What is NOSTALGIA

What is ノスタルジア?

A ノスタルジア cabinet.

ノスタルジア (romanized as NOSTALGIA) is a piano based touch music game released by KONAMI on March 1st, 2017. It was first announced on February 2016 during the JAEPO 2016 event. Although ノスタルジア was not advertised as a BEMANI game at first, it was later added to the BEMANI family of games at subsequent location tests.

ノスタルジア's machine serial number and version ID start with PAN.

According to sound director wac, ノスタルジア is meant to be both a "piano game for those who do not play piano" and "a BEMANI game for those who do not play BEMANI".

ノスタルジア runs on a modified BeatStream cabinet, although a dedicated cabinet (which lacks the upper screen) is available as well. The piano design of the cabinet changed several times during the location tests, although the piano design on the final cabinet resemble to that of the first location test (white and black keys, but only the white keys are used for gameplay). ノスタルジア is keysounded, but "extra" sounds do not play if there are no notes present.

Game Modes

Two game modes are available at the start of your credit:

• STANDARD mode: Can be played with either regular credits or PASELI. This is the regular play mode, Normal and Hard charts are available, while Expert charts can be unlocked by clearing Hard charts with an A grade or higher. Real charts can be purchased with the in-game currency nos.
• FORTE mode: Expert and Real charts are available by default, and items in-game can be obtained more easily. In the Korean version, this mode requires twice the credits of STANDARD mode.

The availability of the modes is the following:

Country	Cabinet Version	Availability
		STANDARD	FORTE
Japan	Japanese	Yes	PASELI only
Korea	Korean	Yes	Yes
Other	Asian	Yes	No

As of Op.2, STANDARD and FORTE have the following gameplay modes:

• BASIC: the standard gameplay mode.
• RECITAL: a gameplay mode where players are evaluated on different parameters (score, accuracy, following a certain "theme" for the recital, strength of keystrokes, mistouches). The better the score, more in-game currency is obtained.
• EXAM: a course mode with fixed songs, much like in other BEMANI games.

Gameplay

Much like the KEYBOARDMANIA series (or even more similar to Rayark's Deemo, VOEZ, and SEGA's CHUNITHM), players have to hit a piano key while the scrolling down notes reach the judgement line, located on the lower screen. However, players do not have to hit the specific key on the piano to match the note on the screen. Instead, hitting the key(s) surrounding the scrolling note is sufficient. On higher difficulties, fewer surrounding keys count toward a correct note "hit". Hits can be judged as ◆Just, Just, Good, Near (introduced in FORTE), or Miss.

Initially, three difficulties, Normal, Hard and Expert, are offered for each song. Each of these charts are rated from Levels 1 to 12. A fourth difficulty, Real, was added in ノスタルジア Op.2, although not all songs have Real charts. Unlike the other difficulties, Real has its own rating scale, from one to three diamonds (◆).

Notes with a red hue are meant to be hit with the right hand, while notes with a blue hue are meant to be hit with the left hand. Certain songs will "suggest" that players cross their hands over.

Besides the regular notes, there are three types of special notes:

• Tenuto: A long note, much like hold notes on other BEMANI games.
• Glissando: A slide note across several keys (not present in some Real charts).
• Trill: Similar in appearance to a tenuto note, it has to be hit with two adjacent keys on a quick sucession.

Options

The following gameplay options can be set before the song begins by toggling the "Set volume, judgment, and others before playing" (演奏前に音量や判定などを設定する) checkbox on the song selection screen:

• MAIN
  • Headphone: allows the player to set their headphones' volume, from 1.0 (default) to 7.0. The value set by the player will be kept during the credit unless the headphones are removed.
  • Hi-Speed: you can change the speed at which the Notes flow from 1.0 (default) to 3.0, with 0.1 increments. In the left part of the screen, you can preview the speed of Notes set by the player.
  • Hand: can be set as "Both hands" (default), "Left hand only", or "Right hand only". By selecting the "___ hand only" options, the notes on the side of the hand you did not select will be played automatically. A song that has been cleared for the first time by selecting one of the "___ hand only" options will have a mark next to the score, and Full Combos with these options will not be counted.
  • Judge "NEAR": toggles ON (default) or OFF the Near judgment.
  • Judge Timing: allows players to adjust timing from -5 (early) to +5 (late).
• VISUAL
  • Trajectory: changes how the notes scroll to reach the judgement line, between Splash (default), Approach (similar to the DANCERUSH and SOUND VOLTEX series), Slope (similar to the mobile game Tokyo 7th Sisters), and Vertical (similar to the beatmania IIDX and DanceDanceRevolution series).
  • Fast/Slow: toggles ON (default) or OFF the Fast/Slow message during gameplay.
  • Height: changes the height of the judgment messages, from -2 to +5.
  • Key Beam: adjusts the key beam length, from +0 (default) to +5.
  • Simple Background: toggles the background effects, Judge Cats, and rank display during gameplay ON or OFF (default).
• NOTES
  • Vertical Width: adjusts the vertical width of the notes, from 0.5 to 1.5.
  • Width: same as above, but for the horizontal width of the notes.
  • Change judgment according to width: if the above was changed, by setting this to ON will adjust the Judge Timing to match the Width changes.
  • Types: changes the note skin between "Blue/Red" (青・赤, default) and "Monochromatic" (単色).
• SOUND
  • Key: allows the player to lower the volume of the keysounds, from +0 (default) to -20.
  • Backing Track: same as Key, but for the background music during gameplay.
  • Rhythm Guide: allows the player to adjust the volume of the metronome which sounds on every beat of the song, from -10 to +20. The metronome can toggled on or off during gameplay by touching its icon on the screen.
  • Rhythm Guide Sound: changes the metronome sound between Analog (default), Digital, Clap, Wood, CowBell, and Tambourine.

Additionally, players have the ability to lift or lower the judgement line (including the on-screen piano guide area), from +20 (high) to -20 (low). Note that this does not change the timing itself. This option can be set during gameplay from March 22nd, 2017 onwards.

Scoring

The game does not feature a life meter. Instead, similar to the jubeat series, a minimum score of 700.000 points is required to pass a song. Failing a song does not automatically net a game over, regardless of the mode you have chosen.

When the song is finished, the player will receive a score up to 1.000.000 depending on their performance, and will receive a message depending on whether the song was cleared with Perfect Performance (full combo with 1.000.000 points), Full Combo, It's Fantastic (regular clear), or Finish (fail).

Judgement point

Let N = Note count
Let J = ◆Just count
Let j = Just count
Let G = Good count

Judgement point = 1.000.000(J+0.7j+0.5G)/N

Near (introduced in ノスタルジア FORTE) and Miss give 0 points.

Rating

Ratings will also be assigned based on the score:

Rank	Score
Pianist	1.000.000
S	950.000 - 999.999
A+	900.000 - 949.999
A	850.000 - 899.999
B+	800.000 - 849.999
B	750.000 - 799.999
C	700.000 - 749.999
-	0 - 699.999

Grade

Play Grade (Grd.) was introduced in FORTE. It is a skill score that accumulates (as Total Grade) depending on your best song performances. Its use was expanded in Op.2, where higher Total Grade will allow the player to access higher EXAM courses without having to clear the easier courses.

Grade is saved separately in BASIC and RECITAL modes.

Class	Accumulated Grd.	Class	Accumulated Grd.
1級	5500	11級	600
2級	5400	12級	400
3級	5250	13級	300
4級	5000	14級	200
5級	4500	15級	120
6級	4000	16級	80
7級	3000	17級	40
8級	2000	18級	20
9級	1200	19級	10
10級	800	20級	0

For more information on EXAM courses, please see NOSTALGIA EXAM Courses.

Local Matching

Introduced in FORTE, by pressing the "LOCAL MATCHING" button on the difficulty selection screen, you can play with players from the same store. Up to 4 players can play at the same time. The other players can press the bookmark-shaped button in the upper right of the song selection screen and select a song to play together.

While playing with other players, an "Ensemble Combo" is displayed during gameplay when matching, which is a total combo of all players. Ensemble Combo gives the players extra Steps for the respective game's unlocking system.

Matching is possible even if one of the players select a song that has not been unlocked by other player. However, if you select a mode other than FORTE, you can only play up to Hard.

e-amusement

When used with an e-amusement pass, the game will save statistics to the e-amusement servers. As with other recent BEMANI games, e-amusement is also required for song unlocks and events.