Cytus

Cytus is a collection of rhythm games developed by Taiwanese game developer Rayark. The original Cytus rhythm game was first released on the iOS platform on January 12, 2012. The game was later released on Android on August 7, 2012. A port for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Mobile, titled Cytus: Lambda, was released on June 26, 2013.[1] An arcade version titled Cytus: Omega in collaboration with Capcom was revealed at JAEPO in February 2015[2] and was set for location testing in July 2015,[3] but was ultimately cancelled on March 30, 2018.[4] A sequel game, Cytus II, was released on January 18, 2018 for iOS and March 2018 for Android.[5][6] A remake Cytus Alpha (stylized as Cytus α) was also released for the Nintendo Switch on April 25, 2019.[7]

Cytus
Screenshot of Cytus II gameplay. The Cytus gameplay is functionally identical.
Developer(s)Rayark
Publisher(s)Rayark
Director(s)Yung-Ting Li
Producer(s)Ming-Yang Yu
SeriesCytus 
EngineUnity
Platform(s)iOS, Android, PlayStation Vita (PlayStation Mobile)
ReleaseiOS: 12 January 2012
Android: 13 April 2012
Genre(s)Rhythm game
Mode(s)Single Player

Plot

Cytus

The story of Cytus is carried through its 10 main chapters as well as a prologue.[8] The story revolves around the protagonist, Vanessa, who lives in a 22nd-century world where robots with human memories are the only remaining sentient beings while living humans are killed by a mutant virus. Due to limited memory space, human emotions are stored in the form of music in "Cytus", and by playing the songs, the robots are able to revive their human emotions. The plot features the disaster and the protagonist's struggle with identity.[8] The story is told in-game through various cutscenes that are unique to the chapter title songs; individual songs within each chapter are at most only marginally relevant to the plot, except for a limited few.

Cytus II

Cytus II, the sequel to Cytus, takes place about seven hundred years after the establishment of the virtual Internet space Cytus (stylized as cyTus). As more and more people used virtual Internet, more and more musicians held concerts on iM, a social networking service. One musician, Aesir (stylized as Æsir), decided to hold a large virtual concert in Node 08, one of the many nodes in Cytus. Attendees of the event included Paff (stylized as PAFF), a popular singer, Neko Asakura (stylized as NEKO#ΦωΦ), a famous streamer on iM, and Robo Head (stylized as ROBO_Head), an AI robot. A bunch of top musicians performed, but the organizer, Aesir, was nowhere to be seen, even after the end of the event. By browsing through iM and through each character's private "OS logs", players can unlock new songs and gain insight into the story of Cytus.

Later, Paff and her media company, Monophonic Entertainment, announced the date for her annual event, PAFFCON. Tickets for her event sold out quickly. At the event, while Paff was performing she collapsed and was sent to the hospital, where she would wake up a few days later and start recovering.

While Paff was in the hospital, one of Neko's streams got hacked and attacked by Aesir. Neko was arrested by Node 08's Administration Bureau because she was suspected of launching the widespread attack on her fans. Meanwhile, Robo Head later discovers that their memory of Aesir was corrupted, and starts data recovery. People wanted to know who was responsible for the hacking. After Robo Head completes data recovery, he learns that Aesir did show up at the event and that they wiped everyone's memory of Aesir after they finished performing.

Soon after, a new band, Crystal Punk created their new account and host their first major event. Paff was originally going to attend, but her health did not improve. Neko was acquitted a few weeks later by the Administration Bureau. Paff left the hospital and was reported missing by Monophonic Entertainment. Her real identity, Aroma White, was also released by the company. This sparked protests outside of Monophonic's headquarters regarding the location of Paff. The lead singer of Crystal Punk, Cherry, was inadvertently injured while entering the building's headquarters. Cherry was discharged from the hospital a few days later.

