Love Live! School Idol Festival

Players can form 9-person units. The girls in the formation are called "members". Players acquire new members by doing Lives or scouting through "Student Scouting" that uses the gacha system. Two same cards can be combined and they will be "Idolized," which unlocks new card art and a side story gives a Love Gem. Each member has their own card level and skill that can be leveled up by doing a "Practice", which involves sacrificing one or more cards to increase the level of another one. In order to increase skill level, cards that are "practiced" must have the same skill. Increasing skill and card levels improves the scores players can obtain in "Lives". New Aqours and regular members are added every time an in-game event has ended and μ's cards are added halfway through events.

Members cards are divided into 5 rarities: N (normal), R (rare), SR (super rare), SSR (special super rare), and UR (ultra rare). Each rarity (except N-rarity) has a different set of leader skills (passive) and active skills that affect the Lives scores. Cards and songs are divided into attributes that represent each card's idol type: Smile, Cool, and Pure. Using the same attribute members to do Lives of the same attribute song gives a higher score.

Other than μ's and Aqours, other characters are featured in the N-rarity cards. There are 54 characters with 9 girls represent 6 different schools:

These characters are not voiced, but Emma Verde (previously only named Emma), Kanata Konoe, and Shizuku Ōsaka were promoted to become part of the Nijigasaki High School Idol Club and were each given voice actresses. Fujimaru designed the new characters.[14]

Besides the regular cards, the game also includes "promotional cards" and "skill up cards". Promotional cards can be obtained free as a bonus from purchasing Love Live! merchandise, clearing quests, purchasing through Sticker Shop, scouting using Gs, or simply logging in to the game. Regardless of rarity, promotional cards have relatively low stats and leader skill effects. They also don't give stickers when practiced or deleted. The cards are usually pre-idolized, which means that players cannot idolize the card for different art. μ's and Aqours' respective rival groups (A-Rise and Saint Snow), the groups' younger selves,[lower-alpha 3] and the girls from Nijigasaki Academy are also featured as fully voiced promotional cards.

A skill up card is used to level up the skill of a card. It can't be idolized or used in a Live. These cards feature characters around the main groups such as the girls' mothers, school friends and teachers, and even animals. These cards can be obtained by logging in, special box scouting, in-game event rewards, or purchasing a limited time sale pack.

Every 15 days, an in-game event with total of 4 SR rarity cards as reward is held.[lower-alpha 4] Each event runs for around 10 days with a 5-days break. The SR rarity cards are obtainable by collecting event points and competing with other players through event points ranking. Reward includes Gs, Love Gems, and skill-up cards.

The game has currently 6 type of events:

Token Collection (アイコンコレクション, Aikon Korekushon)[16]

Players play an event-exclusive song to get the event points. The song requires Tokens which are collected by playing songs. Sometimes, the event also featured a short story that was previously featured in the franchise's novel series School Idol Diary.

Score Match (スコアマッチ, Sukoa Macchi)[16]

4 players compete with each other to get the highest score from a randomly-chosen song.

Medley Festival (メドレーフェスティバル, Medorē Fesutibaru)[16]

Players can play up to three songs in a row and can use stat increases to improve their score and/or Live prize. Some stat increases will appear randomly from in-game friends.

Challenge Festival (チャレンジフェスティバル, Charenji Fesutibaru)

Players can play up to 5 songs and receive the accumulated prize at the end of the challenge. μ's members will appear and give random ability increases. If 3 members with same sub-unit, school year, and/or wear same uniform appear, a specific mission will appear. Clearing the mission will give the players an additional prize.

Adventure Stroll (おさんぽラリー, Osanpo Rarī)

Players clear Live songs to unlock Aqours and μ's side stories and clear missions while "taking a stroll" around the event map. Live songs also give 'souvenirs' which players can exchange for friend points, event SR rarity cards, and in-game backgrounds.

Companion Match (なかよしマッチ, Nakayoshi Macchi)[17]

Works like Score Match, but instead of competing against each other, the event requires 4 players to work together in clearing missions by reaching certain scores or combos. Players' scores are determined by how much they contributed. While in score mission they are ranked from highest to the lowest score, combo mission will always display anyone with "Full Combo" as the first place(s).

In 2019, the Japanese server of School Idol Festival held its first collaboration event outside the Love Live! franchise. The collaboration event with mobile TCG, Shadowverse, was held in both of the games (September 20–30 within the School Idol Festival app). Between the 9 girls of Aqours, Yoshiko Tsushima was chosen as representative through fan votes. The collaboration campaign includes a new song, "Deep Resonance" that was included in the group's 4th single, collaboration SSR cards of the group, a limited UR card for Yoshiko, as well as login bonuses.[18]

An upcoming console port of the arcade game, titled Love Live! School Idol Festival: After School Activity Wai-Wai! Home Meeting!![lower-alpha 6] (officially abbreviated as SIFAC HM), will be released worldwide on March 24, 2021 for PlayStation 4. The game will also feature English, simplified and traditional Chinese localisations, similar to other games in the franchise.[10][11] SIFAC HM will receive exclusive content not featured in the arcade version.[30] The game is natively backward compatible with PlayStation 5.[31]

SIFAC HM will be available as free-to-play base game, which includes eight songs. Additional songs are available as paid downloadable content (DLC). At the release, 21 Song Pack DLCs (13 for μ's, and 9 for Aqours / Saint Snow; 117 songs in total) will be available.[32]

Unlike the arcade version, SIFAC HM has its own difficulty levels to accommodate for DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers. From easiest to hardest, "Beginner" and "Standard" are played with 4 Note Icons, while "Hyper" and "Adventure" are played with 6 Icons. Arcade mode with 9 Icons, with all its original difficulty levels, is also available.

Another difference from the arcade version is the player can unlock the costume set by "creating" it, using materials received from playing Live Shows. Alternatively the player can also purchase the costume sets as DLC immediately.[33]

An infamous bug occurred in the first day after the Next Stage update has been released for the arcades in 2018, wherein sometimes characters appear naked during the dance sequence. This bug was widely shared on Twitter as screenshots and clips of dancing "Barbie doll-esque" nude characters during gameplay has been spread across it.[34] This bug caused Square Enix to take the game server in "urgent maintenance" for few days in order to fix that bug.[35]

Instead of focusing on its "rhythm game" system, the game uses an "RPG-like system" where it requires the player to carefully build their teams with strategy and train their idols in order to be able to successfully clear a live, as all tapped notes will drain the Stamina bar, even when tapped perfectly. The 9 tap note icons that represent the 9 members of an idol group have been reduced to two, and the player is able to tap anywhere on the screen to register a tap. During a Live Show, the participating member(s) are depicted as full-3D models with dance choreography on screen.[lower-alpha 10]

In addition to the original members' elements (Smile, Pure, Cool), 3 new elements have been added: Active, Natural, and Elegant. Besides elements, the members are also divided by 4 different attributes: Voltage (Vo), Special Skill (Sp), Guard (Gd), and Skill (Sk). During the lives, 9 members are divided into 3 "Strategy" units. Strategy units can have different positive and negative effects depending on the members' attributes in the Strategy, such as increased tap score, reduced stamina damage, or more frequent skill activation, as well shortened Strategy switch time. Only one of the Strategies is active at a time, but the player may switch to a different Strategy to take advantage of different members' skills and effects and to clear "Appeal Chances" that appear during a live.

Besides, the new live, the game also introduced some new systems:

• Practice system: To rise an idol's stats or "Idolizing" them, the player has to acquire needed items through performing Live Shows, Training, or event rewards. Through Practice's skill tree system, player are also able to unlock the idols' costumes (as well as the re-colored version), side stories, "Inspiration" skills, and navigation voices that is listenable in the front page. The idol's skill tree can also be unlocked further more by acquiring the idol's card's duplicate through "Scouting," event rewards for event-exclusive cards, or using the "School Idol Radiance."
• Training: Player can create a team of 9 cards and send them to a "Training Camp." The training camp requires an Action Point (AP) and gives items for skill tree advancement due completion. The APs will replenish up to 3 every 12am and 12pm JST. For certain chances, idols that came to the training camp can get "Inspiration Skills". Depending on the card's rarity, up to 3 Inspiration Skill slot has been unlocked by default, and one more slot can be unlocked through Practice.
• Bonding system: The player is able to boost the idol's stats through the Bonding system. The boosts are applied to all cards of the same idol, not per card. This section is divided in two parts, as the latter was added in later update:
  • Bond Level: As the player clears (or skips) Live Shows with idols in their Formation, the idols receive certain amount of their "Bond Points," depending on the difficulty. When reaching certain amount of Bond Points they can reach a new Bond Level, which gives more stats boost to their cards, and will be able to unlock Bond Boards as detailed below. It will also unlock their "Bond Episode," which some is required to unlock certain songs. However, their Bond Level is initially capped at Level 15 at the beginning, but their cap will increase by up to two for each new cards, and Limit Increases (receiving duplicate cards, and using Radiances in Practice).
  • Bond Board: As the player levels up the idol's Bond Level, the player is able to unlock Bond Boards. Their idol stats can be boosted further through Bond Board, using their "Memorial Pieces" and "Memento Pieces." A single Board consists of five boost panels, with three of them are always Appeal, Technique, and Stamina each, while the other two varies for each Board. Completing the board will proceed to the next unlocked Board sequentially, and gives the idol additional bonus. The material cost for each panel becomes higher in higher level Boards. This Bond Board feature was added since version 1.7.0 in both servers.
• Costume system: Player is able to change a character's 3D model costume, where it will affect them in main menu, bond menu, and live shows. These purely cosmetic costumes are obtainable through UR and SR cards or by exchanging the costume tickets.

CDs and albums released as part of campaign from the game franchise.

Several books of the game's illustration cards and original story collection has been released since 2013.

A 4-koma manga was published and can be read via the game's application titled Ten Fes: Transfer Student Festival (てん☆ふぇす ~転入生フェスティバル~). The manga tells the stories around the N-rarity girls. It was published from September 30, 2016 every Friday and ended on 54th episode.[49]

After the announcement of "Perfect Dream Project," three 4-koma mangas are published respectively via Love Live! School Idol Festival All Stars , Dengeki Online, and Famitsu App official website as part of their school idol club activity. The first manga titled Sugoi Ten Fes (すごい てん☆ふぇす) is focused on the N rarity members who topped the popularity poll: Shizuku Ōsaka, Kanata Konoe, and Emma Verde.[50] Second 4-koma manga focused on Kasumi Nakasu, Karin Asaka, and Setsuna Yūki since July 4, 2017. The manga is drawn by Miyakohito.[51] Third 4-koma manga focused on Ayumu Uehara, Ai Miyashita, and Rina Tennōji also published since October 3, 2017. Choboraunyopomi drawn the manga.[52]

Fans of the English version of the Love Live! School Idol Festival game discovered that most of the homosexual subtext between the various girls depicted in the game were removed. In some instances, overt references to relationships between girls were changed to imply a relationship between a girl and a boy. KLab has since issued a statement on the controversy and later released an update on June 30, 2015 to make adjustments to the translated text to retain their original meanings.[57][58]