A too long post on the Live Emotion preview clip only having two touch icons:
I've seen mixed reponses. Some people are happy to see a more accesible layout that is less likely to cause hand and wrist damage from long/frequent play sessions, and some are dissapointed and fearful that it might be too slow or too basic.
I'd take an educated guess that what we're seeing in this clip is an 'easy' difficulty, with higher levels hopefully having at least a faster speed. When comparing this clip to the easy difficulty of Shining Romance on SL, both are nearly identical with 11-12 taps within 8-9 seconds.
It's hard to say how I feel about it so far without seeing more footage. Personally, I think at least 4 would be ideal but I can't say until more footage is revealed. It's certainly possible there are more tap spaces in higher difficulties, or the higher speed and potentially more gesture options would make up for it.
Here are some other rhythm games with similar amounts of touch spaces. I've tried to link higher diffulty levels to show the potential:
Love Live All Stars - Very similar layout to Live Emotion with two tap icons, however there are also some notes that have to be swiped in the direction indicated which I think could be implemented in higher difficulties in LE. Also has a mode with less distracting bg visuals (that is customisable with unlockable backgrounds) which I am also currently hoping to be a toggle in LE.
Aikatsu - This I believe is a two player mode that is being played solo, but it does show another example of a 2 touch icon UI. I think it's also played with a controller, but its easy to imagine the arrows as directional sliding gestures as well. Aikatsu has a slightly younger demographic, so it makes sense if the beatmaps skew a bit simpler.
Idolish 7 and I-Chu - Both with four tap icons.
Then of course you have games like Bpro and SIF that have a similar high amount of tap icons to Shining Live. There are also some with similar functionality but different look, like Show By Rock, D4DJ, Project Sekai, and Hypmic.
And for more varied rhythm gameplay styles, but to highlight the potential of different gesture types, you have:
King of Prism - Tapping and making certain swipe gestures as they skate through hoops. This and some others linked also have segments where you trace shapes on the screen at certain parts of a song, or whena gauge fills up.
Te to Te Connect - Arcade game with beatmaps that encourage copying the movements on screen. These sort of swiping and tracing shape movements are especially interesting to me but I dont know if we'd see something like that in LE.
Muse Dash - A different style of rhythm game to what we've seen so far from LE, but there may be something in there to inspire you.
Fit Boxing - Again very different and doesnt really translate to touch screen, but while holding a joycon the player does different types of punches and movements corresponding to the icons.
Osu - A classic, with its icons taking up the screen in various patterns rather than staying in set positions, this is also something I dont expect to see in LE, but is a fun gameplay style. Osu also has a large spinning wheel that shows up occasionally for a short period of time, and has to be spun in circles very quickly.
All that to say, who knows what we're in for. I would prefer a few more touch icons, but even if harder difficulties still only have 2 I think its possible to get a fun and difficult game out of it if theyre fast enough, and have various tap gestures to keep it intersting and engaging (tap, hold, spin, multi-tap, swipe up/down/left/right etc).
Lets wait and see what the next game reveals showcase.
Had a dream i got like 5 anonymous asks last night about the i7 icons i reblogged. Just like confused how i found them (theyre literally tagged "idolish 7 icons")
want to remind people that i do have a ko-fi set up > here <, any money donated will be put towards purchasing ebook copies of series, which helps support mangaka.
buying ebook copies will also bring high quality icons faster and easier since it’ll mean i won’t need to clean the icons up from scans found online of series, specially older ones.
current series i routinely buy ebooks for at the moment: fate grand order anthologies, gran blue fantasy, idolish 7, madoka magica record & precure.
(some of which icons will be available for on here sometime in november)