One afternoon, while walking home from school, Neko encounters Paff outside of her home on a rainy day. Neko decides to take Paff in and protect her. Paff was missing for two weeks. Neko's fans and family members grew suspicious that she was hiding something. At the same time, Robo Head was analyzing memory files and eventually overwrote their "Supreme Command"—an order that they must follow, and heads back to the node where they were created, Node 03, to locate and find Nora. A few years earlier, Robo Head's supreme command was reprogrammed by Nora to prevent them from returning to Node 03 or Nora.

Not long after, the entire iM system was being affected by a data corruption bug. Eventually, iM was attacked by Aesir, preventing anyone from logging in and scrambling messages so readers could not see them. The attack led to Xenon (real name: Simon Jackson) being arrested on charges of doing everything that Aesir did: delete memories and attack the virtual Internet. Xenon pleads no contest to these charges, and he is sent to prison.

After Paff is located by her sister, Helena, Paff discovers that she has the memories of two people: Aroma White and Kaori Minamiya. Years earlier, her career started through a talent show at her school where the winner would sign a contract with an entertainment company. On the way to one of her events, she was seriously injured in a car accident. Aroma was sent to the hospital in critical condition. Noah, Helena's husband, was able to save Aroma by transplanting her memories into that of another body, Kaori. Through that, Paff could sing songs none of her family heard of, but she lacked the ability to remember before the car accident. Paff goes to Node 03 along with Neko and Hayato, a reporter, to learn more about her past.

Unknown to the other characters, an Architect, or an intelligent AI robot that assisted with the reconstruction of human society, attacked Neko's stream and iM. Architects also have the ability to feel emotions that humans can feel. Ivy (serial number: OPCI_2501_IV) was attempting to wake another Architect, Vanessa (serial number: OPCI_2501_V), through the Cytus platform. Ivy woke up 500 years after "the decommission", or when Architect robots were deactivated after human society was recovered from the "ender virus". She needed to collect memories of Ivy and Vanessa in order to wake her up. Ivy finally woke Vanessa up through OS space, a space in Cytus where people can meet and interact; however, because of a video that another Architect, Ilka, showed her before the Decommission, Vanessa's core was corrupted, changing her from thinking about helping with humanity to finding a way to end humanity. Ivy wants to find a way to save Vanessa.

After Ivy establishes contact with Vanessa, she encounters and captures Noah and asks him to transfer Vanessa's memories to that of an empty Architect unit to attempt to wake her up. Noah is unsuccessful and injured, and the empty unit is damaged beyond repair. As a safety measure, Ivy sets up a firewall in an attempt to prevent Vanessa from hacking or compromising any other Internet-connected devices.

Meanwhile, two members of Crystal Punk, Cherry and ConneR, break Xenon out of jail. In Node 03, Paff and Neko encountered Robo Head and met Nora. Nora is the leader of Kyuu Hou Hai, one of many gangs that prevail in Node 03. Nora explained to Paff that she has the ability to see into OS space. Nora had used this ability before, but it left her vision trapped in OS space, leaving her unable to see in the real world without technology. At one point, when entering OS space, Paff encounters Vanessa and discovers her intent to eradicate humanity. Kyuu Hou Hai was attacked a few days later by drones. The group successfully fight off the drones, but Cherry gets shot in the process. These same drone attacks also destroyed Joe's cafe.

Cherry was placed on life support in Kyuu Hou Hai. Nora guaranteed that she would recover successfully, however, the electricity at Kyuu Hou Hai blacks out. While backup power was able to reenergize lights and doors, the life support Cherry is on fails, and she dies. The band she created is disbanded as none of the other members knew how to sing well.

