Day Two: A Short Essay About Dickwaving.

No seriously, this entry is to convey one thing. I love Beatmania IIDX.

Anyhow, for those of you who are new to the game there is a whole hell of a lot for you to learn & you will never learn all of it unless you've got aspies so why don't you just read up on it here & Here

Basically the idea of the game, if you're too lazy to click links is to make music with seven oversized keyboard keys & a turntable. The result is a shitstorm of grey, red & blue lines that will give you a seizure if you're prone to it. No rly. Turn your speed modifier up & crank that shit to eleven. Beatmania has got a slightly bad rep in the states as the only US release was the dreaded Beatmania for Playstation 2. Of the five decent songs there was another 30 or so terrible songs including but not limited to covers of Celebration, Toxic, & You Really Got Me Beatmania kind of failed to deliver. Not to mention G4 decided to not even research the game which resulted in Adam Sessler calling Beatmania a "Guitar Hero Ripoff". Dear Adam Sessler & G4 television as a whole: Beatmania IIDX 1st Style (the next generation version of the original 5-Key Beatmania) came out in 1999.

So with twelve years under their belt the game itself has overcome many changes. Starting with my least favorite change is the revamping of the level system of the game. In the beginning there were three modes of difficulty: Light 7 - 7 Keys - Another. The highest level of difficulty in the game as far as numbers go is a Flashing 7 which is (you guessed it) a Level 7 that flashes. At the release of 10th Style Konami introduced players to Level 8. Next came IIDX 11th Style, or more commonly known as IIDX RED. Flashing 8s were introduced things started getting really crazy difficult.


& then.. Just as everyone was getting settled in with the new IIDX Konami dropped IIDX 12th Style Gettin Some Slpash Beats HAPPY SKY! Oh, what's this? Light 7 is now Normal? Well, at least 7 Keys is.. Wait why does it say Hyper? Okay, whatever.. LEVEL 12?!?! What.

Now, I understand that the level system was in need of a revamp, but they didn't need to go as far as to call Light mode "Normal". The game originally was just a step up for 5 Key players, now it's the biggest Bemani game they have so it's natural they'd want to make it easier for newcomers. Thanks for that when I was playing 6th Style, only had Hi Speed 4 & the game was very unforgiving. I'm glad theres beginner mode & normal mode before you even get into actually playing the game. It's stupid, I really shouldn't hate on a game for making it easier for newcomers buuuuut... The newcomers that come in will occasionally ask an old timer for a song they should try, well, since level's 6-8 are all the fucking same to me I'm not really sure which song you should pick.

All ranting aside, most of the new changes are phenomenal. The new interface is much smoother & easier to read than the original that was chunky & flashy. Not that I don't love the original IIDX Styles, I just find that playing anything from 11th & up for an extended period of time & then switching to 5th or 6th Style it's going to be much more difficult because of the archaic software. Either way, they were beautiful once & the new look is a well deserved makeover in my opinion.

Unfortunately, console versions of the game only allow for so many songs. The console version of Beatmania IIDX 16th Style 'Empress' solved this problem by coming with two discs, the second disc consisting of nothing but revival songs from each IIDX Style. However, 16th Style CS is the last Style the Playstation 2 is going to see & currently I don't know where they're bringing it to next.

That shouldn't stop you from giving it a shot though, through eBay or Amazon you can get yourself the controller that was shipped with Beatmania US, the only good thing to actually come of that style. The buttons work much better than the original Konami of Japan model since they don't stick, nor do they need to be modded heavily to be used. The turntable on that controller is kind of tight though you can very easily open it up & loosen the screws for the turntable without causing any damage to your controller.

Getting the games themselves might run you a pretty penny which is kind of lame so you should go about using the power of the internet. Remember kids: most computers these days come stock with a DVD Burner...


Though I'm not advocating Piracy, I'm advocating a second chance for Beatmania in the states. If that means that people have to do things that aren't legal to play songs they like instead of stuff by Moby they should have that freedom. Not that the games in Japan aren't relatively cheap, I can only imagine that through the typical next gen systems debacle you can find the games used or even new in game stores for a decent price. But how would importers make a profit? So you're spending 60-70 bucks for a Playstation 2 Game that's going to rape you?

Alternatively you could get yourself that controller, one of these & this. You might be spending $70 bucks, but you now have access to Beatmania 1st through 16th Style so who cares right?



Either way, what I'm trying to say is that I love this game & felt like writing an essay about it. Fuck the corporate world, b'yatch.