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Previous Page: [[Rhythm:Installation | Installation]]

You've made it this far! Now, it's finally time for you to open up the game and start playing!

Before we begin, please know that you can only have one account per device and one device per account. This means that you can't play on your account on two different devices at once! Keep this in mind before proceeding. Of course, you can transfer your game data as long as you have your profile ID, but the process requires downloading extra data and takes time, so use it only when you actually need to switch devices.

Now, let's begin!

== Opening ==

As soon as you open the game and get to the opening screen, you'll see a pink button and blue button. Press on the red button to start the game! I believe the blue button is for transferring game data.

You'll then be greeted with a warning - the game is about to download about 700MB of data! It's highly recommended that you're connected to a stable Wi-Fi network before proceeding. You can press the blue button to read the "Terms of Service" for this game, but it's all in Japanese and you probably won't understand any of it anyways. Press the pink button the proceed with the download!

The game will first download 12 quick files (including the opening video), and then will fade to black.

Now, you'll be greeted with the opening video! This is the same video that was mentioned in the [[Rhythm:Introduction | Introduction]]. Basically, everyone in Seiou academy is being entered in a dance battle for some prizes or something...

The game will download the rest of the game files (roughly 1200 of them) in the background while the opening video plays. After the video finishes, if your download has not finished, the game will just show you the progress bar. Sit back, relax, and wait! It'll be finished soon.

If for some reason, you lose connection during the middle of the download, you'll have to restart everything. So, don't close the game or do anything unnecessary! 

Once it finishes downloading, the game might reboot. If it does, press the pink button on the opening screen again to enter the game!

== Orientation ==

Welcome to Seiou Gakuen (聖櫻学園)! Are you ready to become the leader Seiou Gakuen's dance teams?

You'll be greeted by two members of the Student Council: [[Kanata Amatsu]] and [[Mutsumi Shigino]]. They'll exchange greetings with you, the new leader, and then ask you for your name.

You'll be prompted to enter a nickname, family name (surname/last name), and a given name (first name). The nickname is how you'll appear to other players, so it's probably what you'll be seeing most often. Other girls will call you by all three names, depending on the girl's personality (how laid-back they are or how formal they usually speak).

After that, you'll have to choose a center girl to work with. At your current level, you'll only be able to have one center girl - but as you level up, you'll be able to obtain more. Your initial selection is also limited to just five girls! The initial five you can choose from are:
*[[Kokomi Shina]]
*[[Chloe Lemaire]]
*[[Momoko Asahina]]
*[[Nonoka Sasahara]]
*[[Akane Sakurai]]

The other center girls will need you to be at a certain level before you can choose them. As of January 8th, 2016, the level requirement to unlock all other models is 8.
 
After choosing your center, you'll receive 10 cards! Remember that your center girl is only the girl that shows up dancing on stage - she's just the 3D model, and will only provide stat bonuses on the clothing that you tell her to wear. Most of your stats comes from your unit - which is composed of cards! Now that you have ten cards, a unit will automatically be formed for you in preparation for the song gameplay tutorial.

Now, let's try practicing the actual gameplay! Select a song (you can only choose one in the tutorial anyways) and confirm it. Then, choose a support member! There will be a list of other players playing Girlfriend Note, and their support member will be listed. The support member is the player's favorite card! By choosing this girl, she'll act as a member on the unit, and her leader skill will also be activated, providing for some great bonuses!

Finally, confirm your unit. Your units and the respective stats (including the support member and clothes) will be shown here. At this point, you only have one unit, so just confirm and go!

Now, you'll be given the chance to view two videos explaining gameplay elements. It's recommended that you watch them (even though you won't understand what they're saying), because the visuals still help you learn! Press the pink button to watch the videos. The videos will be summarized roughly below:

Video 1: Shows baseline gameplay of how to tap on the notes that appear. Notes are heart-shaped and radiate roughly from the top-center out to the correspondingly heart-shaped tap zones. The gameplay here differs from Starlight Stage/School Idol Festival in that tap zones are not persistent throughout the duration of the song; rather, they only show up when there is a note to tap, allowing you to watch your center dance around more clearly. There are a total of eight tap zones, arranged in a rough semicircle, comparable to SIF. Tap the heart with the one coming from the center overlaps fully with the other heart! 

There are single notes, shown as a single heart; double notes, where the matched notes have two hearts in the icons; and hold notes, which consist, as one might expect, of hearts connected by a solid trail to denote the interval from pressing to releasing. There are five accuracy judgements - Super Well Done, Well Done, Almost, Arara (sound effect for messing up), and Miss (- -;). Getting Well Dones and Super Well Dones will increase your combo. Anything else will break it.

