#2dkaps wacca

At long last, the date has finally arrived. After what felt like an eternity of this being the newest version... questions about whether there was even going to be another entry... and despair even amidst the constant flow of content... SOUND VOLTEX has finally upgraded from the EXCEED GEAR we've all known and loved, to...

...NABLA!!!!!!!!!

this was a most unexpected release and sudden release given the window between now and its announcement. after over 4 and a half years since exceed gear's release, we got the announcement in the middle of another sudden/random BEMANI LIVE last month (the first since 2017 i think?) that the big new version would be coming... sometime soon . little did we know that "soon" meant THIS YEAR, even with only a month and a half to go before the new version!!! and on christmas, no less!!!! truly a major shock, especially with the new pop'n cab and version releasing just a few weeks prior . what is konami on this year to make such insane back-to-back releases???

of course, it being held on christmas meant i was preoccupied with family festivities and wasn't able to make it for the grand release of the version... nor for the day after its release... nor for the day after the day after its release... until NOW!!! i was finally free from family festivities and gifting, and had all the time in the world to head on up to round 1 and indulge in the next evolution of the SOUND VOLTEX series...

(yes i did pull for nabla rasis before i even got to play, look at her!! a beautiful character in a beautiful outfit, and with such big... nevermind)

but before that! what better way to start the new version the same way we ended the old one; an AAA+ on Typhoon Craaash!! [GRV 18.3]!!! ah right, and since this version introduces chart constants for charts rated 17 and higher, i'll be listing said constants in text wherever i can! (though i won't be going back and editing any of the constants in the past posts for preservation purposes, go figure those out yourself)

NOW THEN, FOR THE REAL DEAL!!! to be honest, i genuinely had no idea how i wanted to kick off my journey this version, so i consulted some friends of the Full Combo team for songs to play and did a few of those... but in the process, i did get a solid near-S on Dyscontrolled Galaxy [EXH 17.5], an INSANE sightread 998 on the all-new Synthesis. [EXH 17], and the biggest shock of all... i finally got an S rank on Lachryma(Re:Queen'M) [EXH 18.5]!!! my hardest S-rank thus far!!!!!! finally to wrap up the sesh for now, a few other random songs (did you guess the theme of the recommendations yet? that's right, it's "songs that have appeared in robeats!"!), including my second-ever 19 clear in... A Lasting Promise [MXM 19.4]!!!

while undoubtedly a huge part of why i wanted to visit round 1 today, sound voltex nabla wasn't the only reason... rather, my second big reason was for what would be the final content update to PUMP IT UP 2024 PHOENIX as we neared the confirmed and imminent release of PHOENIX2. sure, they added two songs from CHRONO CIRCLE as new content, but I didn't really care for them; I cared about the LOAD of new charts added to legacy songs to finish the version off strong . so after a quick warmup on Stardream -Eurobeat Remix- S19 and SWEET WONDERLAND S17 with my good buddy Shoopa, i was ready to get to work...

...on playing the new charts given to perhaps the greatest song to ever be added into the game, and probably the song that got me into being a hardcore pump player...

ALL I WANT FOR X-MAS!!!!

not to be confused with the Mariah Carey song of a similar name, this is a classic from Perfect Collection whose hardest chart up until now was an extremely janky D15 locked behind PRIME's Mission Mode. but now that it's christmas (x2), this song got two charts each for singles and doubles to celebrate... and being the #1 fan of this song, i HAD to tackle them all... and after two credits worth of plays, i came out of it with a PG on the S15, and two tragic flags on the S17 and D16... Fuck

well... as much as i wanted to stick around and replay the charts for better scores, i had to get going somewhere soon . so to bid farewell to Round 1 for what was likely the last time this year, i played a single credit DDR and SDVX back-to-back... which resulted in getting 15 PFC #46 on Rabbit Hole (ESP-15, 36p) and an AAA+ on the extremely-overrated-but-much-appreciated L (SDVX ver.) [MXM 18.6] respectively

now, where exactly was this "somewhere" i was in a hurry to visit? home? work? school? nope, it was actually The Nest for their Freeplay Fridays!!! i know i know, jumping from one arcade to another is a little questionable, but it really had been a while since my last visit and i wanted to check it out one last time before the end of the year... so i hopped on the bus there and made my last(?) arcade visit of 2025 .

