Beatmania IIDX
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- The title of this article is incorrect because of technical limitations. The correct title is beatmania IIDX.
| beatmania IIDX | |
| Missing image IIDX_-_Machine.jpg beatmaniaIIDX 5th style machine | |
| Developer: | Konami |
| Publisher: | Konami |
| Release date: | 1999 |
| Genre: | Music |
| Game modes: | Up to 2 players simultaneously |
| Cabinet: | Custom |
| Controls: | Turntable; piano keyboard (7 keys) |
| Monitor | |
| Orientation: | Horizontal |
| Type: | HDTV monitor (16x9) |
| Notes | |
| The follow-up series to beatmania. | |
beatmania IIDX (alternately beatmaniaIIDX or just IIDX, pronounced "two dee-ecks") is a series of rhythm video games introduced by Konami in 1999. It is the direct sequel to the beatmania game series, and part of the Bemani line of music games.
| Contents |
Cabinet information
beatmania IIDX controls consist of seven keys (four white, three black) on each player's side, along with two turntables. The turntable for the left player's side is on the left of the keys, while the one on the right player's side is on the right.
Under the 16:9 wide display are the start button, the effector button, and effector sliders. After beatmaniaIIDX 9th style, there is also a cardreader, in order to use the magnetic card of e-AMUSEMENT. In 9th style, the effector no longer operates, but it has been revived in 10th style with modified slide switch function. Different versions of the game are referred to as 'styles', with higher numbers being the most recent machines. The series currently reaches from the first style produced all the way to 11th style (11th style is however referred to as IIDX RED.) 12th Style, which has been named "IIDX Happy Sky", is currently in development and testing. Each style produced has a different mix of songs from older styles and new songs, and has a different graphical 'theme'.
The main differences in hardware between the IIDX series and the original beatmania series are the presence of two extra keys, the wide screen and the more powerful speakers. This hardware difference was never actually intended to become the standard beatmania IIDX cabinet. Originally, Konami had planned to develop and release two different versions of arcade cabinets, a version similar to that of its predecessor beatmania and its ill-fated successor beatmania III, and a 'deluxe' cabinet with a 'DX' suffix on the end of the name. Konami scrapped the standard cabinet mid-development, but the 'DX' suffix stuck and has remained throughout the series.
IIDX_-_Turntable.jpg
IIDX_-_Effector.jpg
IIDX_-_Buttons.jpg
Home versions
BmIIDX_Controller.jpg
Konami also released in Japan home versions of the game, for the PlayStation 2 console. The game is stored in a DVD media, and can be bought with a controller that matches the arcade version very closely. The controller's key insert is detachable, so the player may attach it as preferred on the left or the right side of the turntable. The home versions do not exactly match the arcade versions, but are very similar. To date, home versions of 3rd Style through 9th Style have been released.
As of May 2005, Konami has announced an American release simply entitled beatmania. This release will include both 5 key and 7 key modes(thus essentially Beatmania IIDX), and will have different songs for each mode. The American release will use the interface from Beatmania IIDX 9th style (the most recent Japanese home version).
Gameplay
IIDX_Gameplay.jpg
The gameplay is still the same as in beatmania, with the addition of two extra keys: there are 8 columns on the screen, corresponding to each of the keys and the turntable. While playing, small horizontal bars fall straight through each of these columns, and the player must press the right key (or play the scratch) when the bar touches the bottom of the column, no sooner and no later. The correct timings for the notes follow the beat of the music, so the player has to have a very keen sense of rhythm.
Every time a key is pressed or the scratch is played, an instrument is played to complement the song. So, in order to hear the song correctly, the player must get the bars on the right timing. Additionally, the game shows a rating (flashing Great, Great, Good, Bad or Poor) for each falling bar that's played by the user.
The objective of the game is twofold: pass songs and get a good grade. Passing a song enables you to continue playing up to a three song limit, plus possible extra stages. Grade measures your performance and is used for ranking among players. The beatmania games are very peculiar in that passing a song and getting a good score on it are almost totally unrelated; one can theoretically pass a song with an F and fail with a AAA, although this is rare in practice.