Video 2: Explains the Mirror Bonus. Mirror Bonus being active is denoted by the appearance of a disco ball at the bottom center of the screen. This ball will first appear when your combo hits a certain number. The number depends on the difficulty that you are playing on, and is 20 for Easy mode, 30 for Normal, 40 for Hard, and 50 for Very Hard. While the ball is spinning, an ~20% score bonus will be applied to your hits. In order to accrue bonus, you must swipe on the ball to keep it spinning. If you don't swipe the disco ball for about 8 seconds, the ball will stop spinning, and you won't get the score bonus. Swipe it to have it start spinning again! Try to go for an entire song without having the ball ever stop spinning. Note that breaking combo will lead to the disappearance of the ball until you manage to rack up a certain combo number again.

Following the gameplay tutorial and some more dialogue, you are then taken to the main menu. You may be taken to a page for downloading more game files, so make sure you're still on Wi-Fi at this point!

== In-Game ==

Now that you're into the actual game, let's give you a quick run-down on the features. More information about the specific gameplay features can be found on their respective pages on this wiki. If you're confused about anything, don't be afraid to ask!

Below is [[User:7thspacevelocity | 7thspacevelocity]]'s new user guide. 
 
=== Quick overview ===
 
http://i.imgur.com/K0cwVat.png
 
#Player level, regular currency ('Gal'), and the premium currency, Luck Stones.
#Experience and stamina.
#Indicator for next song reward.
#Play button: straightforward; number given is the amount of new song difficulties that have not yet been played.
#*Smaller button reads "Mission" and leads to a list of tasks that, when completed, offer rewards like Luck Stones.
#*I've begun to attempt translating the missions here: http://imgur.com/a/6VKM3 [I apologize, but I think translating the in-depth mission statements might not be something I'm ready for yet. I will try to tackle these at a later date when I have a better grasp of the language.] (There were also a few I had completed before going in and translating: these were 'Let's clear a special practice!' (?) [150 Luck Stones], 'Let's clear "Tanoshiki Tokimeki"!', and 'Let's clear "Zenryoku Heroine"!".)
#**The main points on this screen are:
#***Big pink button - collect rewards for all completed missions still offering a reward.
#***'In progress' tab - missions that are incomplete or have uncollected rewards
#***'Achieved' tab - missions you've already completed
#Menu - even more navigation options. See below for details.
#Banner advertising various promotions.
 
=== Side Menu ===
 
#[[Rhythm:Play | Play]] - same as big Play button on home screen.
#*Songs have four difficulties:
#**Kantan/Easy (^ ^)
#**Futsuu/Normal (- -)
#**Muzukashii/Hard (* *)
#**Geki Muzu/Very Hard
#[[Rhythm:Cupid | Invitation]] - like SIF scouting or SS gacha.
#*Miracle - the premium scouting type; costs Luck Stones, gives R or higher girls, and at least R clothing (Note: It's been pointed out to me that this is marked as a one-time-only thing, so this might not persist past the first 2500-stone pull.)
#*Friend - uses friend point currency; you can perform a free single pull per day, and then single pulls or multiple pulls up to 10 at once.
#*Rarities seem to be N/R/SR/SSR/UR, assuming the order for the last two based on screenshots seen.
#[[Rhythm:Unit | Unit Composition]]
#*Create units to be used for each song, and select which clothing items best go with the unit in question. The order in which your unit members appear when playing a song can also be changed when managing a unit. (Thanks Zenostein!)
#*The seven girls selected for your unit can be reordered in any manner; however, the center-left position is where the primary member of the unit will go, and opposite that in the center-right is where the support member you choose before playing a song will go.
#Girls - catalog of who you've recruited. Permits management of your girls.
##Lesson - increase a card's values of Performance and Stamina.
##Evolution - Similar to idolization/awakening. The mechanics follow in the vein of SIF and the original Girlfriend Kari card game - a base copy of a girl's card can take a spare copy in order to improve maximum Performance and Stamina, but differing from SIF is where a second copy can be used for even further improvement. This ups the rarity of the card by half a level each, it seems - I improved an N card to an R card after feeding two copies in. This process takes Gal (money) to complete. You also won't be able to take a card upgraded to its third form and combine it with a similarly-upgraded card. (Thanks Zenostein!)
##Graduation - Remove cards from your inventory in exchange for Gal.
##List - view cards in your collection.
#Costume Room - manage clothing pieces.
#*Power Up - Increase clothing stats.
#*Sale - Sell off clothing pieces for Gal.
#*List - view clothing pieces in your collection.
#Story - Short anecdotes with the girls of the series.
#Center Girl - Improve relationship with your center girls. After selecting a girl to manage, you will be presented with this screen: http://i.imgur.com/Vsu4pai.png
##Stats - name, seiyuu, description, school year; profile; favorite girl (star at top-right: not sure how to disable this, still testing this section out); bottom row: 'Good Friend' rank; 'Good Friend' level; Clothing Bonus Percentage
##'Become Good Friends' - To advance your 'Good Friend' level, you'll need the resources listed in the field. Improvement will cost some amount of Gal as well as some amount of hearts (earned through playing songs of a corresponding color).
##'Dress Up' (not exact, I apologize) - select clothing items to equip on your center.
##*'Men's Hearts' - View how many of each heart type you have - I'm probably missing the reason why this is called that.
##*Episodes - small narratives concerning your center.
##*Replay - cutscenes concerning your center. This feature is not available yet.
##*20 Secrets - a small minigame? This feature is not available yet.
##*Voice - voice clips of your center. You can only listen to voices that you have already heard before. All others are still locked.
#School Store - purchase Luck Stones, or use Luck Stones to get more space for items.
#Friends - View your friends list, approve requests, view your sent requests, and message others.
#*Left circle: Friend Search: look up friends by ID or by nickname.
#*Right circle: Tomodachi invitation: 'Invite friends, GET Luck Stones!' Your invite code: Unlocks at LV 10, button at right copies code to clipboard, presumably. Bottom field: friend's invite code; enter to give them credit!
#*Approval menu: fairly straightforward; blue circle accepts, grey circle declines.
#Profile
#Etc. (Help, Inquiry[?], Data Recovery Settings[???], ‘All sorts of information’, Official Site, Official Twitter, Return to Title Screen)
    'All sorts of information' - legal stuff, etc. Poor amateur translation here: http://i.imgur.com/cqDWG5V.png
 
