I think you misunderstood the connotation of "overwhelmed." It CAN be a bad thing.

Although I don't have anything insightful or original to say that hasn't already been said in this discussion, I do feel I should voice my enjoyment of playing Beatmania for the first time after eagerly awaiting for its US debut, as well as my thoughts on (an already redundant subject) the song list.

Beatmania is just way too compelling for my own good. It's been a long while since a game has kept me up for hours on end. Something about hitting those falling blue and white notes to synchronize with the music is so addictive.

And you can say what you will about the song list, I think it's pretty damn good. Sure, I'm not oblivious to the fact that they're no where near as good as the Japanese ones. Believe me, I know. I follow their music (I even own the actual 5th and 6th Style OSTs) despite having never played a single game of Beatmania prior to yesterday. But at the very least, it's good enough to add replay value to the game. I especially like anything good-cool, the Virtual Insanity remix, and as well as those obscure (for lack of better phrase) stuff like La Bossanova de Fabienne or Mobo*Moga.

I'm glad I finally got the opportunity to experience Beatmania. I certainly hope that Konami has plans to release more installments of this franchise. It would be heartbreaking to hear otherwise.

The controller's are almost the same, however they have be made slightly different. Usually I have my index fingers over the bottom left and bottom right keys, hands respectively. It seems to work fine, apart from the fact that scratching is a gimmick.

Actually, researching a bit, the spacing and button placement is exactly the same as the japanese version.

From what i hear, some Best Buys have Beatmania setups for people
to try it out and stuff. That's pretty neat!

As for the track list, yea most 5 keys songs really don't quite cut it anymore
i'll admit, but most of the IIDX songs in there are very good. Still,
looking back, playing 2nd mix / 3rd mix / Complete mix was VERY
fun when i first started out and i wouldn't be suprised if people
new to the game actually enjoy it.

I actually don't regret buying this one bit. I just picked it up earlier, yet I was having some thoughts, since I did not know the tracklist, except I knew Fly Through The Night was on here.

IIDX 8th Style is fine, but it made me feel like I tried jumping into Beatmania wayyy too fast with hard songs, even though it has a buncha good ones. This mix right here, Normal Difficulty, perfect for me. So far the tracklist isn't bad, but I kinda wish I didn't have to unlock anything.

yeah IIDX is one of the least friendly music games.. but all they would have to do is use the same good old songs from Japanese mixes and create a mode with easier note charts to get players familar with the game first.

I'm sure part of the lack of reasoning behind leaving some better songs out had to do with licensing issues/testing the water with cheaper licenses. It makes sense for Konami to save some money by using a bunch of Konami originals and only licensing a few outside songs, instead of taking a larger risk and giving the experienced players their favorite songs all over again. Remember the songlist for DDR Konamix?

Beatmania US is a great deal for those of us who don't have 100s of dollars to spend on importing the Jap versions. I'd love to get my hands on the Jap IIDX mixes, but that's way out of my budget...

You could always download them if you're that desperate.

Actually, $70 US is quite alot for 10th Style, or any beatmania title for that matter. There's bound to be torrent sites that have them.

Download them and try them out!

Of course, if you like them, please buy it ^__________^

I've got a question. I was watching the videos on IGN for the US version of Beatmania, and the songs seem kind of screwed up. The volume seems to randomly change from being quiet, to loud. Does this kind of thing happen in the Japanese IIDX games too, or is it just the US version?

Hmm, not sure which song was playing in the video--
but i've never had that problem in either the US or the JP mixes ^_^

That's definitely not normal, nor do any beatmania titles do that.

It's probably IGN's professional video viewing.

Ah, man. I'm kinda stuck on 5-star songs in IIDX mode right now.

I'm completely aware that Beatmania is considered to be amongst the hardest of all Bemani-related games to date. And I'm also aware that this game requires a high level of commitment and practice to get good at it. But I'm curious as to how some of our veteran IIDX players went about going from a newbie to triple-A'ing V Another on their weak days. You know, like, was practicing for a few hours each day more than adequate? Did you use the training mode that's featured in the game? Or was it all innate?

So please, share with me your experiences of getting better at Beatmania.

