charts, and farm ratings? Please tell me I'm not the only lore enthusiast trying to survive out here... 😭
The reason I like Cytus so much is because of the story With pjsk and bg I'm too lazy to watch the story anyway. Feels like the production team wasted their efforts
The core of a music game is still the music and charts, story is just a bonus. Developers like Rayark who put in serious effort on the story are rare, but that's exactly why Rayark music games have a unique gaming experience. That's why I'll keep playing Cytus II 😭
I think it's mainly a matter of priorities. I've played Nostalgia Op 3, and it has story songs too. The narrative style with picture books is pretty nice. Then there's the arcade cabinet factor – you have to queue up and insert coins to play, so time is naturally limited. People naturally just want to focus on score pushing. Compared to mobile, arcades seem to emphasize multiplayer interaction more. Whether the story is engaging enough is also a factor. Cytus II uses a method where the story progresses through posts similar to a social media platform, which is very unique. Because what we do all the time is browse social media, and with songs strongly bound to story progression, players have to unlock songs by advancing the story and leveling up characters (though now there's the paid pass option).
Honestly, other developers just focus on music and charts, story is just a tool to promote song sales. Rayark's approach to music games is closer to other game developers. They care about unified multiple aspects, story, music, and charts all hold important positions, and the story is an important core element.