=== Gameplay ===
 
Playing songs is reasonably comparable to SIF/SS. First, at the song selection menu, scroll through the list of available songs, and select the difficulty you want to play a song on. The tabs at the bottom correspond to the 3 main difficulties: Easy/Normal/Hard (Kantan, Futsuu, Muzukashii).

The button at the very top toggles view of the regular song list ('Standard Music') and a limited song list ('Daily Special Music'); for the first limited song I've seen when writing this guide, all difficulties seem to be available. The limited song list also has the Geki Muzu/Very Hard (> <) versions of the regular songs you've unlocked.

For the song currently selected (but before hitting the 'Decision' button in the lower right), the information displayed on the right half of the screen is:

*Color attribute; Song title; Singer(s);
*Difficulty (in stars); Stamina cost; experience awarded;
*Unlocked difficulties;
*[Play Goals]; Hearts obtainable from playing the song.
*Play Goals track your Score/Combo/Clear ranks from C to S, and award a present for each grade per type.

The left half of the screen shows the album art, your highest Score/Combo/Clear rank achieved, and below the album art, buttons for song info (vocalist breakdown, lyrics) and score ranking for that difficulty. (Tabs on ranking are: Your rank [where you personally stand against others], overall top ranking, and friends.)

After hitting the 'Decision' button, you are prompted to choose a support member (another user, to boost your unit stats), and finally, a unit to play the song. At the unit selection screen, you can also set the clothing abilities to auto-activate - below the unit list and support character, there will be a button you can hit, and from there, there's an on/off toggle marked with 4 kanji that controls this setting. If you have three clothing items equipped, though, you'll have to select which two abilities you want to carry into the song. (Thanks Zenostein!)

Actual gameplay is as noted above - tap notes, increase combo, increase score, maintain Mirror Bonus. Members in your unit whose color matches the song color will lead to a bonus in score gained per tap.

The very top area of the screen has a thin bar that fills as your score increases, showing where your score ranking is for that particular play. Score value is located at the top left, below the top bar. Combo counter is located at the top-middle, below the top bar. Stamina is located at the top-right, below the top bar. The bottom-left and bottom-right seem to be abilities you can activate.

*For instance, my bottom-left has a hat icon, with the text in-game reading 'Stamina Guard'. Via gameplay of another player (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cPAzQ8Pxe0), the bottom-left has a two-up-arrow icon reading 'Score Chance'.

After completing a song, the results given show your experience gained, your progress on Play Goal rewards, and bond (using similar terminology from SIF) increases for the girls of your unit. You also get other rewards: N cards as well as hearts and, for some songs, Power mists, which are used to level up clothing.

Cost/Experience reward for playing difficulties:
Easy: 5 stamina, 13 experience;
Normal: 10 stamina, 29 experience
Hard: 15 stamina, 51 experience
Very Hard: 20 stamina, 73 experience
(Note: Very Difficult versions of Standard Music songs are in Daily Special Music section of the game!)

=== Stats ===
There are five colors to denote types of girls - Pink, Orange, Yellow, Green, and Blue. When viewing a girl's card, here's what you're looking at:
*Very top:
**Micro-description; name; rarity level.
*Right side: toggle for setting as support girl (blue button to left of lock toggle) - this determines which support bonus you provide to other players.
**Card level; experience gauge showing progress to next level.
**'Bond' - assuming this to be like bond/etc; 'Performance power'; Stamina.
**'Cheer' - Skill that can activate during gameplay. Only for SR and up girls, it appears.
**Leader Skill - Bonus offered to other players as support (I think). Also only for SR and up girls.
**Grey ribbon - displays a quote from the girl in question.
**Circular button to the side - brings up menu where you can listen to audio bites from the girl in question, if available.
*Bottom:
**Graduation: sell this card.
**Evolution: Use duplicates of the base card to improve max stats. 
**Lesson: Use other cards to improve this card's stats.