For many, arcades are a relic of one’s personal last; the kind of place one hasn’t visited in years due to the nearest one being some triple-digit number of miles kilometers away.

For others, like me, arcades are current–very current. In fact, the nearest (good) arcade from my house is less than four miles away. It is here that I get to play a very special game: DJMAX Technika.

Developed by Pentavision, the same folks who brought out the beatmania-like (to the point of legal trouble) DJMAX Online and DJMAX Portable series, Technika is a different kind of picking from these two; rather, Technika is a touch-screen game, played somewhat like a cross between Elite Beat Agents and Lumines. A white line sweeps down one hotdog-style half of the screen, and as it passes over notes, you touch these notes, rather than pressing buttons like in other rhythm games. Since I’m here to talk about how I’m doing in this game, not what the game’s about, you can get further details about Technika through this guide that a friend of mine’s chalked up.

I haven’t had many opportunities to play Technika; since the semester started, I’ve had limited opportunities to go to the arcade. But I did get a chance this morning to play a few rounds.

I decided to take another jab at Technical Mode‘s Heartbeat Set. My songs for this are Divine Service, Stop, and Remember, in that order. Most players tend to replace Stop with Play the Future, but I refuse to play it because I have a mental allergy to “jackhammer” notes.

So I force myself through “Divine Service” (a song I admittedly find boring, and only catches my interest when I get to the strings of drag notes), almost no kinks here. “Stop” is a bit trickier because the white line scrolls at double speed, plus the “movin’-groovin’-movin’-groovin’” pattern in which I have to hit 1/8 regular notes combined with 1/8 repeat notes). “Remember” is fairly trickier as it’s also a double-speed chart combined with an even-faster song, so instead of being relaxed and (in the words of a popular Touhou meme) taking it easy, I frantically scramble my hands to hit eighth-note after eighth-note. With about 80-90% of my life meter left, I move on to the boss song: Colours of Sorrow. (Due to some sort of allergy/disease/curse/condition/destiny that prevents me from ever getting 95% MAX or more, I thankfully will never see the even-worse alternate boss, Area 7.) The beginning of this song is a test to see if I will be able to live to see the end of this song; if I can handle the “da-da da-da da-da” notes, I may have a shot when, after, a nice long breather section, this sequence repeats itself multiple times. If not, excellent but let’s go better next time.

I also tried the Customizer Set, the most difficult set in the game (and will remain the most difficult, as something tells me that the Platinum Crew service will be permanently confined to Asian countries which means no Challenger Set), just for lulz. Y goes pretty smoothly, as it’s just its Popular chart with more hold-this-note-down-while-hitting-regular-notes stuff. Okay, let’s try Shoreline, which is one of my most favorite songs in the game. Nothing could prepare me for the hold note-fest at the end that would bring my life meter below the required 50% for a stage 2 clear.

Popular Mode is…alright I guess. Since I can’t hit notes accurately for crap, for one set of three songs I decide to do an all-Blind run (in which the white timing bar is invisible, forcing you to play the (still-visible) notes by ear). For my last few plays, I had to play Melody twice, first time ending pretty poorly with a clear but lots of Misses and Breaks (and thanks to a friend saying this song is easy to time, I catch Thunder Force III-itis for a bit), second time ending a bit better. And for my last song before leaving? Uh, Cherokee + Blind + Fade Out = BAD, BAD IDEA.

Someday, I’ll be able to play accurately enough to finally play the alternate final bosses of the First Step and Electro E(-)P(enis) sets. That, or be forever stuck in improvement stagnation hell.