The game uses the traditional "falling notes" style of gameplay: Notes scroll down the gameplay lanes, and for each note, the player must hit the corresponding part of the "Ground Slider" controller. Tap notes require the note to simply be tapped, Hold notes require holding down the necessary part of the slider until the note ends, Slide notes are similar to Hold notes but the player must drag horizontally along the slider, and Flick notes require the player to slide across the part of the slider corresponding to the note.
However, there's a unique twist to this formula: In addition to all of these, there are also Air notes, where the player must physically lift their hands off of the slider and wave them through a sensor above the slider; some Air notes simply require the player to tap the note and then lift their hand off into the sensor range, others require the player to keep their hand in the air afterwards to hit the mid-air "Air-Action" notes, and some other Air notes have the player move their hands down through the sensor to hit notes on the slider.
Notes need not be fixed-width like in many other rhythm games; each note can be as little as 1/16th as wide as the playing field, or as wide as the entire playfield, so depending on the note you have some leeway in how precise you have to be to hit it.
Players can choose to play by themselves, or against other players in the same arcade in Cabinet-to-Cabinet Play to try to get the best score. CHUNITHM NEW introduces National Battle exclusively for Japan, allowing players to go against those from other arcades across the country.
It is currently one of the most popular rhythm games in Japan, having surpassed DanceDanceRevolution in commercial success there and often competing with beatmania IIDX and SOUND VOLTEX on that same metric, despite Sega only having about half as much time in the arcade rhythm game scene as Konami.note To put it in perspective, in many major arcades in Japan, you can find just as many CHUNITHM cabinets as IIDX or SDVX cabinets, if not more, and most of those cabs will be in use at any one time on weekend nights. It was originally a Japan-only game, but high demand outside of Japan led to SEGA producing a separate line of releases for the Asia Pacific / Oceania region, although with some songs excluded due to licensing reasons and without certain online features (such as Online Battle mode).
In 2021, a "Gold" version of the CHUNITHM cabinet was released, with CHUNITHM NEW being the first game to be released for it (in addition to an upgrade kit for the older "Silver" version). The Gold cabinet comes with a 120 Hz monitor as opposed to the older "Silver" cabinet's 60 Hz monitor, and compatibility with Japanese e-payment systemsnote such as Suica, PASMO, PASELI, and Waon; this is not the same as credit/debit card payment but otherwise has the same functionality. The Japanese arcade chain Round 1 would then send its Silver cabinets to its US branches, all running CHUNITHM PARADISE LOST with all network features disabled and no licensed songs available.
Compare Deemo, which shares a few common interface elements such as the variable-width notes, Arcaea, which borrows the "air notes" concept, Nostalgia (BEMANI), which some have described as "Chunithm except with piano music", BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!, which has been called "Chunithm but with idol bands" by some players, Tokyo 7th Sisters, and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!, both of which effectively port Chunithm mechanics onto the mobile screen (since the November 2017 update for the former), DANCERUSH, which has been described as Chunithm EXCEPT WITH YOUR FEET!, and PolarisChord, which has been described as Chunithm with SOUND VOLTEX-style sliders.
Games in the series:
Japanese releases
Classic Chunithm games (Silver Model cabinet only)- CHUNITHM (2015)
- CHUNITHM PLUS (2016)
- CHUNITHM AIR (2016)
- CHUNITHM AIR PLUS (2017)
- CHUNITHM STAR (2017)
- CHUNITHM STAR PLUS (2018)
- CHUNITHM AMAZON (2018)
- CHUNITHM AMAZON PLUS (2019)
- CHUNITHM CRYSTAL (2019)
- CHUNITHM CRYSTAL PLUS (2020)
- CHUNITHM PARADISE (2021)
- CHUNITHM PARADISE LOST (2021) β offline cabinets without licensed content can be found at some Round 1 USA locations
- CHUNITHM NEW (2021)
- CHUNITHM NEW PLUS (2022)
- CHUNITHM SUN (2022)
- CHUNITHM SUN PLUS (2023)
- CHUNITHM LUMINOUS (2023)
- CHUNITHM LUMINOUS PLUS (2024)
- CHUNITHM VERSE (2024)
- CHUNITHM X-VERSEnote "X" being pronounced "cross", therefore the subtitle is read as "CROSS-VERSE" (2025) β 10th Anniversary version of CHUNITHM
- CHUNITHM X-VERSE-Xnote The first "X" is still pronounced as "cross", but the second one is pronounced like the letter itself. Therefore, "cross-verse-ecks". (2025) β current version
Asia/Oceania Pacific releases (all using Silver Model cabinet)note Exact date of deployment varies based on each country
- CHUNITHM SUPER STAR (2020) note Interface is based on CHUNITHM STAR, with most non-song, non-artist text translated into English, and its own pool of songs.
