Arcana Force

Released alongside Pump It Up Prime 2, "Arcana Force" was part of the batch of songs that arrived with that version. The charts by mzet:-P cluster around medium difficulties and stay fairly even throughout, with no nasty surprises. It is the kind of song players can pick up without pressure, well suited to practice or relaxed sessions.

The BGA was produced by MiLa (Felnya) and ranks among the better-drawn entries in her catalogue. The SD version of the heroine and a rabbit character drew praise for being cute, helping the visuals earn a positive reception. The weak point is the pig characters cast as villains, since MiLa would go on to recycle them to exhaustion in later BGAs. The heroine, named Arcana, also turned up on the between-stage waiting screens of Prime 2 and in the item-shop avatar purchase window.

The Single charts, designed by OSING, span S4, S9, S16 and S20. The S16 is essentially a watered-down S20: it turns some three-note clusters into pairs and strips most of the twists out of the late run, but it keeps enough run and trill content to trouble slower-footed players. The S20 is a very manageable 20, sitting at the bottom of most tier lists; the central three-note handling and the twist-laden closing run are the only real hurdles, and even a level-19 player can clear it. Near the end a brief one-foot fixed-twist pattern, similar to the one in Jonathan S16, can drain a lot of health from anyone weak against it.

The Double charts were designed by ELESON. The D10 and D17 are spreads of the S16 and share its structure. The D20 follows the S20's layout, with a few sections to watch: an opening big staircase mixed with long notes, the mid- and late-chart runs, and a variant trill where you break off to hit other notes before resuming the sequence. Unlike the Single, few originally called it overrated, but after XX moved many D20s down to level 19, the Double now carries the same reputation.