The new Pop'n machines are... not great.
Finally got a chance to try the new Pop'n Music cabs running High Cheers at a few Chicago-area Round1 locations over the past week. Compared to the huge improvements made with the IIDX Lightning Model and SDVX Valk cabs, the Pika Pika Pop Kun cab is kind of a letdown.
The monitor is far too large and too close to the player to comfortably see the whole playfield, and the colors on all 4 cabs I tried felt washed out - I've never mixed up green and blue so much. The positioning is also a little strange - I feel like the judgement bar sits way too high above the buttons.... i never thought not seeing my hands would be an issue but apparently having them in my periphery does make a difference, as I was losing my place on the controls more than I have in a long time mid-chart.
The buttons felt like hot garbage compared to the buttons I'm used to from pop'n past. Two of the machines I was playing on even had buttons that would stick and wreck my combos, which was annoying. But overall, they move less and are quieter, but lack that nice tactile response I want... the pop if you will! I'm sure this can be tuned with spring and switch adjustments, but bone stock they don't feel very good to me.
The touch screen itself it pretty nice - not as nice as the valk and lightning ones, but does the job and I did like using it for navigation and for option settings. I do appreciate what it adds to the the experience.
High Cheers as a release just feels a little uninspired too, compared to some of the bangers they've done theme-wise over the years, like Iroha, UniLab, and Jam & Fizz. This will change quickly enough though - the gameplay is the core of the expereience and it's still great always!
I was happy to come home to my Type F cab again last night, and playing on it made me really happy to have it, and less sad that the closest pikapika is over 200 miles away. I don't feel like I'm missing much!