W/ all the guitar hero love, anyone care for Beatmania IIDX?

[TBag]

Just kinda curious, cuz I loved GH 1/2 but I'm more in love with Beatmania. For those of you who don't know what it is, the idea is that you're playing on a DJ console instead of a guitar (ala GH). You control the music by spinning a turntable or pressing the keys which correspond to different sounds throughout the entire song.

On this -


Sometimes the keys will be assigned to drum sounds and you lay down the beat, other times they'll act like a keyboard/synth and you're laying down melody, sometimes you're doing both (which can be really hard), etc. The list is really endless. Sometimes it's linked to a voice, which I actually don't care for, but you get the picture.

Here's a pretty sick video of Lisu, who is redonkulously good (the fact that he 1-hands a most of it is incredible) -

Linky

My main concern with playing this game is that the US release kinda blows songwise. (Furthermore, if you hate DDR-ish music, this game is definately not for you. It's made by the same people and some songs even overlap titles.) In the US version, they won't let you play any song you want to unless you've played it in the "Game Mode" first, which consists of a 3 song round similar to what would happen in an arcade. This is fine and all, but the problem is only some songs are available on the 1st round, some on the 2nd, and some on the 3rd, and a lot of the songs I really like are only available on the 3rd so I have to play 2 songs I'm already tired until I can get to the good ones. Also, if you fail a song you have to start all over, which sucks because that means if you're playing to unlock songs you can't really play hard tracks to challange yourself as you make it to the 3rd song, because if you fail you become very sad.

If you have the means to play Japanese titles I would definately recommend it. If you have an oldschool PS2 network adapter and a spare harddrive it's very easy accomplish this feat by loading backups to your harddrive and then being able to load them off your HDD. This works for all region games. Otherwise you'll have to mod or get a slipdisc, which I have no experience with, but perhaps others can chime in.

Anyways, just wanted to give you guys my opinion on a game that I think is superior to GH, although I'm pretty sure a lot of you folks who like GH will hate Beatmania.

If you check Amazon you can get a US ver + controller bundle new for about 50 bucks, which isn't bad at all IMHO. So even if you just want to mess around with the US version it won't set you back too much.

Edit -
A word about the difficulty. I find this game can be EXTREMELY challanging. I have cleared every song on expert in GH 1 and every career mode song on GH2 (I haven't even played the extra songs yet, I played 3 of em and thought they were terrible so I didn't continue, although now I hear I have to try Six(?) and Jordan). Anyways, I can only clear SOME of the songs ranked a 5 in difficulty and the ratings go up to 12.

[GetThere1Time]

Yeah, cool stuff. I wanted to snag this for a while but didnt know the best way to go about it. Couple questions:

Is the controller sturdy? If not, are there better third party controllers?

How many IIDX's are released in the US? And how hard would it be to play imports?

Can I ever get this game to work on my comp?


I drop by a Guitar Hero forum from time to time and there are a few guys obsessed with Happy Sky.

Also Beatmania-esque flash game:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/257036

[TBag]

I have the US Konami controller that came with the bundle, and it's worked pretty much flawlessly for me so far. I've also read that they're superior to the Japan version, which has trouble sticking. Some people say the turn table is a little stiff but I don't have any problem with it.

I think there is only one Beatmania release (80% sure) in the US, and I think that was quite awhile ago, so I'm not sure if they're ever going to put out more.

As far as playing imports, there's a large number of ways to accomplish this. You can order a slide tool, or a flip top, or if you own a PS2 network adapter and an older PS2 ver. then you can put a hack on your memory card that lets you load ISO's from a harddrive. (You put the ISOs on the drive from your comp, which you then attach to the network adapter.)

There are games pretty much exactly like beatmania for the computer (the same way there are DDR games for comp that use arrow keys) and I'm not too up to date on it but I'm pretty sure theres a pretty big community out there constantly putting out new music for this medium. There are USB adapters sold online that let you hook PS2 controllers into a PC.

I have the 11th (Red) and 12th (Happy Sky) versions and I'm really happy with em.

[Kumubou]

Lisu videos are so old hat.

omgomgomgomgomgomg I've been playing this game since 4th style on the PS2.. and the number of 12s I can pass I can count on one hand. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] This game is absurdly difficult.. or not. If you look at the arcade ranking data on Happy Sky, something like a quarter of the Japanese playerbase is ranked 10th dan (the second highest rank). Good God.

There was a US release last spring, and it bombed. Partially because the game is just hard to sell to a wide audience, and they did a hell of a job disappointing the hardcore players in America. It just is not a very good release, as they stripped out a bunch of minor (yet important) features and had a completely busted songlist (I think their decision to put in a 5-key mode then half-ass the mode really hurt the release). I doubt they'll ever release another version.

If you do find a full copy, it's a much cheaper way of buying a controller than getting a Japanese controller.

As for Japanese releases, I have no idea what I would suggest to a new player. I still stand buy my opinion that people should start on 6th, as that is just when the interface started to become more usable (high speed 4 orz), and the beginner and drill mode in that game are a really good help. The later versions (especially Red and Happy Sky) look really nice but run much more difficult.

Beatmania sims on the PC aren't as solid as their DDR counterparts, but they are more than suitable for trying the game and playing some fresh content.

[kickpushcoast]

i make beats, dj and play guitar, i dont think i could live with myself if i spent time playing a videogame of making beats, djing or playing guitar, when i should be doing the real thing

[Kumubou]

It's... nothing like that? I just see it as a game where you press lots of buttons and just not think of anything beyond that.

The amusing thing is that several guitarists have admitting to playing Guitar Hero on a regular basis, and one of the common things said is that playing on Expert is harder than playing an actual guitar (so if someone can 100% something like Miserlou on Expert, maybe they should play a real guitar).

[astroglide]

playing guitar hero has almost nothing to do with playing guitar.

[TBag]

[ QUOTE ]
i make beats, dj and play guitar, i dont think i could live with myself if i spent time playing a videogame of making beats, djing or playing guitar, when i should be doing the real thing

[/ QUOTE ]

Kinda a silly argument. You're playing these games because they're fun, simple as that. Have you ever played Madden? Any FIFA game? etc

[BeneathTheWheel]

it's a little different, because you can't just walk outside and play football with 21 other people that all have the talent of NFL players. you can, however, pick up a guitar and learn to play it with all the time you waste playing a game like guitar hero, and actually be satisfied that you accomplished something that means something in the real world.

[kyro]

[ QUOTE ]
it's a little different, because you can't just walk outside and play football with 21 other people that all have the talent of NFL players. you can, however, pick up a guitar and learn to play it with all the time you waste playing a game like guitar hero, and actually be satisfied that you accomplished something that means something in the real world.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, because playing a real guitar as opposed to guitar hero actually "means something in the 'real world'"

Give me a break.