During gameplay, the player gets performance feedback from two sources. One is a life bar at the bottom of the screen. The other is rating text in front of the falling notes. The life bar is increased moderately by flashing Greats and Greats, slightly by Goods, depleted heavily by Bads and very heavily by Poors; the emphasis is clearly on missing as few notes as possible. To pass a song, the life bar has to be at 80% or above at the end of a song. Consequently the only thing that matters as far as passing a song is concerned is getting the ending right, and as such a lot of songs have a sudden jump in difficulty at the end to cause the player to lose that crucial top 20% of life and fail.
The difficulty of songs is measured in 'stars', however the system has not remained concrete. The newest styles often contain songs harder than the star system can accurately represent, and as such is constantly revised which each new style. Originally, the difficulty ratings ranged from one to seven "stars". In IIDX 5th Style, a "flashing seven" difficulty debuted, although they would not actually flash until 6th Style. In IIDX 10th Style, the maximum difficulty was raised from a flashing 7 to 8 stars. IIDX RED (11th Style) debuted a flashing 8. As of IIDX Happy Sky (12th Style), the difficulty system was completely overhauled, and all songs are now rated on a scale of 1 to 12.
Many players consider a pass to be rather arbitrarily determined, and so the usual focus is on getting as high a grade as possible. Grades (a feature that came about as of 6th Style) are determined by the player's "EX Score", which is the number of Flashing Greats times two plus the number of Greats. 8/9ths of the maximum or above yields a AAA, 7/9ths or above is a AA, and so on down to a minimum of F. Getting the maximum possible EX Score on a song(ie all Flashing Greats) is generally considered an unrealistic goal, if not impossible. Despite this, some very good players have been known to achieve this feat, albeit on some of the easier songs in the game.
beatmania IIDX has long been a 'cult' game because of the sheer learning curve of the game for new players, unlike other Bemani games like Dance Dance Revolution. The machine is often found in Japanese arcades, but they are rare in American arcades with absolutely none at all in the United Kingdom.
Game modes
- BEGINNER
- This mode was added in 9th style (5th style for home version). In the arcade, Beginner limits the list of songs available to only 1-3 star songs, thus severely limiting the number of songs available in a game. In the home versions, Beginner gives an alternate note chart for nearly all songs, rated from 1-3. These alternative note charts are not available in the arcade.
- LIGHT7 / NORMAL
- This mode is a degree of difficulty lower than 7KEYS. On LIGHT7, the game will not end if you fail the first stage. Before 8th style, it was possible to attain the extra stage by playing in this mode. You may play the 7KEYS difficulty for a song by holding down the VEFX button when selecting the song.
- In IIDX Happy Sky (12th Style), this difficulty was renamed "Normal".
- 7KEYS / HYPER
- This is the standard play mode. When a fixed condition is satisfied on the last song, you can get an extra stage.
- In IIDX Happy Sky (12th Style), this difficulty was renamed "Hyper"
- ANOTHER
- Most players will agree this is the hardest mode by far. The key configuration and 'charts' are similar to that of 7KEYS, but are often harder and not as straight forward. Even if you can complete a song on 7KEYS, you may not even be able to get too far on ANOTHER. To play a song on ANOTHER, you must select 7KEYS from the menu and then select the song while holding down the VEFX button. Songs in ANOTHER difficulty were not given separate difficulty ratings in IIDX 1-11, which was often misleading as the difficulty meter showed the same rating as the 7KEYS variation. As of IIDX Happy Sky (12th Style), songs in ANOTHER difficulty were given a separate rating.
- 5KEYS
- Available for home versions as a specific mode, this plays exactly as 7KEYS, except for the idea that the last two keys farthest from the turntable are not used. This is probably a compatibility issue with original beatmania controllers, so that owners of the original could still somewhat play beatmania IIDX, only having the 5-key controller at hand. In arcade versions of IIDX, 5KEYS has been available from the start as a special gameplay option, most likely as an attempt to help players of the original series make the transition. Starting with 9th style, 5KEYS can be used with notecharts other than the ordinary 7KEYS mode.
- EXPERT
- This mode is one in which you can play a course of songs in a row without stopping. You start with the gauge at its maximum; if it drops to 0, the game is over. The gauge is the same as that used in Hard mode in normal play, but drops at a much slower rate.
- CLASS / DAN / DANININTEI / Step Rank Recognition
- This is basically the same as EXPERT, but as for options, you can only select HI-SPEED, and each course has four songs. In DOUBLE play mode, each course has three songs. The combination of songs differs for every class of difficulty, which is the difference between this and EXPERT.