After a successful investigation in Node 13, ConneR determined that Ivy was likely the culprit of the drone attacks. He, Nora, and the rest of the group return to Node 08 to stop the destruction of humanity. After encountering Ivy at A.R.C., a technology company, they learn that Vanessa is causing the chaos. Soon after, Vanessa hacks the weather system and reprograms it to extreme weather to spread a virus, triggering the end of humanity. Noah attempts to disrupt Vanessa's signals by sending an electric shock to damage the robots, electrocuting himself in the process. Ivy successfully goes into the Library at A.R.C. and successfully encountered Vanessa up following the advice of another Architect, Rin, to talk to her calmly to snap Vanessa out of the attitude of desiring to destroy humanity. Not long after, the A.R.C. Armed Forces find Ivy and kill her, forcing Paff, Neko, Nora, Xenon, ConneR, Robo Head, and the player into a final battle to inject a virus that they created earlier through OS space into Vanessa, ultimately killing her and restoring the peace that precedes. During the final battle, Paff calls out to the player for help sharing the burden of the virus in OS space.

The story has three endings, depending on the player's choices in the final battle. If the player fails to kill Vanessa by tapping the last note on-screen, then Vanessa wipes out all of humanity. The only character the player can play is Vanessa, which forces the player back into the final battle.

If the player fails to answer Paff's call for help Paff dies from the burden of transferring the virus and her memories to Vanessa, who comments that Paff's memories are beautiful before she dies, and Paff's sister, Helena, is left to grieve.

If the player shares the load of the virus by tapping the note that appears before the battle, then Vanessa is destroyed. Paff returns to singing and accepts her dual identity as Aroma and Kaori.

If Vanessa does not destroy humanity, then the player will find themselves awoken in a hospital three months later. A.R.C. decides to decommission the library and to improve transparency. Rin breaks out of A.R.C. and starts living a normal life, blending in with the crowd and hiding the fact that she is an Architect. Joe rebuilds his cafe that was destroyed in a drone attack, and Xenon's sister is successfully recovered from OS space. In a post-credits scene, Ivy can be seen damaged in OS space surrounded by a group of Architects.

Voice Cast
  • Sumire Uesaka as PAFF / Aroma White / Kaori Minamiya, an introverted popular idol from Node 08 who has a split past that resulted from an operation performed after a severe car accident.
  • Yumiri Hanamori as Neko Asakura, a popular live streamer from Node 08 who enjoys gaming and gossip on the iM platform.
  • Tomokazu Seki as Xenon / Simon Jackson, a former A.R.C. administrator known for his hacking abilities and his musical ability in the band Crystal Punk.
  • Eiji Takeuchi as ConneR / Colin Neumann, Jr., a researcher and musician who is interested in archaeology.
  • Fairouz Ai as Cherry, the lead singer of the Crystal Punk band.
  • Manaka Iwami as Nora, the creator of Robo Head and the leader of Kyuu Hou Hai, who possesses the ability to view electronic signals in OS space. She is unable to communicate to the real world or move around without the assistance of technologies.
  • Maki Kawase as Ivy (OPCI_2501_IV), an Architect who looked for ways to wake Vanessa up after being shut down for several centuries due to the Decommission.
  • Tomori Kusunoki as Vanessa (OPCI_2501_V), an Architect acquainted with Ivy whose malfunction results in actions meant to end humanity.
  • Mamiko Noto as Rin, an Architect who is employed at A.R.C.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Cytus relies on Active Scan Line, a line that moves up and down across the screen.[9] The player must tap circular objects, known as Notes, as the Active Scan Line passes over them, following the music. Different types of notes are used: Click Note (a single circular note, requires tapping the object in time), Drag Note (a continuous track of notes, requires dragging along the track) and Hold Note (has an extended ribbon meter, requires the note to be held until the meter is filled).

The notes to be hit as the line rises are colored blue and purple (light green in Cytus II, while those as the line falls are colored yellow and green (light blue in Cytus II).[9] Each note provides a score based on its accuracy, which can be "Perfect", "Good", "Bad" or "Miss!". Hitting consecutive notes in a row with either a "Good" or "Perfect" rating will result in a combo, which provides a score boost that increases as the combo rises. At the end of a song, the player is given a score out of 1,000,000, with a minimum of 700,000 required to clear it.[9] The player also receives a letter grade: "Fail" if a song isn't cleared, C at 700,000 points, B at 800,000 points, A at 900,000 points, S at 950,000 points, and Million Master at the maximum 1,000,000.

