beatmania III
Release Information
- Release date: March 8th, 2000
General Information / Changes
- First title of the beatmania III series.
- The last game with the Dancemania licenses from beatmania 5thMIX.
- Though it retains the same 5-key gameplay of beatmania, beatmania III differs in the following ways:
- beatmania III runs on BEMANI FIREBEAT HARDWARE, the same hardware used in pop'n music 4 through 8 and ee'MALL, as opposed to the more primitive BEMANI DJ-MAIN HARDWARE. As a result, songs have more fluid, full-screen videos and animations, and the interface is much more colorful.
- Unfortunately, memory limitations leave songs with only having 5-10 seconds of unique animations repeated throughout a song.
- A much more expanded effector table.
- beatmania III has music previews; beatmania does not.
- beatmania III features a foot pedal, used on a few select songs as a seventh button to press. It can also be used as a substitute for one of the five keys.
- A 3.5 inch floppy disk drive, which one can use to save scores with, as well as unlock songs and game modes.
- A headphone jack is included.
- Each cleared song is graded with red or blue colors. This is used to unlock secrets.
- In tsunagi (expert) mode: clearing with 95% or more GOOD, GREAT, and JUST GREAT will grant you a red grade.
- Other modes: clearing with 95,000 points or higher will grant you a red grade.
- DJ LEVEL
- In tsunagi (expert) mode: (JUSTGREAT×10 + GREAT×5) ÷ TotalNotes
- Other modes: ((JUSTGREAT + GREAT)×10 + GOOD×2) ÷ TotalNotes
- A = 8.75 or more
- B = 7.50 or more
- C = 6.25 or more
- D = 5.00 or more
- E = 3.75 or more
- F = 2.50 or more
- G = 1.25 or more
- H
- Unlike beatmania, beatmania III very rarely removed songs from the original beatmania series.
- beatmania III's max points possible for a song is 100,000 points (beatmania had switched to 200,000 max points a year earlier), which continued through the entire series.
- GOODs break combo, like the earlier beatmania games.
- The Internet Ranking course data file was uploaded at the official site, which can be downloaded to a floppy disk in order to play those courses.
- Those courses are installed into Backup RAM on the PCB. Then all players can choose them without a floppy disk.
- Only title in the beatmania III series with brand-new songs. Subsequent games were released as "APPEND" titles with the same new songs as their original beatmania counterpart (along with new LONG versions in the case of 6thMIX, 7thMIX, and THE FINAL.)
- Four songs have charts that change depending on the player's performance. If the player gets a high number of BADs and POORs, the chart changes to a more simple version of itself.
- ANOTHER and foot ver. charts are listed separately in song select screen, much like beatmania 5thMIX's HARD VERSION songs.
- HI-SPEED multipliers are 1.3x, 2x, and 4x.
Staff Information
Full Song List
New SongsEXPERT CoursesCodes & Unlock Information
Codes
These three modifiers are not available in tsunagi (expert) mode.
- Foot play
- On the song select screen, while choosing a song (except foot ver. songs), hold Start and pedal, then press any key to assign that key to pedal.
- Note that even if Battle play is used, only one key is assigned.
- Frame select
- On the song select screen, repeatedly press and release Start. The gameplay frame will change depending on how many times Start was released.
- 0: AUTO, 1: CLOUD, 2: TECHNO, 3: STREET, 4: METAL, 5: JAPAN, 6: SPE-ANA, 7: same as 0.
- Fast/Slow play
- On the song select screen,
- Hold keys 2 and 4, then press 1 to start: FAST PLAY 1 (1.25X).
- Hold keys 2 and 4, then press 3 to start: FAST PLAY 2 (1.6X).
- Hold keys 2 and 4, then press 5 to start: FAST PLAY 3 (2.0X).
- Hold keys 1, 3 and 5, then press 2 to start: SLOW PLAY (0.8X).
- Note that some songs do not allow these modifiers.
Song Unlocks
All of these unlocks require playing with a FD.
- ANOTHER charts
- Play the HARD chart of a song with an ANOTHER chart. Clear it with a red grade or play five times. The ANOTHER chart will be available from the next time playing with the FD.
- mnemoniq
- Clear or play three times all songs in beatmania III folder. mnemoniq will be available from the next time playing with the FD.
- Note: If this requirement is satisfied only in kobako (basic) mode, mnemoniq will only appear in kobako (basic) mode. If it is satisfied in other modes, it will appear in all modes.
- Badboy flygirl
- Play all songs in beatmania III folder, including mnemoniq. Clear them with a red grade or play them five times. Badboy flygirl will be available from the next time playing with the FD.
- Note: If this requirement is satisfied only in kobako (basic) mode, Badboy flygirl will only appear in kobako (basic) mode. If it is satisfied in other modes, it will appear in all modes.
- sozai (free) mode
- Play all songs except secret songs. sozai (free) mode will be available from the next time playing with the FD.
- Note: If you want to unlock sozai (free) mode by playing in kobako (basic) mode, you will also need to play the practice stage.
- Playable ending
- Meet the requirements for mnemoniq with a FD. Then, the ending will have notes (note that the ending is omitted in sozai (free) mode).
- Old ending song
- Upon playing with a FD that has already unlocked mnemoniq, the ending song will change to love's theme of beatmania, the ending song of the first beatmania.
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