What is beatmania IIDX: Difference between revisions

''beatmania IIDX'' controls consist of seven (instrument) keys (four white, three black) along with one turntable on each player's side. The turntable for the left player's side, 1Player, is on the left of the keys, while the one on the right player's side, 2Player, is on the right.

Under the 16:9 wide display are the start button, both effector and VEFX buttons, and effector sliders (or the touch screen in the LIGHTNING cabinets). After [[AC 9th style|beatmania IIDX 9th style]], there is also a cardreader, in order to use the magnetic/contact-less smart card of [[e-amusement|e-AMUSEMENT]]. In 9th style, the effector no longer operates, but it has been revived in [[AC 10th style|10th style]] with modified slide switch function. Different versions of the game are traditionally 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 10th style. According to [[Goli Matsumoto|GOLI]], 10th style was the last IIDX series with an "n-th style". [[AC IIDX RED|beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED]] became the first beatmania IIDX game with a theme and title, followed by [[AC HAPPY SKY|beatmania IIDX 12 HAPPY SKY]], and so forth. Each series 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 beatmania 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.

As of [[AC CANNON BALLERS|beatmania IIDX 25 CANNON BALLERS]], two built-in cameras for hand-shooting have been added, one on the metal cage in front of the neons pointing at the controls, and one to the left of the screen pointing at the player(s). Initially, the game would not boot up if the cameras were not attached, but this was fixed shortly after the initial release of CANNON BALLERS.

KONAMI has also released home versions of the game, with 15 releases for the PlayStation 2 console, one PC and one mobile releases. Fourteen versions of the PS2 game are available in Japan, while one is available in the US. 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 [[CS 3rd style|3rd style]] through [[CS EMPRESS|EMPRESS]] have been released in Japan; the US release is titled simply [[CS USA|beatmania]] and does not correspond to an arcade version at all.

The latest home version, [[CS INFINITAS|beatmania IIDX INFINITAS]], is a PC release of beatmania IIDX, and it uses a unique interface based on [[AC SPADA|SPADA]].

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 if the note is white or blue (or play the scratch if the note is red) 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 pass a song technically with an F and fail with a AAA, although this is rare in practice (except in HAZARD, due to COMBO BREAKing in the very last notes).

During gameplay, the player gets performance feedback from two sources. One is a life bar (often referred to as the "groove gauge") at the bottom of the screen, with both green and red lines (red ones are required). 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 somewhat by Bads and 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 off-set, lose that crucial top 20% of life and fail, or in rare cases, pass a song with only one red bar, knowned as Borderline.

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 beatmania IIDX 5th style, a "flashing seven" difficulty debuted, although they would not actually flash until [[AC 6th style|6th style]]. beatmania IIDX 9th style introduced new difficulties by Level, in which "flashing 7's" are replaced with Level 7+. In 10th style, the maximum difficulty was raised from Level 7+ to Level 8. beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED debuted Level 8+. As of beatmania IIDX 12 HAPPY SKY, the difficulty system was completely overhauled, and all songs are now rated on a scale of Level 1 to Level 12, Level 1 being the easiest, Level 12 being the most difficult.

 

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 [[AC 6th style|6th style]]) are determined by the player's "EX Score", which is the number of Flashing Greats (also known as Just Great or Perfect Great) 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(i.e. 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 DanceDanceRevolution. The machine is often found in Japanese, Asian and Korean arcades, but they are rare in American and European arcades.

When playing on your e-amusement account, or on console or mobile data, the game will record your pass/fail/scoring data on each song. This will be shown on the song select screen as a glowing light next to the song's title, known as a Clear Lamp.

Clear Lamps will glow depending on the best result you obtained playing that particular song.

| FAILED || Flickering red || Flickering blue || Flickering Green/blue/yellow/red<br>(BEGINNER, NORMAL, HYPER, and ANOTHER respectively) || The song was attempted, but the player failed.

|colspan=3| Bright purple || The song was passed with any ASSIST modifier or the ASSISTED EASY groove gauge setting.

|colspan=2| Bright blue || Bright green/blue/yellow/red<br>(BEGINNER, NORMAL, HYPER, and ANOTHER respectively) || The song was cleared.

|colspan=3| Strobing white, blue, and orange || The song was full comboed.

:This difficulty was added as a game mode in 9th style (5th style for home version). Designed for newcomers to the game, the BEGINNER difficulty uses alternative note charts that are rated from Level 1 to 3. Not all songs have BEGINNER charts, thus the selection of charts available for this difficulty is limited.

:SIRIUS includes select BEGINNER charts from home versions to the arcade series; since [[AC copula|copula]], these charts can also be played in any non-course mode. HEROIC VERSE is the first game where BEGINNER charts are included in regular Level folders and select Dan courses.

:A degree of difficulty lower than HYPER.

:This is the standard difficulty.

:The key configuration and charts are similar to that of HYPER, but are often harder and not as straight forward. Even if you can complete a song on HYPER, you may not even be able to get too far on ANOTHER. To play a song on ANOTHER on IIDX RED and before, you must select 7KEYS from the menu and then select the song while holding down the VEFX button (for IIDX HAPPY SKY and later, just press the VEFX button to change the difficulty to select ANOTHER). 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/HYPER variation. As of HAPPY SKY, songs in ANOTHER difficulty were given a separate rating. Not every song has ANOTHER charts.

:LEGGENDARIA charts debuted in SPADA and cost 4 V-Discs (or 1 in certain days) to play. These are generally harder versions of ANOTHER charts or ported versions of Black ANOTHER charts from CS versions. Before HEROIC VERSE, LEGGENDARIA charts had a "†" or "†LEGGENDARIA" moniker after the song title. Not every song has LEGGENDARIA charts.

| This mode gives the player a song list depending on his/her performance on each stage, with the range of difficulty becoming easier or harder.<br>STEP UP is unavailable for 2 players.

| Play a course of set songs in a row without stopping. Players start with the gauge at its maximum; if it drops to 0%, the game is over.<br>It uses a HARD gauge (all lines are turn red), but it drops at a much slower rate. Up through Lincle, EXPERT had 5 songs, instead of 4.

| 2 songs (3, if there are 2 players)

| TIME FREE is only available certain days, replacing FREE mode, or if online ARENA MODE only detects CPU players.<br>It works like FREE mode, except with a timer instead of stages.<br>PREMIUM FREE is only available in Japanese cabinets, requires PASELI and, in certain days, adds an additional minute.

| Added in EMPRESS, GROOVE GAUGE lines are turn yellow, and breaking combo will result in instant stage failure.<br>A POOR with no notes on its line will drop the gauge by a minimal amount (2%).

| Like HAZARD mode, except with a timer instead of stages. Only available in certain days, replacing HAZARD.

| Like TIME FREE mode, except that the Groove Gauge cannot be recovered while playing. Only available in certain days, replacing HAZARD.

| This is basically the same as EXPERT, but only HI-SPEED, EX GAUGE (switch the red lines of the GROOVE GAUGE to yellow ones) and MIRROR can be chosen, and each course has four songs.<br>The song sets differ for every difficulty. ADVANCED OPTIONS is not affected by this mode.

| An online matching mode where four players compete against each other on a 4 song set.<br>If only CPU players are detected, the player can choose TIME FREE instead. ARENA is unavailable for 2 players.

| HARD || Yes || Yes (EXPERT) || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || The Groove Gauge starts at 100%, depletes faster and the stage is FAILED when fully drained. All lines are turn red.

| EX-HARD || Yes || Yes<br>(EXPERT) || No || Yes || Yes || Yes || Same as HARD, but with a greater penalty on missed notes. All lines are turn yellow.

* HI-SPEED - increases the scroll rate of the note chart. 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 Hi-Speed to make the notes easier to read. Most versions of beatmania IIDX have more than one Hi-Speed setting, differentiated by numbers (a higher number means a faster speed.) The Hi-Speed modifier is traditionally abbreviated HS with the number immediately following. For example, Hi-Speed 2 is abbreviated HS2. In styles from DistorteD and IIDX RED CS onward, the player is able to change High Speeds during actual gameplay. Starting with HAPPY SKY and 10th style CS, Hi-Speed options are expanded to .5 intervals ranging from normal speed to Hi-Speed 4 or 5. Starting with [[AC tricoro|tricoro]], the HI-SPEED settings go from x0.50 to x4.00 in 0.25 increments. Since SPADA, the HI-SPEED setting can only be changed on the main gameplay screen. [[AC Rootage|Rootage]] introduced a new HI-SPEED system, temporally replacing the old one. There are 10 HI-SPEED settings, and the chart will now scroll at the same speed on a given HI-SPEED setting regardless of the song BPM, but BPM changes will still affect the scroll speed. [[AC HEROIC VERSE|HEROIC VERSE]] re-enables CLASSIC HI-SPEED and expands Rootage's HI-SPEED option to 20 settings.

:Hi-Speed is traditionally adjusted by holding the START button during gameplay and hitting either a black or white key. [[AC tricoro|tricoro]] introduces the Floating Hi-Speed, in which adjustments are done by one-hundredth decimal intervals by spinning the turntable in a corresponding direction. A player can switch between the classic, Rootage and Floating Hi-Speed by pressing the EFFECT button or [0] on the keypad while the Hi-Speed window is open.

* TARGET SCORE - Adjust the graphs mode with a turntable. Unavailable in 2 players mode. ARENA target score is exclusive in ARENA mode.

* RANDOM+ - introduced in IIDX RED AC and 8th style CS, this is similar to Random, except that the scratch column is included in the randomization 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+ - introduced in 9th style CS, this is like Mirror, except the scratch column is included. Like Random+, scores obtained using this modifier are not recorded.

* SUDDEN (old) - notes only become visible when they enter the lower portion of the screen. The visible portion is approximately a third of the screen. It can be enabled at the same time as Hidden, causing the notes to briefly blink in the middle of their respective lanes.

* HIDDEN (old) - notes are only visible in the upper portion of the screen (again, approximately a third of the screen). It can be enabled at the same time as Sudden, causing the notes to briefly blink in the middle of their respective lanes.

* REGUL-SPEED - Introduced as a secret modifier in GOLD, this negates the effect of tempo changes by setting the scroll speed to a constant 150 BPM. The player can then select an appropriate Hi-Speed mod accordingly. To enable this option, open the options menu by holding Start and press the keys "2-3-5-7-4-6". This constant scroll-speed setting is analoguous to Stepmania's C-Mod, and standard gameplay settings in GuitarFreaks/DrumMania as well as Guitar Hero. Scores obtained using this modifier are not recorded.

* 5-KEYS - This assist modifier disables the two farthermost keys of the player's side, thus essentially making it a 5-key chart akin to the original beatmania. Removed in [[AC Rootage|Rootage]].

* ASSIST NOTES / MOBILE ASSIST - reduces chords to one or two simultaneous note(s). Exclusive for ULTIMATE MOBILE. Using this option counts as ASSIST CLEAR.