- CHUNITHM SUPER STAR+ (2021)
- CHUNITHM NEW (2022)
- CHUNITHM NEW PLUS (2022)
- CHUNITHM SUN (2023)
- CHUNITHM SUN PLUS (2023)
- CHUNITHM LUMINOUS (2024)
- CHUNITHM LUMINOUS PLUS (2024)
- CHUNITHM VERSE (2025)
- CHUNITHM X-VERSE (2025) β current version
Chinese releases
- δΈδΊθε₯NEW!! (2022)
- δΈδΊθε₯ 2024 (2023)
- δΈδΊθε₯ 2025 (2024) β current version
The CHUNITHM series provides examples of the following:
- All or Nothing: ExTap and Slide notes can only be rated Justice Critical or Miss, skipping Attack and Justice entirely. Downplayed, in that this is because the Justice Critical window overrides the Attack and Justice windows; so long as you hit them at all, you'll get a JC.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- If you drop a hold or slide prematurely (either by releasing your hold or move your hand out of the note), it will fade, but you do have a brief moment to pick it up again before the game starts to give misses.
- Starting in NEW, if you complete a map, any leftover steps you have will be stored until the next time you start a map that has not yet been completed, up to 99 steps.
- NEW introduces a Japan-exclusive mode called Online Battle where you can play with up to three other players from around the country. However, if no players are found during the matching timernote If your Rating is low, you probably won't get a match since most players who engage in National Matching tend to be higher-skill players. If you play during midday on weekdays when most players are at school or work, you're also unlikely to get a match. Even outside of these cases, sometimes you might just get unlucky with finding any matches., you get kicked back to the song select with the selection timer replenished. Starting in CHUNITHM SUN, if this happens you can attempt to match in Online Battle again, but only one more time.
- Bowdlerise: Some songs have a different jacket in the Asian and Chinese versions, usually focusing on the character's face. The base characters associated with these says may also not be obtainable on these versions. Some songs in the Chinese version don't even have a jacket.
- Bullet Hell: Some World's End charts have the player holding one long note throughout the entire chart and trying to dodge damage notes on the track.
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": The highest three judge ranks are Justice Critical (perfect), Justice (great), and Attack (good).
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Tap notes are pink, ExTap notes are glowing yellow, Hold notes have yellow tips and yellow-and-purple fills, Slide notes have blue tips with purple-and-cyan fills, Flick notes are blue, upward Air notes have green arrows, Air-Action notes are hot pink, and downward Air notes have pink arrows. During certain WORLD'S END charts, Damage notes are purple.
- Co-Op Multiplayer: Linked Verse mode in the Japanese version of X-VERSE. Up to four players join up in an online lobby to try to clear a song, with a special life meter that takes away life on anything short of a Justice Critical (with more inaccurate hits inflicting more severe damage), but players can heal alive teammates (though not themselves) for every 100 Combo they build up, even if they have already depleted their own life. The song is cleared and unlocked for regular play for the entire team if any of the players, even just one, survives to the end. In the International version of the game, which lacks the infrastructure necessary for online multiplayer, this aspect is dropped and the mode is a more traditional single-player "reach the end without depleting your lifebar" mode, with the starting HP and damage values for imperfect hits rebalanced accordingly.
