Love Live School Idol Festival After School Activity on PS4

Like Project Diva Arcade receiving a console release on PS4 and Switch and being an arcade spinoff to the original Project Diva series, it seems that Love Live School Idol Festival After School Activity is following the same route as well via the upcoming PS4 release that will come out next year, featuring songs, costumes and stages from the arcade version. From the game's official website, you can see which song corresponds to which costume which may seem like a nice touch but there's a severe downside of the game.

The downside is that, you'll have to buy tons of packs of songs and costumes as DLCs and the initial amount of songs and costumes isn't that much when you get the game. Project Diva Future Tone on PS4 has two large DLCs with extra stuffs being later DLCs and the physical package version bundles the first two DLCs. However, in the case of Love Live School Idol Festival After School Activity PS4 version, it goes in the route of past mobile rhythm game days where newer packs of songs added to the game will be paid-DLCs via in-app purchases. Jubeat Plus, Reflec Beat Plus and even some of Rayark rhythm games are notorious for this practice but in case of Rayark rhythm games on mobile, the number of free songs seems to be larger.

As a console port of the arcade game based on the original game that started on mobile way back in 2013, the controls will be a bit different while the gameplay concept still mimics the mobile game original the arcade game uses. A Switch version may mimic the arcade version and the mobile game closer with the touchscreen method.

Like Project Diva Arcade series and its console counterpart, there will be Performance Viewing Mode where you can make your own live show set list and move the camera freely. You can even take screenshots of the live show if you will.

There's even the material collection for costume making and I don't know if this is like a good alternative to buying costume DLC or not. However, other costume materials may require purchasing their corresponding songs.

Overall, the plans like that from Square Enix from the upcoming console version of the arcade game had drawn mixed impressions from the fans. The practice of making paid small packs of songs and costumes while having small amount of free songs in the game has drawn disappointment but the upside is that, it is a console port of the arcade game with tons of songs to go through.

Last month, the arcade game received the final update and after that, there will be no new songs and character cards that the support for the arcade version ended by then.

Progress update

Sometime ago, I forgot to turn off the charging adapter for my main tablet after the battery's reached full capacity and when the tablet was turned off, it wouldn't be turned on again even with the cable plugged in so it looks like my progress on the mobile game of LLSIF came to a halt until recently when I migrated my progress to my phone thanks to having linked the game to my SIF ID. By then, people are already into the next-gen mobile sequel, Love Live School Idol Festival All Stars, which has 3D in-game graphics for gameplay although the gameplay goes on an easier route with the character card management being on a larger scale. At this time, it looks like there will be way too many unlocked songs to go through after the progress migration but I should have migrated way earlier than that.

Million Arthur Arcana Blood by Square Enix & Examu

As we probably know, Million Arthur Arcana Blood is more or less the forth game to come out on Nesica X Live 2 service in the arcades. It is the second major one besides King of Fighters XIV. There might be releases of other games on that service like Ultra Street Fighter IV and Blazblue Central Fiction but that doesn't count as they were originally released on the previous-gen arcade system so to Playstation 4 and Xbox One, they are one-generation behind as if they can be ported to their predecessor consoles.
Originally, the Million Arthur series started off as the card battle game on mobile devices and the first one happened to be released outside Japan although the later ones had some Asian releases. The series is so popular that it has other media contents like the short-animated spinoffs which can be viewed on Square Enix's official account or something and especially the upcoming spinoff arcade fighting game. Similar to Nitroplus Blasterz and Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, you can summon Knights through their corresponding commands in addition to using special and super moves belonging to the playable character. Some of the characters don't have the actual names and are therefore, named as the type of Arthurs. You'll rather want to go for the good type of Arthur although the Thief Arthur is somewhat one of the fan favorites.
There are several game modes so far like the Local Network Match, Online Match, Story Mode/Arcade Mode, Training Mode, Tutorial Mode and even the Friend Match which is something I don't know of. And since this is the first arcade-exclusive on Nesica X Live 2, it can be more a challenge for players going for Single-Player modes. I don't know if you'll get interrupted by other players jumping in during those modes or not.
From what I saw from Baba Game Center Mikado's official YouTube channel, the interface of Nesica X Live 2 game selection screen has some elements similar to the Steam game page. There may be videos and screenshots to preview of course. I'm not sure if Steam TV Mode or Steam OS has similar stuff like that like you can see videos and screenshots of whatever game you're looking at. Right now, the game still has yet to be released and hence, the location test progress according to the latest update. Normally, during game location testing, the game is still in prototype form and video filming and phototaking of those games are not allowed. Not even video capture is also allowed as well but somehow, that arcade center has the rights to show the location test version in action. There are other gameplay videos of the game prior to the release date in Square Enix's official YouTube channel. Even the opening video from that channel has a confirmation that Team Arcana of Examu is the actual developers of the game. Before that video existed, I already had a guess that Examu might have developed it with Square Enix being the publisher probably due to the fact that the game has the word, Arcana, in the game title and it's a fighting game. Other fun facts included the assets and elements taken from other Examu games as well like Nitroplus Blasterz, Arcana Heart, etc.
The graphics are more or less better and on par with Arc System Works fighting games with 3D backgrounds and 2D sprites although the overall mixture makes them one generation behind like the game could have been suited for Playstation 3 and Vita releases. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle is also guilty of having previous generation era graphical assets but from the recent character reveal video from Arc System Works' official YouTube channel, the Distortion Drive/Super background is changed. Like Arcana Heart 3 Love Max, pressing ABC activates something similar to Extend Force which changes background.
The release date for the game will be 21 November in Japan.

Gunslinger Stratos series

Perhaps, Gunslinger Stratos series is the true demonstration of what Taito Type X3 system can do. The actual specs used for the series are Core i5, 8GB RAM along with Windows Embedded Standard 7 64-Bit and 1080p arcade gaming. What's less difficult is that you can see the on-screen specs of Type X3 system instead of the sticker of the Type X2 actual specs. You can see the graphics card along with the amount of RAM the Type X2 uses when booting up but that's not enough.
The game itself is the online 4vs4 third-person-shooter where you use dual gun controllers like it's a combination of the arcade rail shooter and actual controller elements. You're supposed to defeat the opponent team to win the game by emptying the opponent team cost. The way you decrease the opponent team cost/health gauge is to defeat one of the opponent team members. The gameplay may be comparable to other TPS games on consoles and computers but the rules here may be different as you're supposed to decrease the opponent team's health guage to win by defeating opponent team members. Knocking one opponent team member out causes that opponent player to respawn at a specified position similar to how TPS and FPS games work in multiplayer modes.
Story-wise, it's about two dimensions trying to collide with each other, causing mysterious disappearance and the only way to prevent this is to send the participants back to the year 2015 for VS-team battle. There happens to be two versions of the same team except that they belong to different dimensions. Defeating alternate selves is the way to prevent that serious catastrophe from happening but at the cost of the disappearance of the defeated team's dimension. A simple story like this along with the gameplay rules is one effective strategy.
The second game has the Overdrive-like feature and the third game has the Cross-Link System which enables the entire team to activate it together. There's also the PC version, Gunslinger Stratos Reloaded, which was discontinued. It is a fun answer to the arcade version but I guess that the even PC version is for use in Japan only. The only thing the US website of the franchise offers is the animated adaption which is kind of awful to be frank as the gameplay of the series is extremely effective and fun to the core that the story is less important. If the game's important factor is the gameplay even though it has story with animated cutscenes and such, depending on the game genre, an animated adaption may or may not happen.
If you come across and watch the animated adaption of the franchise before discovering the games themselves, shame on you. You should know that it is a game franchise that started 5 years ago for the arcades unless you want to be ignorant about this introductory part of it.