despite The Nest being way more known for their dance games, i was feeling in more of a wacca mood and thought "hmmmm . i really need to grind this game after all" . and so i did in an effort to recover my stamina before re-tackling the dance games . it went swell, and i got quite a bit of rating from scores like an SSS on Overdrive [Expert 13], an SSS+ on MAGENTA POTION [Expert 12], SS+s on PUPA and BUCHiGiRE Berserker [both Expert 13+]... then to group the images and save on space later in this post, i also got a few more scores across new version songs and whatnot, including Boku no Yume, Mecha Kuso Mugen Waki (Nanahira ver.) [Expert 13+], Chronomia [Expert 13+], and a bit more minmaxxing in the old version songs with an SSS on JINGLE DEATH [Expert 13] and a bunch of rando 12s that gave me rating for whatever reason

finally, i'm hitting the 30 image limit here and am too lazy to make a new post, so i'll just attach the most important scores i got that weren't just getting PGs on all of the All I Want for X-Mas difficulties; i managed to upscore Nostalgia D21 up to an AAA+!

and to wrap up this hell of a final session.... i got my FIRST EVER D22 CLEAR on ENERGY SYNERGY MATRIX D22!!!! WITH AN AAA+ AT THAT!!!!!! GRAAAAAAAAAAAGH I'M DA FUCKIN GOATTTTTT

and here's the last few class results before i left fore the day!! it's been so long since i've taken WACCA seriously, and my last shot at a STAGE UP was failing Telecaster B-boy [Expert Lv.11+] during WACCA Lily R, so i just decided to shoot for Stage X and see if i could do any better afterwards... turns out i actually could!!!

managed to Easily breeze my way through the stage despite the random song almost getting me at the end... perhaps a little Too easily... so i tried Stage XI right after (which had TWO random songs this time) and breezed through that just-as-if-not-even-MORE easily!!! (cycle hit almost killed me despite having seen the chart before, chart still trips me up...)

heheh, whoops... looks like today's session was a lot bigger and more dense of rhythm games than i expected, as even with the images i cleared out in the last post, there's still a TON of images across the arcade games to share and write about! i might have to split this into a three-parter after all (the very first one on this account), but we'll just cross that bridge when we get there. so without further ado, here's as many of the rest of the scores from today as i can fit in a single post!!!

so anyways, WE'RE BACK!!!! just one chunithm score that i left out of the original post (but prob could've easily included), and it's just an SS on the funny Muse Dash Rissyu ft. Choco song... but hey! it's pretty good!

back to the maischool: playing random picks and suggestions (i honestly really hate Shiny Smily Story), and i ended up getting an SSS FC on Kamui [Expert Lv.12+]!!! ayeee!!!! then a good arcaea friend arrived to the arcade and we played a set together, which resulted in my first ever Full Sync+ -- a double FC on Colorfull:Encounter [Expert Lv.11+]!!! (SSS+ on my end, SS+ on his, but an FC is an FC nonetheless B]) . ohyeah and then some other scores before we move on to the next game transition...

but first, a quick wacca break!!! only got one score from one set of this game unfortunately but it was a really good score on a really fun chart to play!!! hopefully i can play more of it next time i visit... Mannn i miss this game so much, WACCA FOREVER

now for the actual game that i wanted to dedicate this next section to: it's iidx!!! yay!!! wahoo!!! definitely not as many scores as maimai, but i got quite a few scores here from reccs in an earlier twitter post, and i also forced my good ol' iidx-hating buddy to join me in playing a few very funny songs/charts!!!