- Crossover: While this game features songs from other rhythm games as part of collaboration events, the BEMANI songs are notable in that they are sometimes added to the game independent of any collaboration events. This is because Konami co-develops the game.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Failing a song only impacts clear status, gaining currency, all types of EXP, and Map progress, and does not impact your score, rank (which is tied to score), or Rating, unless you had a Sudden Death or Track Skip feature active. Furthermore, you will always get a full set of stages even if you fail all of them, except in Courses where failing ends the song and omits any remaining songs.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: A collection of titles requires you to score exactly 1 MISS on the chart.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: CHUNITHM STAR is the only installment of the game to get a different name for its International version, CHUNITHM SUPER STAR. All subsequent installments for the International line simply take after their Japanese counterparts' titles.
- Experience Booster: The Character Rank Boost ticket can be purchased to boost the amount of EXP that your selected character gains after each song in the credit.
- Flawless Victory: Clearing a chart with only Justice or Justice Critical judgements results in a congratulatory "ALL JUSTICE!" message. The usual "Full Combo" is here, as well, if you get at least one Attack. LUMINOUS adds "ALL JUSTICE CRITICAL" as well, for hitting all Justice Critical notes for the perfect score of 1,010,000 points.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The international version of NEW has TEN FRAMES (or 1/6 second) of input lagπ Image
. - Gimmick Level: The WORLD'S END charts. In place of a difficulty number, each of these charts has a kanji corresponding to the type of gimmick it dominantly uses, with a star rating signifying the complexity of said gimmick. Due to the wide range of difficulties and weirdness these charts give, you only need to attain two clear marks to clear the song, and they won't affect your rating.
- ζ "Strike" - Read as "geki", charts that emulate or are imported from O.N.G.E.K.I..
- ε "Light" - Swaps out the regular notes with EX Notes.
- ιΏ "Avoid" - Chart contains electric blue damaging notes that must not be touched. A famous example is the last stretch of Cirno's Perfect Math Classπ Image
, which throws a flood of these for you to dodge like danmaku. - ζ’ "Stop" - The chart stops in set places.
- ζ» "Return" - The chart rewinds in places.
- ζ· "Spread" - Hold and Slide notes will expand to occasionally fill the entire lane, forcing you to keep a finger down on the slider while tapping notes at the same time.
- θ·³ "Jump" - Replaces regular notes with Air and Air-Action notes,
- δΈ‘ "Both" - The chart is two half-sized charts, split down the middle.
- ε² "Split" - Wide notes are divided into smaller notes that fill its original width, adding extra precision.
- η "Crazy" - Self-explanatory charts that are even harder than Master.
- εΈ "Cloth" - Derived from "towel spinning" culture, where people spun towels like a helicopter to the beat of music. Flick, Air, and Air-Action notes are strung in a way that emulates a spinning motion. A demonstration of a Cloth chart can be seen hereπ Image
. - θ¦ "Memorize" - Requires memorization of patterns at certain points.
- ζΉ "Revise" - Alternative charts that still follow the balance of a standard chart, though still features some WORLD'S END-exclusive gimmicks.
- θ΅ "Warehouse" - Early versions of charts that got shelved during development.
- ζ "Invite" - Charts imported from another game entirely, such as "Two-faced Lovers" mirroring the note chart from Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA or "ENDYMION" having a replica of the Single Challenge chart from DanceDanceRevolution.
- θ "Dance" - Read as "mai", charts that emulate maimai.
- εΌΎ "Bullet" - Regular notes are replaced with flick notes.
- ζ "Time" - The song's BPM shifts at set points.
- ζ "Song" - The notes are timed to the lyrics of the song.
- ι "Speed" - Chart scroll speed changes or are very fast.
- ε "Half" - The chart is compressed to fit half the play space.
- ε "Lie" - Special April Fools' Day charts that are usually parodies of existing songs.
