Neo Catharsis

Neo Catharsis arrived as a new song in PHOENIX version 1.04.0, exclusive to Premium mode. It is TAG's first contribution to Pump It Up: known for directing DanceDanceRevolution, the composer revived the TAG underground overlay alias here after a nine-year gap, last used on Over The "Period". It inherits the boss-song slot that KUGUTSU held in 1.01, and its calling cards are its frequent tempo changes and a BPM that climbs to 300, a mark only VVV and Galaxy Collapse shared at the time. Its high quality drew praise from launch, though its Premium exclusivity and the difficulty of every chart left it as a track for hardcore players.

Arcade offers Single charts at S13, S17, S20, S22 and S25, and Double charts at D21, D24 and D27. The S22 borrows the Dement S23 stream at roughly half strength and is prized as fast-stream practice, while a passage around the 1:28 mark echoes the triplet patterns of POSSESSION. The S25 hinges on managing a 160-combo potion to survive to the end. The D27 is the famous one: an approachable opening gives way to a brutal closer of bracket jumps, wide weight shifts and a high-speed staircase deliberately built to defeat mashing, pushing it to D28 territory. It is compared to Ultimatum and PARADOXX; as of August 2025 only four players had a confirmed clear.

The BGA, "FuseBox vs Bluetail", is a Gundam-style mecha piece: at the NX company, the prototype PIU-NX-02 "lapin" goes berserk and the pilot of the PIU-NX-01 "Phenix" sets out to stop it. The 2.08 patch added Short Cut charts (S19/S21/S23 and D23/D25), playable in Normal mode, but they were received poorly for feeling too hard for their levels and for a structure that sits awkwardly against the music.