Diva Arcade

In general I felt that overall gameplay was easier, especially for easy and normal modes. I think this is expected because people are paying money for every 1 or 2 songs so if they made the game too hard it would be stupid and unappealing. Still, there are a few things that increase the difficulty, directly or indirectly:

1.) The combo button presses. Its not the the combos themselves that are hard (although it might take some getting used to), but that it seems to break your chain of concentration of following up what to do afterwards. At least how I play, I read which buttons to press ahead of time (in the case I didn't already memorize which button comes next), but when the combos come up all I see is those flashy red buttons and lightening effects, and I couldn't figure out as easily what was the button that I was supposed to press next.

2.) (Project Diva PS* players only) Arrangement of buttons. In general I think its easier, but the fact that the triangle is now on the other side of the circle throws me off once in a while. This is because on the PS* games, the triangle is just above the circle so you can slide your thumb right above. I think that while the general populace does better with this arrangement, people used to the PS* games might also need to break their traditional idea of the arrangement on the PS*.

Or maybe it's just me and I suck.

3.) That stupid flashing bar on the bottom that indicates if you're going to fail or not. This is the most annoying and terrible thing in Diva Arcade and I'm not sure if it's on purpose or if it's a flaw. At least in the PS* games if you're going to fail you don't really get distracted, and you only end with a "not clear" at the end. Diva arcade has this highly flashy and annoying "YOU'RE GOING TO FAIL IF YOU DON'T KEEP THIS UP" bar on the bottom and is really really distracting when you're trying to concentrate. I hate this feature the most. Maybe there's a way to turn it off, but I don't know how.

The people at Round 1 says that the trial period ends at March 18th, but if the feedback turns out to be good, they'll bring it back permanently around April 18th. So maybe people going to AX (coughmetacough) can have a chance to play.

EDIT: on a completely unrelated note, I realized I went to play Diva Arcade on 3/9. WHO WOULD HAVE KNEW