- θ¬ "Mystery" - A secret chart hidden behind a puzzle, used solely by one song.
- ! and ? doesn't explain itself cleanly, as it's a thematic mashup of gimmicks by the note designer. "!" charts tend to be undefined in nature or involve dodging damaging notes on a set path, and "?" charts tend to encompass multiple clear gimmicks or irregular note speeds.
- Hard Mode Perks: Some skills award a significant boost to gauge gain, but activate Sudden Death if too many of a particular judgement or worse are obtained β not only is the song cut short, but all clear blocks will be wiped out. The most potent such skill will kill you if you hit just 10 notes short of a Justice Critical.
- Harder Than Hard: The difficulties go Basic, Advanced, Expert, and Master. CHUNITHM NEW adds a new ULTIMA difficulty, in a similar vein to RE:MASTER songs in the maimai series.
- Kaizo Trap: Inverted with "MEGALOVANIA", which has notes before the song begins. This is in reference to its source game's Sans boss fight; unlike other bosses in the game, he gets the first strike and uses that first strike to unleash one of his deadliest attacks.
- Lighter and Softer: Whereas the original game and its PLUS version primarily use black and gold as its dominant colors, CHUNITHM AIR and its respective PLUS version use a sky theme with lots of turquoise and purple.
- Mythology Gag:
- Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! commissioned songs will give their corresponding Story Event names from the game as a title reward.
- "Tsumayo-Ji" is an extremely unique title in that it is the only title that requires owning other Titles to unlock. Namely, it requires "Mira-Cra Park!" (play "Identity (104th Class NEW Ver.)" on all MASTER and lower difficulties), "Ruri thinks, therefore Ruri is." (clear "Identity (104th Class NEW Ver.)" with ALL JUSTICE), and "Hello Megu!" (clear "Identity (104th Class NEW Ver.)" with S Rank while Megumi Fujishima is the active character), reflecting Hime Anyoji being Mira-Cra Park!'s Ascended Fangirl and initially chatting in their With X Meet streams under her user name "Tsumayou-Ji".
- "ENDYMION" gets crossed over from DanceDanceRevolution. Its WORLD'S END chart has the chart credit of "SINGLE CHALLENGE", due to replicating its DDR Single Challenge chart. During the break near the end of the song, the game breaks away from the conventional CHUNITHM note presentation to feature trace lines floating up to replicate the DDR note presentation.
- Non-Standard Game Over:
- Certain skills, usually ones that award a substantial amount of gauge, will end the song prematurely upon meeting a specific condition, usually getting too many Misses, Attacks, or non-Critical Justices. Any clear tiles you earned during the song will be voided, with the "Skill Result" field showing "DEATH" where the amount that the skill assisted or diminished your gauge gain would normally be.
- The optional Track Skip modifier will end the song early if a player-set score target (grades starting from S or their personal best) is no longer possible to achieve.
- Portmanteau: The title is one on the words "chuunibyou" and "rhythm", or "tune/tuning" β- which is spelled as γγ₯γΌγγ³γ° (Chu-ning) in Japanese β and "rhythm" according to in an interviewπ Image
by Japanese game publication 4Gamer. - Rank Inflation:
- The ranks go D, C, B, BB, BBB, A, AA, AAA, S(+), SS(+), SSS(+).
- Scores seem to be out of 1 million points, however, it is possible to go slightly over a million, and in fact, you need a little more than 1 million (1,007,500) for an SSS. This is because while a Justice gives 100% of the "maximum" note score, a Justice Critical gives you 101%.note The maximum score is 1,010,000, corresponding to 101%. If you score an All Justice, at least 75% of your hits need to be Justice Critical to nail the SSS.
Just to emphasize the inflation, the Justice Critical judgement isn't even particularly hard to get by arcade rhythm game standards, as the timing window for it is Β±33 milliseconds, the same as "perfect" judgements in many other rhythm games.To compareDanceDanceRevolution's MARVELOUS window and beatmania IIDX's P-GREAT window are both Β±17 milliseconds. A 95% score in most other rhythm games means the player did well, while here, 950,000 is actually considered only an average score.