- FREE
- Practice mode. You can play to the end of a song and won't fail, but you get one song less than if you were to play LIGHT7 or 7KEYS. (Usually, you'd get 3 songs if you played LIGHT7 or 7KEYS; you only get 2 with FREE.)
Furthermore, when DOUBLE is selected in the options selection screen before the game starts, "7" changes to "14", and you use both sides to play.
Special modes
- Auto Scratch
- The turntable is played automatically, not requiring player input. In home versions, it is not possible to set new records with this mode enabled.
- High Speed
- The notes will scroll at a higher speed. It is important to point out that the actual notes do not have to be pressed any more quickly, the scroll speed is simply increased and the notes become further apart. Most beatmania IIDX players use High Speed to make the notes easier to read. High Speed has had a variety of different forms throughout the history of the game. The first four arcade versions (1st through 4th style) had only High Speed 1, which doubled the scroll speed. From the arcade 5th style onwards, High Speed 1, 2 and 3 (2x, 2.5x and 3x the scroll speed, respectively) became available. Home versions, however, employed a different progression. The home version of 3rd style had High Speed 1, 2 and 3 which were speeds of 2x, 3x and 4x respectively. The home version of 4th style had similar options that were slightly slower. The home versions of 5th style onwards had identical High Speed settings to the arcade, with the exception that 6th and 7th style (and presumably future versions) have an additional "High Speed 4" option, corresponding to a 3.5x scroll speed. IIDX Happy Sky (12th Style) has High Speed settings incremental from 0.5x to 4.0x at .5 increments.
- Easy
- On Easy, the gauge does not decrease as quickly and rises faster than usual.
- Hard
- On hard, the gauge functions differently. It begins at 100%, and the song will immediately end if it reaches 0% (but on the other hand, you will pass if you simply reach the end of the song without failing partway). The gauge decreases very fast in this mode, usually as much as 10% for every missed note.
- Random
- On Random, the song's notechart is temporarily altered. All the notes for each key are assigned to another key, picked at random. It should be noted that this is done on a per-key and not a per-note basis, so for instance an alternating sequence of two keys would still be on two keys (but probably not the same two keys as before). Random can make songs with many scale-type maneuvers easier. Note that only the keys are randomised; scratches are not affected.
- Random+
- Introduced in IIDX RED (11th style) in the arcade and 8th style on the home versions, Random+ is like Random, except that the scratch column is included in the randomisation process, so the scratches usually end up assigned to a key, and a key gets assigned to the scratch. This modifier usually completely changes the character of the note chart, so scores obtained using this modifier are not recorded.
- Mirror
- Mirror flips the note layout so, for example, all notes that would normally correspond to the extreme left-hand key now correspond to the extreme right-hand key, and so forth.
- Mirror+
- Introduced in 9th style on the home versions, Mirror+ is like Mirror, except the scratch column is included. Like Random+, scores obtained using this modifier are not recorded.
- Sudden
- On Sudden, notes only become visible when they enter the lower portion of the screen. The visible portion is approximately a third of the screen.
- Sudden+
- Introduced in IIDX Happy Sky (12th style) in the arcade, Sudden+ is like Sudden, except user configurable. The user may hold down the Start button during play and spin the turntable to change the portion of the play field that is covered from the top down.
- Hidden
- On Hidden, notes are only visible in the upper portion of the screen (again, approximately a third of the screen).
- Hidden+
- Introduced in IIDX Happy Sky (12th style) in the arcade, Hidden+ is like Hidden, except user configurable. The user may hold down the Start button during play and spin the turntable to change the portion of the play field that is covered from the bottom up.
- Sudden & Hidden
- It is possible to enable both Sudden and Hidden at once. If this is done, notes are only visible for a very short time in the middle of the screen.
- 5 Key
- In 9th style and up, 5 Key became a selectable modifier in the main game, rather than a separate game mode. In this mode, the two rightmost keys are not used by the player and any notes that would correspond to those keys do not need to be played.
See also
External links
- beatmania IIDX GATEWAY (http://www.konami.co.jp/am/bm2dx/) – official website in Japanese
- beatmania IIDX (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?letter=B&game_id=7077) on The KLOV
- Bemanistyle.com (http://www.bemanistyle.com) - Largest North American Bemani fansite
- VJ Army (http://vjarmy.com/iidx/) - US-centralized scorekeeping site for home version of beatmania IIDXja:Beatmania IIDX