2004: Difference between revisions

But the arcade players were not left out, too. [[AC 10th style|beatmania IIDX 10th style]] hit arcades in February, returning the EFFECTOR system, and resolved all the glitches and errors present in 9th style. New machines even came with a nice plasma display, and it was the first game in the arcade series to save individual clear status with [[e-amusement|e-AMUSEMENT]] cards. [[AC IIDX RED|beatmania IIDX 11 IIDX RED]] launched in October, and introduced a shiny new red interface. It also brought in a few new faces to the series, with the debuts of [[Yoshitaka Nishimura|DJ Yoshitaka]], vocalist [[Kanako Watanabe]] (under the alias Kanako Hoshino), and graphic designer [[Maya Takamura]], whose digital watercolor style differed from the more anime style [[Goli Matsumoto|GOLI]] was known for in the series. IIDX RED also introduced in-game score graphs, allowing you to see your current EX-SCORE in real-time as you play. It also marked the first time you could change skins in an arcade version of beatmania IIDX, though you needed e-AMUSEMENT to access them.

After the nine releases KONAMI released of the series last year, DanceDanceRevolution dialed it back a bit this year. Since there were no arcade games to port over for Japanese players, Japan's one and only CS release of 2004 was the mid-November release [[CS DDR FESTIVAL|DDR FESTIVAL -DanceDanceRevolution-]]. It was mostly a compilation game, containing some old DanceDanceRevolution songs and a few new licenses, as well as most of the new content from [[CS DDR EXTREME NA|DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME US CS]]. But the game's biggest draw is that it also included '''all''' the new songs/DLC from [[CS DDR ULTRAMIX|DDR ULTRAMIX]], available to Japanese players for the first time ever. Many of them even received new HEAVY charts by the Japanese staff.

North America received two new releases in 2004: the aforementioned DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME US CS and [[CS DDR ULTRAMIX2|DanceDanceRevolution ULTRAMIX2]]. EXTREME US featured some backlash from fans of the [[AC DDR EXTREME|arcade release]], in that very few of the songs are from the arcade version (only three EXTREME non-BEMANI originals are even in the game, and one is hidden behind a code). There's also the matter of the new scoring system, which rated on a flat scale to 7 million, awarding you an extra 3 million max based on your combo. If you break your combo at any point in a song, though, you can't get higher than an A. But arguably the most controversial of all is the music select screen layout, which is down in more of a jukebox style with banners in the top center, with very minimalist, grey backgrounds. (DDR FESTIVAL, listed above, also used this same exact interface.)

Europe also got two new releases in 2004. First up was the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 versions of [[CS DS Fusion|Dancing Stage Fusion CS]], the former version being the last BEMANI in ''any'' region for the original Sony PlayStation. The PS2 version is based on EXTREME US CS interface-wise, but is more colorful. Confusingly, only ''seven'' of the game's twenty-one licenses have Double charts, the rest being only playable in Single. The PlayStation version only includes a total of 20 songs, but the PS2 contains a far bigger 54, which is nearly bigger than the previous two Dancing Stage PlayStation 2 releases combined.

** BEMANI debut of [[Tatsuya Shimizu|Tatsh]].

* May 19th: ''beatmania IIDX 10th style ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK'' album released.

* June 25th: ''DanceDanceRevolution PartyCollection ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK'' album released.

* September 21st: [[CS DDR EXTREME NA|DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME CS (America)]] is released in North America for the Sony PlayStation 2.

* November 5th: [[CS DS Fusion|Dancing Stage Fusion CS]] is released in Europe for both the Sony PlayStation and the Sony PlayStation 2.

** The former is the final BEMANI title released in ''any'' region for the Sony PlayStation.