sheesh, okay, apparently i only have one last batch of arcade scores to share from today, so maybe this will remain a two-parter after all? and of course, the last set of scores are on which game? maimai!!! though this isn't just any ordinary maimai set... this is my first dan course set in the game!! and while i ate so much shit on the last song that i didn't even bother taking a picture of the score, i cleared it and got the bronze 7th Dan emblem to show off on my profile!!!

great, so that's the end of the arcade session!!! lots of really impressive scores and lots of skill walls broken today, i'm pretty proud of the results :] buit wait!!! there's a tiny bit more scores in the PC and mobile department, that being scores on EZ2ON and Arcaea respectively!!! starting with the Arcaea scores since they're sorta the quickest to access right now, there was one score (and the awakening of Ilith) from the middle of the set (that being a pretty lame challenge score of Metallic Punisher where i didn't get a single 6x recollection rate loss across each miss), but the rest was comparatively... alright? still nothing too impressive, i've kinda done everything of note at my casual skill level, but they're still rhythm game scores and i must show them off for the sake of this account...

and now, for the ultimate conclusion to the day... the last game i must show off before i'm free from writing hell, the finale of this two-parter day that almost turned into a three-parter from the sheer volume of scores... it's... it's...! a downscore on Kamui [4S SHD-18]. not even an upscore, just a miserable downscore attempt. well, i guess they can't all be winners after all... but i'd say YOU'RE a winner for sticking with this post 'til the end and seeing the month-late conclusion of this beautiful series of events!!! thanks for reading, and i definitely won't disappoint with the rest of my scores going forward!!!

another day, another... arcade session day? well, kinda? while i didn't have any exclusive plans to visit the arcade today, i was planning on going with my friends to the arcade for our very first meetup in what felt like ages!!! however, that meetup wasn't scheduled until the evening, so i'd have to make do with my devices until then . and that's exactly what i did in the case of arcaea, resulting in finally getting... FLUFFY FLASH (FTR-9+, MAX-37) as FTR PM #215!!!

it was a great score indeed, but the downside was that i accomplished it at ~6 AM when i had stayed up until ~2 AM the night before, meaning i really needed to catch up on my Z's after getting that score, which i did! once i woke up, i felt even more energized than i was when i got that score, but since i'd pretty much ran out of arcaea stamina... i spent it instead on phigros and catching up on my Middle Chart grind that i had abandoned a while ago!!! i got through the Rhythm Master pack's middle charts and the first four charts of Chapter 5, which ended in me unlocking Spasmodic by complete accident!! but i couldn't get a Phi on Spasmodic before my phone died, and that's when i decided i'd stop playing phigros for the day, so all i have to show for the marathon today is this Phi on Sonshin ~The Guru~ [HD Lv.11]

well, wouldya look at the time!! in between phigros and leaving for the friend meetup, i spent most of my time writing that December 14th post and all the super long, super crazy stuff that happened that day . but it was taking too long, and i needed something to engage my fingers a little more so i could stop making typos while writing the post. that led me to get an itch for playing vivid/stasis, which i then did, and i immediately proceeded to go off with this massive jump from SS to V rank on execution_program [FINALE 16] !!!

but alas! time indeed went by fast, and before i knew it i was actually Late to the meetup as opposed to being the first one there (especially given it was one of my favorite places to go...) . i grinded out my remaining arcaea stamina on the super long 20-min bus ride there, but didn't really get any notable scores on it (because . well. bus) besides progressing further in the Absolute Nihil unlocks! to the disappointment of my friends, i did indeed arrive rather late, and so the meetup probably wasn't as long as they'd hoped by a half hour... but nevertheless, i greeted my friends (including one friend that i hadn't seen since pre-covid iirc?), watched them play voltex for a bit, and then we wandered around the arcade doing whatever came to mind!!!

i'll save most of the details for my personal journal writing spree, as none of them really include anything regarding rhythm games or the like and we just caught up with what good friends we were during our middle school years :] but there was still rhythm gaming to be had in the form of SDVX plays while my friends either played SDVX as well, or just sat and chilled or gambled with the cranes at the arcade as we waited for another friend of ours to be free . gave the weekly score attack song, snow storm -euphoria- [EXH 17], a few tries that didn't really lead anywhere as i kept forgetting how to play the chart, but then when our dear friend came over for a split second... i tried Bi [MXM 18] once again to show off the Sheer Comedy of this game and managed to upscore it!!!

we went over to the above-ground section of the arcade to play the wider selection of rhythm games they had (wacca, taiko, iidx the works), and i got the idea to do some wacca/iidx versus matches with each other!!! unfortunately the local versus play on wacca didn't work, but we still had fun starting the same chart simultaneously and seeing how close the scores between my two other friends were!!! ...and as you can see below, i'm not referring to the third friend who was a decently seasoned rhythm gamer... (songs in the IIDX image: COSMIC V3LOCITY [SPH-10] and Mesmerizer [SPH-9])

and now, for a brief GITADORA spree!!! it's been so long since i played this game, but holy hell it's just as fun as i remembered... even more fun than before, actually!!! i felt like i'd gotten way better at the game recently, and that demonstrated itself in the incredible accuracy/high-level clears that i hadn't gotten before... maybe i could dedicate a little more time to this game in future sessions?? i have only really been leeching off free credits after all, except for today...

but alas! after a long while of rhythm gaming, crane game gambling, and waiting around for the fifth friend to join our pack... she was finally free!!! and we were reunited for the first time in ages!!! it was beautiful, but then we decided to make it even better via challenging each other in SDVX Megamix Battles!!! knowing the sheer gap between me and my friends (i don't even wanna sound cockyyyy i just don't think it'd be fun for them to face me with my level LOL), i stood back and watched, gave encouragement most of the time that they were playing... but one of my friends (probably the second best/most dedicated of the bunch) challenged me anyways, and as expected, i kindaaaa maaaybeeeee BLEW HIM OUT OF THE WATER LIKE HOLY HELL LMFAO . of course, i do feel kinda bad for him about it, but what can i say?? you come at the king, you best not miss!

aaand that concluded the meetup!! we took a group photo, chatted together a bit more, figured out who would go back home with who, and bid our farewells as we headed back to rest up for the night (excluding me LOL) . but i guess while there's plenty of free space for images remaining and nothing else to put down here... i'll just share the cut scores from yesterday's session that i couldn't fit in the earlier post due to the image limit!!!

finally... the day arrives!!!!! after waiting for so long and trudging through so many lectures that i've had to keep up with at home, the time finally arrived for the elusive arcade event day!!! seeing as i somehow wasn't scheduled for work today (despite it being my last weekend there), i decided to visit the workplace anyway as a customer and not as a worker... and i treated myself to a nice lil' meal before i left to the event!!! ...one that left me Extremely full, but fortunately with enough energy to work on my arcaea backlog, which includes a hard clear on Arcana Eden after sleeping on it for so long!!! with an EX too!!! (literally just cleared it to prove someone on twitter dot com wrong in a comparison to Pentiment, i still think Pentiment is MILES harder especially on thumbs)

alright, but once that was done, it was time to leave for the arcade event and play some of the unique games that i hadn't gotten the chance to play in a while!! starting with the first, rarest, and most unique of all... MAIMAI!!! WITH MY FRIEND!!! WHERE WE BOTH KINDA SUCKED!!! BUT THEN WE PROCEEDED TO SLAY!!!! pretty rocky scores on most of them, but an insane FULL SYNC+ and SSS on RAD DOGS [EXP 10]!!!

after that, i played some WACCA PLUS which was being location tested at the center too!!! it was alright... not great at it, but playing wacca with gloves for the first time was so insanely satisfying and good... a pretty good 980/SSS on Ouverture [EXP 13] too!!!