- Regional Bonus: Players can earn a fourth track for their credit by playing at least one song in Cabinet-to-Cabinet Play, but only in the International version, not the Chinese or even Japanese versions.
- Required Spinoff Crossover: Several songs from maimai and O.N.G.E.K.I. make their appearance here, and in return, songs from CHUNITHM cross over there.
- Scoring Points: Scoring is based strictly on accuracy. Getting a Justice gets you 100% of the note score, getting a Justice Critical gets you 101%, Attack gets you 50%, and a Miss gets you nothing. Hold and Slide notes are each counted as multiple notes. The score is based around 1,000,000 being a 100% score, with 1,010,000 as the actual maximum score obtainable.
- Shout-Out:
- Like maimai, the highest speed setting is called "Sonic".
- The song "The wheel to the right" references an infamous printing mistake in a gaming magazine that wrote "γγ³γγ«γε³γ«" (steering wheel to the right) as "γ€γ³γδΊΊγε³γ«" (Indians to the right), the song has a sample of the quote and later, the comments for the WORLD'S END chart in this game and UTAGE chart in maimai also reference this.
- Socialization Bonus: Cabinet-to-Cabinet Play is a feature that lets players on linked cabinets play the same song together. Both/all players contribute to a shared "Chain" counter that basically functions as team-wide combo, and there are bonuses for reaching Chain milestones as well as achieving a Full Chain (a Full Combo from all players). Finally, in International builds, all participants in a Cabinet-to-Cabinet round will be eligable for a fourth song in their credit (even if they only play one song as C2C).
- Some Dexterity Required: Some patterns involving Hold or Slide notes are best done by crossing your arms.
- Subverted: you don't have cross your arms, you can bring your hands together and then move them apart and it'll still count. Double subverted if one hand is dealing with Hold/Slide notes and the other is dealing with Air-Action notes.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The game itself doesn't seem to have many particularly horrifying moments, being a normal-looking rhythm game albeit with the occasional Fanservice character design. However, some of the unlockable stories that can be read on the game's official website, such as the "Surface Metaverse" and "Sibyl Spirit Chronicles" verses feature some surprisingly gruesome or disturbing content which can include themes like mass murder or even sexual assault.
- Too Long; Didn't Dub: SUPER STAR is mostly translated into English, however Character Skill descriptions either only have partial translations alongside the original Japanese text, while Skill names and other Skills' descriptions have no translation at all; song titles, artist names, and chart designer names are also left untranslated and unromanized. Starting from CHUNITHM NEW, Skill descriptions are all translatednote likely because there are far fewer skills, being a standardized set rather than a slew of character-specific skills, but Skill names and song metadata are left in Japanese.
- Uniqueness Decay: VERSE changed a lot of the songs' difficulties so that Level 15 and Level 15+ charts are made far more common, when they were usually reserved for the boss songs in the series.
- Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Unlocking a song's Master chart requires an S rank on the Expert chart first. Ultima charts are unlocked the same way (past versions required an SS rank on both Expert and Master). Alternatively, you can spend in-game currency to buy "Master Play" and "Ultima Play" tickets to play any song on those difficulties (the Ultima Play ticket also allowing access to Master) regardless of whether you've naturally unlocked them, but you can only play those difficulties on the credit that you use either ticket on.
- Unwinnable by Design: You need to fill the gauge a certain number of times in order to clear the song, and the number of gauges you need to fill depends on the map among other conditions. It can happen that you are unable to fill enough gauges to clear the song, even if you get a perfect score (i.e. All Justice Critical); you also need the right Characters and Skills to be able to meet certain clear conditions. That said, Death Is a Slap on the Wrist; clear/fail only matters for map progression and unless you are playing in course mode, you will always get a full set of stages even if you fail all of them.
ALL JUSTICE!
New record! Rank: SSS+!!