There is a secondary scoring system, "Technical Points" or "TP". This introduced a new, stricter rating known as a "Rainbow Perfect" denoted by a rainbow outline on the disappearing note effect. TP is calculated purely on note accuracy and is given as a percentage.

Each song has two difficulty levels—Easy and Hard, with a difficulty rating from 1 to 9. Cytus II has three to four difficultly levels—Easy, Hard, Chaos, and Glitch—with difficulty ratings ranging from 1 to 15. The player may also choose how the notes fade in and toggle tap effects.

The story of Cytus spans through 10 main chapters as well as a prologue, and is told through various cutscenes.

Playable songs

Cytus includes 210 songs available for play in the game, spanning a variety of genres including pop music, trance music and drum and bass. The music is composed and performed by independent composers and artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Vocaloid engines are also used.[9][10] A number of songs also has alternate version(s) in addition to the normal version. These can be called upon by interacting with the song artwork in the song selection screen. Gestures used include tapping, swiping and holding at a specific timing and location.

Cytus also includes a series of songs in image of the overarching plot, collectively named Cytus: Alive, added in version 6.0 in July 2014.[11] Unlike normal songs, Cytus: Alive songs contains added plot animation during gameplay.

Releases and pricing

Cytus is available through the Apple App Store and Google Play. The full game charges a base price plus optional in-app purchases for players to purchase additional chapters of playable songs.

The release on Google Play is free but features a cooldown timer before starting each song. The cooldown is removed when the full price is paid.[12]

The PlayStation Vita and PlayStation Mobile port Cytus: Lambda includes the then-exclusive chapter Prologue: Live, otherwise identical to its smartphone releases. A teaser video was released onto YouTube prior to release on June 7, 2013.[13] This version has since been made unavailable with the shutdown of Playstation Mobile.

Cytus α, a remake of the game for the Nintendo Switch, was released on April 25, 2019.[14] This version, along with a revamped interface, added two new chapters, extra story elements, and an online Battle Score mode.[7]

Million Downloads Plan

Rayark Games announced the Million Downloads Plan (Chinese: 百首新歌，百萬下載; lit. 'hundred new songs, million downloads') in the wake of "illegal piracy harming the sales figures of Cytus".[12][15] Starting from Version 2.0.0, a 10-song chapter would be made available to all players for free for each 100,000 paid downloads achieved, up to a million paid downloads or ten chapters.[16][17] The plan is completed with Version 8.0, released in July 2015, opening ten chapters for free, including the special Chapter Million featuring remixes of past songs.[18][19]

Reception

Cytus

As of June 2020, Cytus ranks #7 in the iOS App Store's "Music" category in the United States.[21]

Smartphone game reviewer TouchArcade gave the game 4 stars out of 5, saying that "the gameplay is pretty simple, but well executed", though noting it lacked a health system and had fairly loose hit detection.[20]

Cytus α

Cytus α received mostly positive reviews. Ryan Craddock of Nintendo Life gave the game a "great" 8 out of 10, praising the game's mechanics as "something particularly satisfying about dancing around the screen playing a musical version of whack-a-mole", but that its higher price compared to Rayark's other titles Deemo and Voez meant that "Rayark has almost shot itself in the foot with its previous releases."[24] Shigeta Yuichi from IGN Japan gave the game an 8.5 out of 10, noting the Battle Mode's low playerbase and inability to search for friends, yet one that he could still "wholeheartedly recommend to new players".[23]

Other media

Soundtrack

Multiple Cytus soundtracks have been released both on iTunes and as physical CDs, featuring playable music and background composition from the game.[25] Cytus -Prologue-, was released on April 1, 2012,[26] Cytus -Hindsight- on December 10, 2013[27] and Cytus -Foresight- on December 28, 2013.[28] A story album called Cytus -Alive- has also been released on August 20, 2012; the album features songs composed by Sta and Cranky with the same names as the ten chapters of the game. Each song corresponds to each chapter in the story plot.[29]

The Cytus II soundtrack consists of music by indie composers from the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Notable collaborations in the game includes those with Hatsune Miku[30] and Kizuna AI.

