maimai is a series of biyearly arcade rhythm games released almost exclusively in the Asia and Oceania regions played on a unique arcade cabinet that looks similar to a front loaded washing machine. To play, players must wear a pair of gloves(to avoid friction burn at higher play and dampen impact on machine), and register an Aime Card.
Gameplay[]
The machine contains a circular screen with an interactive ring around it. The goal of the game is to tap the correct button or touch the screen at the edge of the ring as the notes appear to cross it, similar in concept to Samba de Amigo's gameplay style.
There are several different note styles, the player must perform different actions with in order to proceed.
- Tap notes: The simplest notes; press the screen or button as the note lines up with the circle. If two rings appear at once they'll be in yellow and be simultaneous presses.
- Hold notes: Require the player to hold the button or screen for the duration of the note's length.
- Slide notes: A star will appear on an arrowed line. Touch the star as it crosses the line.
- Touch notes: Four triangles will appear and converge into a square point first. Touch the note on screen when it closes.
- Touch Hold notes: Touch and hold the glowing diamond shape until it disappears.
- EX notes: Bright pink notes that behave similar to the normal Tap notes but require less accurate tapping to score big.
- Break notes: Shining rings and stars that contain higher scores but contain higher scores.
Depending on how accurate the button/screen presses are the player will recieve a note stating how accurate they were, as well as being told if they were early or late with the press:
- Critical Perfect - 100% accurate
- Perfect - Very close to perfection
- Great - Done with great timing
- Good - The button was hit in time
- Miss - Inaccurate button press.
Players must get a score of above 80% to clear the song, however it is possible to get past 100% for top scoring. Players will be given a rank depending on how they perform.
The titles also utilise the Aime card system allowing players to save their personal data from each cabinet onto the next.
Partners[]
By default the player's partner will be Derrakuma, the little 'lion' (actually a polar bear with a maimai ring around his face) but other characters can be unlocked and replace Derrakuma as the player's 'partner'. Partners are for the most part cosmetic only, but are often only available to obtain from limited time events, and are gone after that period is over unlike the music tracks which automatically unlock.
In the maimai DX onwards titles, there's a feature that will allow partners who can aid unlocks on certain islands to be automatically selected from the player's current partners, making unlocking additional rewards easier.
In maimai Finale the partner can be interacted with by touching them on screen.
maimai DX Buddies Plus introduced a virtual pet element to the partners by allowing users to buy presents for their partner using maimiles, the ingame currency given for beating songs, and raise their friendship levels. If you give presents to high friendship levelled partners you have a chance of obtaining a gift back from them.
Collaborations and Crossovers[]
maimai has regular crossovers with Sega's other rhythm arcade cabinets CHUNITHM and O.N.E.G.E.K.I. with these crossovers allowing players to obtain songs and even characters from the other titles to play with.
Games[]
- maimai (2012)
- maimai Plus (2012)
- maimai Green (2013)
- maimai Green Plus (2014)
- maimai Orange (2014)
- maimai Orange Plus (2015)
- maimai Pink (2015) - First title to release outside of Japan, releasing in Indonesia.
- maimai Pink Plus (2016) - First title to be released in the US.
- maimai Murasaki (2016)
- maimai Murasaki Plus (2017) - First title to be launched in Singapore.
- maimai Milk (2017)
- maimai Milk Plus (2018)
- maimai Finale (2018) - Last iteration of the original maimai machines. First title to be released in the UK.
- maimai DX (2019) - First iteration of the new batch of maimai machines.
- maimai DX Plus (2020) - First release of an 'international' version.
- maimai DX Splash (2020)
- maimai DX Splash Plus (2021)
- maimai DX Universe (2021)
- maimai DX Universe Plus (2022)
- maimai DX Festival (2022)
- maimai DX Festival Plus (2023)
- maimai DX Buddies (2023) - Second title to be released in the US.
- maimai DX Buddies Plus (2024)
- maimai DX PRiSM (2025) - added KaleiDXscope, which is a big update to the Maimai franchise
- maimai DX PRiSM Plus (2025) - Final batch of KaleiDXscope/7sRef. This update trolled players with an error screen
- maimai DX CiRCLE (2025)