following this is an even more insanely rare game... ONGEKI!!! been quite a while since i had the chance to play this (5 months since my first play...), but i was back and ready to play!!! ...for just two songs though, it was almost my turn to play maimai after all . yet with the songs i was suggested to play in my very short set, i felt i did... alright i guess?? still a TON of fundamentals i need to learn about this game before i declare myself """decent""", but i'll get there if i put in some more time... but without further ado, here's the two 12s i played!

hopped back into maimai where i got a few Scores that seemed neither good nor bad... but i'd say they were pretty good anyways!!! i even got a color change from green to orange, wahoo !!!!

then, moving on from that to conclude the session, we have CHUNITHM BAYBEE!!! to be frank, this entire session ended much quicker than i would've normally anticipated, but that was mostly because of how Exhausted i was after pumping out the following BANGER scores... like look at all this stuff!!! insane!!! went from 16.01 to 16.09 in a matter of an hour just after finding out acc on 14s was better for rating than S+/SS on 15s!!! (though i Did re-SS a 15 just to Demolish my friend and prove a point www)

and of course, to conclude the day for REAL this time, one last score before i passed out on my bed... that being this INSANE upscore to a 996 on Purple Verse [BYD-10] for a simple arcaea community server challenge... but alas, banger scores are banger scores!!

🚨🚨🚨 NEW PHONE ALERT 🚨 NEW PHONE ALERT 🚨🚨🚨

THAT'S RIGHT BITCHESSSS!!! I'VE FINALLY GOT A NEW PHONE AFTER 3 YEARS OF THIS S20 FE!!!!! and after EXTREMELY careful consideration over the past 2 months (+ saving up for it too www), i settled on and took home... the 15 PROMAX!!!! it was an extremely tough choice between the max and unmaxed: the former would give my thumbs more flexibility on arcaea, but the latter was just... better (at least in terms of battery and screen size and camera and whatever fgsdfsds)

What does this mean for all my scores? Well, it means that every single one of them (save for Takumi and other games where I'll use Guided Access) will have this annoying little bar at the bottom of the screen shouting "HEY EVERYONE I'M IN THE APPLE CLUB NOW"

But for real? It means my scores are gonna be BETTER, MORE CONSISTENT, MORE FREQUENT, INPUT DROPLESS, FREEEDOOOOOOOOM!!! But since I still need to install stuff and transfer all my files, all I can do with it right now is take pictures and use it to text. So I did half of that with this post coming out of work and going straight to round 1: with some WACCA SCORESSSS

IMASUUGU KOWASHIITE KONNA SEKAI DE WA MADAMAADAAA TARINAI KARAAA AAAAAAAA (sorry they're all in 4:3, still didn't know how to preserve camera aspect ratio when opening and closing the camera app)

but despite the massive wall of text, it's not over yet... for a new rhythm game finally released to take the world by storm (unfortunately)...! it's... ROCK BAND 5!!!! (fortnite festival (eugh))

wasn't sure how this'd play out since i missed the eminem concert event that had a gameplay sneak peak, but i went into it at 11 PM after finishing work and getting home safely, and YOOOO IT'S EXACTLY LIKE ROCK BAND 5!!!! only without the controllers and stuff but they're already adding support for it

anyways WHO CARES I'M TIRED OF WRITING!!! CHECK OUT MY FIRST AND COOL SICK WORLD RECORD SCORES FROM THE MODE

takumi is back baby!! S rank on Teumessia 14+ !

FC'ed Battle Against A True Hero on groov coast arcade yayay

then played 5th dan in resident to test my consistency and get the badge!!

stole a wacca credit and played out of boredom (long time no see, old friend...)

moar iidx (another SPA-9 clear on Driver!)

and a bit of sdvx before leaving !

also played and AP'ed new proseka 30 within the hour

I'M BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING (round 1)

met up with some friends (coincidentally at the mall) the day after my big round 1 session, so we played MORE games at round 1 while i got my friend into sdvx (as this video demonstrates)

as for my own scores!! since wacca was dying and set to time play, someone dumped a BUNCH of free credits into both cabs, so i used it to grind out sets before the game became aluminum can

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