Imperium

Although sakuzyo had worked with the series before, "Imperium" marks the artist's first original composition made specifically for Pump It Up, debuting in PHOENIX as Premium-mode content. The composer framed it as a continuation of earlier work: it is the spiritual successor to "Imprinting," supplied to Pump It Up 2015 Prime Japanese Edition, and to "Instinct," written for Cytus II. That lineage shows in the song's design, which reads as a deeper, more demanding take on the "Imprinting" formula.

marierie's BGA places a string of philosophical questions in English at the center of the screen, touching on the fleeting nature of life, loss, and what truly belongs to us. Partway through, the image deliberately blurs and the text becomes hard to read (the Korean translation almost vanishes entirely). Among players there is a running joke that the effect mirrors a player's consciousness fading after running flat-out from the start of the toughest charts, S22 and D25.

The song ships with Single 10/14/18/22 and Double 16/20/23/25. S22 is a stamina chart: it opens with axis-shaking and repeated hits that drain the legs, then turns to powerful twist bursts from the highlight. Since most of those are side twists, the smart approach is to twist where needed and slide-foot the rest to ration energy. The Double charts spread out S22 with less twisting; D25 stacks heavy double-step onto D23, and where "Imprinting" D24 leans on half-twist, this chart is decided by double-step instead. The finish piles on double-step bursts, and the scarcity of hold notes makes gauge management awkward, placing it in the upper tier of level 25.