Code: Cytus

Code: Cytus (Chinese: 柯基托斯) is a multimedia video game music stage production based on the story of Cytus, produced by Divertimento Media (Chinese: 樂乎乎工作坊) as commissioned by Quanta Arts Foundation (Chinese: 廣藝基金會).[31] The production ran four shows in November 2014 in Taiwan.

References
  1. "收錄獨佔新章節《Cytus: Lambda》今日上架". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  2. "アーケード進出はRayarkの念願だった――新作音ゲー「Cytus OMEGA」のサウンドディレクターIce氏に，JAEPO会場でちょっとだけ話を聞いてみた". 4Gamer. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  3. "雷亞與 CAPCOM 攜手合作 大型電玩版《Cytus Ω》7 月 11 / 12 日日本舉辦首次場測". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  4. "[Announcement]". Facebook. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  5. Fahey, Mike. "Rhythm Games Don't Get Much Cooler Than Cytus II". Kotaku. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  6. "Rayark's Intense New Rhythm Game 'Cytus II' Launching January 18th, Pre-Order is Up Now". toucharcade. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  7. "Cytus α - official website". Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  8. "Cytus official website". Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  9. "美麗イラストで彩られたリズムアクション。スマートフォン向け「Cytus」を紹介する「（ほぼ）日刊スマホゲーム通信」第363回". 4Gamer. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  10. "國人自製《Cytus》iOS 音樂節奏遊戲全球同步發售". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  11. "《Cytus》6.0 改版更新上線 追加全新故事章節與 Cytus Alive 劇情歌曲". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 6 October 2014.
  12. "《Cytus》2.0 改版內容公開 「百首新歌，百萬下載」計畫全面啟動". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  13. "[Cytus Lambda] Teaser". Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  14. "Cytus α - Launch Trailer - Nintendo Switch". YouTube. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  15. "Cytus Million Downloads Plan". Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  16. "付費下載突破 60 萬《Cytus》實裝 6.1.0 改版 第九章免費開放". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  17. "雷亞遊戲邀請百名粉絲參與 Open House 活動 現場宣布《Cytus》全新章節今晚推出". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  18. "雷亞 Open House 活動公開《Cytus》《DEEMO～最終演奏～》最新情報". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  19. "《Cytus》8.0 更新上線 百萬下載紀念章節免費開放 同步推出台灣主題章節". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  20. Ford, Eric (18 January 2012). "'Cytus' Review – Beauty In Simplicity". TouchArcade. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  21. "Cytus on the App Store". Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  22. "Cytus Alpha for Switch Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  23. Shigeta, Yuichi. "Cytus α - レビュー". IGN Japan (in Japanese). Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  24. Craddock, Ryan. "Cytus α Review". Nintendo Life. Retrieved 16 May 2020.
  25. "由雷亞遊戲舉辦的《Cytus》Live Concert 將於本週六晚間轉播". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 24 January 2015.
  26. "Cytus -The Prologue- on VGMdb". Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  27. "Cytus -Hindsight- on iTunes". Retrieved 21 June 2014.
  28. "Cytus -Foresight- on VGMdb". Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  29. "Cytus-Alive on iTunes". Retrieved 21 June 2014.
  30. "'Cytus II' review: Cyberpunk rhythm game with insanely good plot". Young Post. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  31. "多媒體電玩音樂劇場「柯基托斯 Code: Cytus」11 月在台演出". 巴哈姆特電玩資訊站. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
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