SOUND VOLTEX Information

Games

• SOUND VOLTEX BOOTH (released January 2012)
• SOUND VOLTEX II -infinite infection- (released June 2013; current edition)

Summary

SOUND VOLTEX is one of the most recent series of BEMANI music games, and the first one to utilize the e-AMUSEMENT Partecipation system.
Sound directors of the SOUND VOLTEX series are DJ YOSHITAKA, Cody and dj TAKA. Currently, it is known that DJ YOSHITAKA is the head producer.
System BGM are all made by Sota Fujimori.

What makes SOUND VOLTEX differentiate from the other games is that regular BEMANI artists (either Konami in-house or commissioned ones) aren't involved in the songlist, with a few exceptions. It, instead, involves artists renowned in the doujin and beatmania simulation scene, plus licensed EXIT TUNES songs and Touhou Project arrangements. There are also remixes of original Konami songs.
While at first the songlist mostly consisted of original songs or licenses involving VOCALOID, later in the life-cycle of the first game the artist selection greatly expanded thanks to what it is supposed to be the most important part of the game - the FLOOR section.

SOUND VOLTEX FLOOR refers to the group of competitions posted in the website where Japanese-only artists can partecipate, in order to have their songs or remixes appearing on the playable game. Music contests have their own themes and rules, such as remixing a selection of an artist's songs or using synthesized vocals. There are also contests related to designing album arts to replace pre-existing ones in the game.
Thanks to the FLOOR contests (and also to the presence of Touhou arrangements), the game quickly gained a lot of success, suggesting the production team to focus as much as possible on these in the future. Also, contest winners may have a way to get involved in other BEMANI games.

As seen in SOUND VOLTEX II -infinite infection-, new games of the series are released as huge online updates. No OST has been announced for the first game yet.

Gameplay

SOUND VOLTEX's gameplay is similar to other rhythm games like beatmania IIDX and GuitarFreaks/DrumMania. When a note reaches the line in time with the beat, you press the corresponding button.
The game interface has 4 SHORT note lanes, and 2 LONG note lanes that each occupy 2 SHORT note lanes. SHORT notes are white, while LONG notes are yellow/orange.
In addition to the standard SHORT and LONG buttons, SOUND VOLTEX also has 2 analog dials, one on each side. When a blue trail (left side) and/or a pink trail (right side) appears, you have to turn the respective dial(s) to "follow" the trail(s). These are known as ANALOG CHAINS.
The effects in the songs are game-related and are caused by LONG notes (distortion effects) and ANALOG CHAINS (woosh effects).

Since SOUND VOLTEX II -infinite infection-, new gameplay mechanics have been introduced:

• SHORT note lanes can now have hold notes.
• LONG note lanes can now short notes.

In order to clear a song, your GROOVE GAUGE must be 70% or higher.

Hi-SPEED options are available, including the FLOATING Hi-SPEED feature as in beatmania IIDX.

Difficulty

SOUND VOLTEX has three main difficulties: NOVICE, ADVANCED and EXHAUST.
SOUND VOLTEX II -infinite infection- introduces a fourth difficulty: INFINITE. The INFINITE difficulty is very similar to the CHALLENGE one of DanceDanceRevolution and the MASTER one of GITADORA, as it is only available for a few songs. It is now known yet if it will be available for songs that had easy EXHAUST charts, as seen in the current game.

Difficulty ratings, so far, range from 1 (the easiest) to 15 (the hardest).

As a major note, newly added songs have the NOVICE chart always unlocked by default. The other difficulty charts, most of the time, must be bought from the SDVX Station. In the first game, you could buy single charts; in the sequel, you buy all of them for a song at once.

Scoring

All notes are judged as CRITICAL (perfect), NEAR (good), or ERROR (miss). The maximum score in each stage or TRACK is 10,000,000 (10 million).
If a player hits all notes (i.e. a full combo), it is an ULTIMATE CHAIN. If he/she hits all notes with a CRITICAL rating, it is a PERFECT ULTIMATE CHAIN.

Trivia

(to be added)

External Links

(to be added)

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