There are currently three different running region variants of Love Live School Idol Festival. There is the English/Worldwide version, the Japanese version, and the Chinese version. A Taiwanese and Korean version of the game used to exist, but those versions got shut down, and merged with the English/Worldwide version of the game.
Currently Running Versions of the Game
English/Worldwide Version
The English/Worldwide version of Love Live School Idol Festival (often abbreviated to EN or WW) is the version that is available in English, Korean, and Traditional Chinese. This version of the game is the version you're most likely playing considering your reading this site written entirely in English, though there are Korean and Taiwanese players who play on this version of the game as well. This version of the game is the second most played version of the game. This server launched on May 12, 2014.
Japanese Version
.The Japanese version of Love Live School Idol Festival (often abbreviated to JP) is the version that is available in Japanese. This is the original version of Love Live School Idol Festival. This version came out in March of 2013. This is easily the most played version of game as the Love Live franchise originated in Japan. The main advantage of playing the Japanese version of the game over the English version is that everything comes to the Japanese version of the game several months before it comes to the English version of the game (such as cards, events, etc.). The downside is that absolutely everything is in Japanese which means that you'll either need to know Japanese, or if you're like me, you just have all the menus completely memorized. If you play the English version a lot, you'll most likely have the menus memorized. I play both the English and Japanese versions so I know the menus very well.
The process to download the Japanese version of Love Live School Idol Festival can vary whether you're on iOS or Android. To download it on iOS, you'll need to make a Japanese Apple ID and download the Japanese Love Live SIF app from the Japanese App Store. On Android, you can simply download the APK file from here. Just make sure you hit the download for the Japanese version.
Since the process for downloading Japanese Love Live SIF on an iOS device isn't very straightforward, I've included a video on how to make a Japanese Apple ID, and download any Japanese app (including Japanese Love Live SIF).
The process to download the Japanese version of Love Live School Idol Festival can vary whether you're on iOS or Android. To download it on iOS, you'll need to make a Japanese Apple ID and download the Japanese Love Live SIF app from the Japanese App Store. On Android, you can simply download the APK file from here. Just make sure you hit the download for the Japanese version.
Since the process for downloading Japanese Love Live SIF on an iOS device isn't very straightforward, I've included a video on how to make a Japanese Apple ID, and download any Japanese app (including Japanese Love Live SIF).
In the video, you'll notice them googling a Japanese app to make it redirect them to the Japanese app store. You're going to need the Japanese name of Love Live SIF to do this. The Japanese name of Love Live School Idol Festival is: " ラブライブ!スクールアイドルフェスティバル". Just copy and paste that and you'll be all good.
Chinese Version
The Chinese version of Love Live School Idol Festival (often abbreviated to CN) is the version that is available in Simplified Chinese for mainland China. This version is inaccessible to people outside of China as a Chinese ID number is required to access the game. This version is slightly behind the English version of the game in terms of content.
Discontinued Versions of the Game
Taiwanese Version
The Taiwanese version of Love Live School Idol Festival (often abbreviated to TW) was the version that was available in Traditional Chinese available to people in Taiwan and other surrounding countries, such as Hong Kong. This was slightly behind the English version of Love Live SIF, but not by too much. This server was shutdown on May 17th, 2017. All player data was transferred over to the English/Worldwide version of the game, and Traditional Chinese was added as language option to the English/Worldwide version of the game. This version of the game received an update on May 22nd, 2017 that made the app connect to the English/Worldwide servers instead of the Taiwanese servers. Taiwanese players were given 50 love gems (plus another 30 due to the maintenance being extended by a few days), 3 green tickets, and any event SR cards that they have missed after the merge with the English/Worldwide version.
Korean Version
The Korean version of Love Live School Idol Festival (often abbreviated to KR) was the version that is available in Korean available to people in Korea. This server was shutdown on August 10th, 2016. Similar to the Taiwanese version of this app, all player data from the Korean version was transferred over to the English/Worldwide version of the game, and Korean was added as a language option of the English/Worldwide version of the game. An update was also issued to the Korean app to connect to the English/Worldwide servers instead of the Korean servers. Korean players were given rewards similar to those that the Taiwanese players would get.
Arcade Counterpart
There is an arcade game very similar to Love Live School Idol Festival named Love Live School Idol Festival: After School Activity (often shortened to Love Live SIF AC). This game was released in late 2016. This game plays very similar to the original version of Love Live SIF, but instead of using a touch screen to tap notes, physical buttons are located in an arc around the screen. One of the main differences between the original Love Live SIF and Love Live SIF AC are that Love Live SIF AC has 3D models of all the girls that move dance and dance around during live shows (though these 3D models will be added to the upcoming, Love Live School Idol Festival: All Stars). Another difference being that Love Live SIF AC has even harder live shows to play. The difficulties in Love Live SIF AC are: easy, normal, hard, extreme, and challenge. Challenge songs will have hitting three or four spots at once at certain parts of the song, which is something that never happens in the original Love Live SIF. There is also a form of scouting available in Love Live SIF AC. With the cards scouted in Love Live SIF AC though, the player does actually get a physical copy of the card that can printed out. Cards that players scout are also attached to their Love Live SIF AC account. Speaking of Love Live SIF AC accounts, players can use a Nesica card (a type of card used by many arcade games to keep track of in game progress) to access their Love Live SIF AC account on any Love Live SIF AC machine. Most Japanese arcades sell them for between 300 and 500 yen (around $3-$5 USD). This game can only be found in Japanese arcades though, so make sure to play it if you're ever in Japan. A website for the game can be found here, but be warned, it's all in Japanese. Some gameplay can be found below.
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The video below shows the scouting portion of the game. Scouting takes place at a different machine instead of the machine you use to play the live show portion of the game.
You also can link your Love Live SIF AC account to a Japanese Love Live SIF account. It doesn't add too much though. It just adds a button on your profile that, when pressed, will show anyone looking at your profile what rank you are at in Love Live SIF AC, and what card you started with when you started playing.
Love Live School Idol Festival: All Stars
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Love Live School Idol Festival: All Stars (often shortened to SIFAS) is a brand new app, announced at Tokyo Game Show 2017, slated for release in 2018. In Love Live School Idol Festival: All Stars, there will be a story featuring μ’s and Aqours meeting for the first time, a brand new live show system, CGI dance sequences, and the introduction of the Perfect Dream Project idols. It is said that the goal of Love Live School Idol Festival: All Stars is to be “the best, greatest idol game ever made”. More information about Love Live School Idol Festival: All Stars will be revealed as the game comes closer to launch. The official website can be found here, but it is all in Japanese.
This is what it looks like have all the different versions of Love Live School Idol Festival on one device. It also takes a lot of storage on your device. Love Live SIF takes about 1GB of space per version, so this folder contains over 5GB of game data. It's a good thing my phone has a lot of storage.
The versions of the app are as follows from left to right, top to bottom: English/Worldwide, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese. |