I used to fail 1* songs on Light7 (Normal) when I was first getting into the game. I didn't get a chance to use a training mode or anything, because I learned on an 8th Style arcade machine that was sorta close to my house. I just kept practicing on that each time I went for a few months, and 3 months later I bought the PS2 version of 8th Style. I spent a couple of hours playing each time I did, but I didn't get a chance to play every day.

Now I can pass most 8*s on 10th Style, and judging by Happy Sky's difficulty system, I think I can pass two 11*s. I've been playing for a little over a year and a half.

I've been playing Beatmania since 3rd mix in the arcade before
IIDX came out, so i got good at playing 5 key before IIDX came out.
I'm not sure if you just started right off the bat playing IIDX, but
if you did, maybe getting pretty good at 5 key will help ^_^ b

As for IIDX~ I'm not a super expert, but i can pass most anothers.
whenever i get stuck, i usually try to go back and
play easier songs but get better at the timing and improving my
letter grade. Afterwards, i'd go back to tackle where i left off ^_*
But just playing everyday for an hour will really help you. Practice
Practice Practice!

If you don't have a VJarmy account (like in Taco's Sig), you should
sign up for one, just to track your progress!

Wow, that's awesome. I wish I had a IIDX machine within my convenience, or rather enough money to buy a car and drive down there myself. But now that I got the game at home, that won't be necessary, right?

Anyway, thanks for sharing. I'll keep practicing regularly.

I did, actually. Except I got stuck on one 6 star song (Attack the music) and all three 7 star songs. I was a bit frustrated and decided to just skip ahead onto IIDX mode without clearing all the songs on 5Key.

Although I'm not certain whether what you said holds merit, I did have a much easier time playing through some of the early level songs on IIDX mode than on 5Key. That could be because I was already familiar with the game play and not necessarily because of 5Key. I mean, had I just started off with IIDX mode, I would eventually pick up the same skills and techniques that I acquired on 5Key anyway. Or am I missing something here? I don't know...

You know, up until you pointed that out, I implicitly did just that: I'd get wrecked on Summer Vacation on Normal, then I'd go back to something I enjoy a lot like Mobo*Moga or The Cube and try to AA it, and after that I'd make another attempt at trying to clear Summer Vacation.

I'll look into that VJ Army thing. If not for it's cool tracking process, but because VJ Army by good-cool is an awesome song.

Thanks for replying.

Well, i know that i'm enjoying this game for the whole controller+beatmania experience of it. last year i had managed to get my hands on beatmania 6th and core for psx and played it only a little bit... the whole absence of the official controller kinda turned me off from the experience, which i totally didn't realize until i got said controller in this bundle. playing on the official controller is about 5x more fun than playing on a psx controller for sure.

i'm a little disappointed that the 5key songs don't have 7key charts... i'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have been too hard to fix, not to mention that it would've stretched gameplay a bit further. It really just feels sad that 5key was used as a crutch to get people into 7key and left all of those songs to wither never to be seen again (except maybe for 10key). surely the absence of alternate 5key difficulties truncated its life...

but i am glad that beatmania is as difficult a game as it is, otherwise there would be a significantly less amount of time put in to get to the end of 7key mode if they hadn't included all of the anothers. not to mention the mods that alter gameplay significantly like mirror and random. which led to an interesting hypothesis: if a person was raised on beatmania playing mirror, at what level of experience would they be able to play adequately without it?
i've noticed that most of the runs cater to a certain direction and lead me to wonder if its more "natural" for the hand to run in a certain direction. or if the consistent run direction is to create difficulty by running in the alternate direction.

i think this installment is only worth its dollar value as a bundle, because without the special controller, it would surely lose half of its fun. (that is if a 7key controller is not yet owned)

There are some 5key songs with Another charts! Take Genom Screams
and 3 2 1 Stars for a spin ^_^ They're a blast on [a].

As for your hypothesis, yea it can be wierd to play patterns that
you're not used to with the mods! Like playing the bass kicks
on key 7 instead of 1 hahah. After a while though, once you hit
a certain level of play, any finger should be able to hit any key
(unless you're one of those people who have a definite hand position).

Eh? There are? How do you access them? I can't figure it out at all:confused: