SKILL ANALYZER
SKILL ANALYZER is a series of courses ranked so that each course is harder than the last. These courses were first introduced in SOUND VOLTEX II -infinite infection- on July 3rd, 2013. The difficulty level of the highest SKILL LEVEL course cleared is often used as an indicator of the overall strength of the player.
At the beginning, only eight SKILL LEVEL courses are available from the get-go, but are increased to ten on the third set of courses, and later to twelve courses, each with a certain difficulty level.
When playing a SKILL ANALYZER course, a special gauge, PERMISSIVE RATE, is filled to full at the start and can be recovered with CRITICALs. Whenever the gauge reaches 0 while playing, the track CRASHes and the course fails. Prior to May 30th, 2023, neither MIRROR nor RANDOM are allowed to be used, and S-CRITICAL option is unavailable. Online matching is available when played on Skill Level. 08 or higher, though the player cannot be SAVED in the event of a TRACK CRASH.
Each course has three songs, but unlike beatmania IIDX's CLASS mode, each rank has multiple courses to choose from. Level 11 and ∞ can only be accessed by obtaining a shining gold frame from the lower ranks below with all of the charts from the relevant course unlocked prior. These frames can be obtained by earning a clear rate of 130% (first nine Skill Levels), 150% (Skill Level.10), 160% (Skill Level.11), and 170% (Skill Level.∞). The maximum goes up to 200%, with the percentage dependent on the combined total scores rounded down all the way until 100%, whereas the percentage is dependent on how far the player reached the course before a TRACK CRASH.
The calculation of the rate were as follows (all rounded down to the next integer):
- Cleared course (via PERMISSIVE RATE): 100% + (Average score of all three songs - 9,000,000) / 10,000
- Cleared course (via DIVINE RATE): 100% + (sum of all EX Score of all three songs / sum of maximum EX Score of all three songs - 90%) * 10
- Failed course: (number of songs cleared + the chart measure and note number where Track CRASH was triggered) * 33.3%
As of May 30th, 2023, accessing Level 11 and ∞ courses has been simplified by removing the gold frame requirement. Players now need to simply clear at least one course and have all of the charts from the course unlocked beforehand.
On June 1st, 2023, DIVINE RATE was added as an option in this mode, by pressing all four BT buttons at the same time. DIVINE RATE works similarly to beatmania IIDX's Kiwami and EX-HARD in CLASS mode, where S-CRITICALs are enabled and only fill the gauge, while NEARs penalize the gauge as well. The rate calculation (for clearing) is counted differently, based on the sum of EX Score (see above). Furthermore, the gold frame requirements via DIVINE RATE has increased by 10% each.
Courses are added periodically, usually from SKILL ANALYZER, although other courses not relevant to SKILL ANALYZER are occasionally added. For a list of these courses, please see this article.
Skill Level.01 岳翔
Skill Level.02 流星
Skill Level.03 月衝
Skill Level.04 瞬光
Skill Level.05 天極
Skill Level.06 烈風
Skill Level.07 雷電
Skill Level.08 麗華
Skill Level.09 魔騎士
Skill Level.10 剛力羅
Skill Level.11 或帝滅斗
Skill Level.∞ 暴龍天
Trivia
- In infinite infection, the songs from the courses were decided by voting done via the website, and the most voted songs ending up in the successive SKILL ANALYZER course. However, once a song has appeared twice, it was removed from the list on the next voting. For a list of songs that appeared in the polls, see here.
- Starting with GRAVITY WARS, players can no longer vote for songs, instead players can choose from one of three courses in each level. Note that there are no audio previews for the final song until they were added in HEAVENLY HAVEN.
- In HEAVENLY HAVEN, SKILL ANALYZER courses were merged into the main game mode, and they could be accessed as a song folder during the first stage. This change was reverted in VIVID WAVE.
- The colors for the 10 ranks of VOLFORCE levels are based on the colors of SKILL ANALYZER, except Level.04 瞬光 and Level.05 天極.
- The full names (and their alternate 神 titles) of each of the SKILL Levels are also the rank titles for Achievement (the text used is shown in bold):
- Skill Level.01 岳翔: "岳を翔ける歌声" / "岳を翔ける神歌"
- Skill Level.02 流星: "流れる星々のように" / "流麗なる神星のように"
- Skill Level.03 月衝: "月からの衝動" / "神聖なる月からの衝動"
- Skill Level.04 瞬光: "瞬く光芒" / "瞬く神光"
- Skill Level.05 天極: "天の極へ至る道" / "天の極へ至る神域"
- Skill Level.06 烈風: "烈々たる風音" / "烈々たる風神"
- Skill Level.07 雷電: "雷として電なる者" / "電々たる雷神"
- Skill Level.08 麗華: "麗しきその華" / "神々しく麗しきその華"
- Skill Level.09 魔騎士: "魔の騎士を冠する指先" / "魔神の騎士を宿す銀腕"
- Skill Level.10 剛力羅: "剛として羅する力" / "金剛とすて羅する神力"
- Skill Level.11 或帝滅斗: "或帝が滅する刻" / "或帝が滅する神威"
- Skill Level.∞ 暴龍天: "暴るる龍、天をも穿つ" / "暴るる神龍、一天を穿つ"
- Level.10 剛力羅, Level.11 或帝滅斗, and Level.∞ 暴龍天 are read as "gorilla", "ultimate" and "volte", respectively.
- Unlike other games with similar systems, courses which contained a song that have been removed from the game are removed from the list of courses altogether, instead of substituting the removed song for the course.
- The first course to do so was Level.06 烈風's GRAVITY WARS Course 6B due to the removal of サイバーサンダーサイダー on June 1st, 2016.
- On March 29th, 2017, HEAVENLY HAVEN removed Level.03 月衝's Course 1C and Level.09 魔騎士's Course 1A, as these courses contained removed songs 進め！イッスン軍団 -Rebellion of the Dwarfs- and Brain Power, respectively.
- Level.11 或帝滅斗's HEAVENLY HAVEN Course 6B is the first course to be available by default, as these songs do not have unlocking requirements. Coincidentally, all three songs in said course are BMS originals.
- Level.∞ 暴龍天 was referenced in the special overlays of SuddeИDeath.