FAQ written by Neo-RevenG

Will I like the Beatmania Series?
If you willing to have a open mind about it a give it a try. Once you get started, its a pretty additive game. There is that sense of accomplishment from playing the game and making the songs sound complete. But then again, some people become quite frustrated at it. Give it a shot for a while and you can formulate your own answer.

ZOMG Im a DDR cronie! Is there any DDR songs in this game?!?!?
Well DUH!! Some some of the songs on DDR originated in the BM Series (A, V , Holic, DXY!, just to name some). Also, there are songs that beatmania borrowed for DDR (Dynamite Rave, Celebrate Nite, MAX 300, etc.), so you should be able to find something that fills to DDRaholic taste. All I can recommend is to try it out before you get really serious about it.

Is the Beatmania Series hard?
Some might say it is. HEY! it was hard when I first got started. BM isn't a game like DDR which you can just pick up overnight, especially IIDX. The Beatmania series has the most difficult learning curve (next to pop'n music, but some might disagree). Its quite difficult to get rollin in it. This game takes a little effort to get the basics down, but with practice and dedication, you'll will be passing songs and AAA'ing crap before I sing messed up lyrics of Murmur Twins. LOL Wink

Are there any home versions for the Beatmania series?
Of course, there are currently 11 different beatmania mixes, and 6 different IIDX Styles, for you PSOne and/or PS2. Unfortunately, no home versions of BM III has been released. But to able to play, you will first need a Beatmania/IIDX controller.

Beatmania/IIDX Controllers
Konami Official BM Con. - Your typical 5 key Controller, comes with different styles available

The DJ Station Pro - Its more of an ASC for 5 keys, lightable keys

Konami Official IIDX Con. - An official controller by Konami, runs for about $100 from most online retailers.The most commonly bought and second best as far as buying controllers go. The keys are switchable so that you can emulate both the first and second player sides. People have problems with sticky keys, but you can mod your controller to get around these problems.

Konami Official ASC (Arcade Style Controller) - The official arcade-style controller by Konami. It's huge, it's pricey, and for some, it's worth it. The price tag is quite hefty, but with arcade perfect dimensions, clicking keys, and switchable from first player to 2nd player, lots of people have purchased them. The only way to get one was to order through Konami's website and have a Japanese address, so your best bet it to go through a Japan auction website like www.rinkya.com. Expect to pay around $450 and more when all is said and done.

The Rave Discman - Don't buy one. The price is attractive, but frankly, it's not all that great. For one, the keys are the wrong shape and are not spaced correctly. It's better to hold out for a Konami controller.

Beatmania Games
- beatmania
- beatmania APPEND 3rdMIX*
- beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX*
- beatmania APPEND 4thMIX*
- beatmania APPEND 5thMIX*
- beatmania BEST HITS
- beatmania featuring Dreams Come True
- beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX2: Going Global*
- beatmania APPEND ClubMIX*
- beatmania: THE SOUND OF TOKYO!
- beatmania 6thMIX+CORE REMIX

* These games are more of an expansion since they require you to boot with one game, then use the "change disc" option. Sometimes you can access hidden secrets by booting discs in the proper order.

Beatmania IIDX Games
- beatmaniaIIDX 3rd style
- beatmaniaIIDX 4th style -new songs collection-
- beatmaniaIIDX 5th style -new songs collection-
- beatmaniaIIDX 6th style -new songs collection-
- beatmaniaIIDX 7th style
- beatmaniaIIDX 8th style
- beatmaniaIIDX 9th style
- beatmaniaIIDX 10th style
- beatmaniaIIDX 11: IIDX RED
- beatmaniaIIDX 12: Happy Sky
- beatmaniaIIDX 13: DistorteD

Where can I buy the games and controller?
www.play-asia.com
www.yesasia.com
www.japanvideogames.com
www.ncsx.com
www.ebay.com
www.rinkya.com

I'd say avoid eBay unless you're desperate or can get a good deal. Many IIDX products come shipped straight from Japan and there is no guarantee it'll be what you ordered. Shipping is also very expensive. You're better off going through one of the reputable dealers listed above.

Where can I find the songlists to the BM series?
You can go to here.
http://www2u.biglobe.ne.jp/~hiro-p/tree.htm

What IIDX Style is best for me?
We all have our own preference of best styles, but here's a quick review of them.

3rd Style: Huge amount of songs from 1st, Sub, 2nd, and 3rd style, In-game settings aren't remembered between games. Timing is bad on certain songs (gambol, overdoser, e-motion). I say get it if you're looking to complete your collection. Avoid otherwise. There are many good songs and crap songs. Most of the better songs can be found on later styles.

4th style: The rarest of the rare and expensive. Good song selection, with few songs repeated on other styles. Generally considered one of the best styles. Not recommended for beginners!

5th style: Also a good song selection, Now you can change the Hi-Speed in the music selection screen. Also new is beginner mode. a very good style for newbies and elite hardcore players.

6th style: Another good choice. Best UI to date for a home version. Beginner mode. Has tons of things to unlock such as a picture gallery. Music Clip mode allows you to watch the in-game videos by themselves, and Tatsujin movies to watch the experts show you how its done

7th Style: Awesome songlist, the first IIDX game to release in two years. Good beginner mode. Not many unlocks unlike 6th style, but great anyhow. Get it while its out and available

8th style: Latest and Greatest so far. There are now new sort methods some you can easily find your favorites. but there are some cons in this. There is no more of the traditional record screen as from previous styles. Individual song scores in expert mode do not get saved. But nonetheless, its an awesome style.

9th style: a unique and very cool songlist, most contains remixes of previous songs and DDR Extreme crossovers. There are more new sort options, including a favorites folder. The traditional score records are missing, but the interface and graphics of this game are awesome. Just wait until you see 10th style CS. XD

10th style: In my opinion one of the best style hands down, musically. Raging into a lot of different genres. They added the .5 speed modifier between each speed, so you can choose your high speeds carefully.

IIDX RED: Graphically a nice style. Music is awesome as well if you're heavy into Techno, Trance, Club, etc. The also added a lot of new features, like the Sudden/Hidden+ mod from Happy Sky. Also, addition in the Rival Score graph, The let you import rival data from other players by memory card. And they added a Customize menu, so your can change skins, turntable decals, and note flares.

Happy Sky: Another great style. Have a lot of j-pop and happy songs, but really like all the other styles, its pretty diverse. A really new feature is that you can change your Hi-Speed mods in game from Distorted. Also, Konami was so generous and cool that they import rival datas from the AC games so you challenge your skills. Also, they have timing options for HDTV users, so people with HDTVs can feel relieved. Smile

DistorteD:Currently this is the best style hands down as far as content. Because this is the 10th Anniversary of the bemani series. They put old school 5-key beatmania songs and input 7-key charts for them. Isn't that awesome? Of course.

Whats the grading system in IIDX?
First, you take the total notes found in the song and multiply them by 2. This is the maximum possible score you can get. Then, take the number of Just Greats and multiply them by 2. Add this number to the number of Greats you have. This is your EX score. Take your EX score and divide it by the maximum possible score and multiply by 100 to get your percentage.

100% -88% (187k - 200k depending on EX) - AAA
88% - 77% (172k - 186k depending on EX) - AA
77% - 66% (156k - 171k depending on EX) - A
66% - 55% (156k - 143k depending on EX) - B
Anything lower depending on EX is either C, D, E, or F

WTF is this "towel mode" for beatmania IIDX?
Toweling can help fix higher speeds of the falling notes for the comfortable way of the player, call it a modified sudden. This helps put the notes out of your mind less from your peripheral vision looking near the top of the Columns. It makes you have to react faster in a way. It is also useful for slow songs in which Hi-Speed 4 can't even help to the fullest extent with. Now with Hidden+ and with Hi-Speed 5 in the later styles, an actual towel is not needed lol.

Now that I'm good on IIDX, I want to play Anothers, how do I do this?
For Arcade: hold down the VFEX button and select your song. The scrolling L.E.D. marquee should tack on "another" to the end of the song name
For home: you press the Select button to cycle between Light 7, 7 Key, and Another difficulty. For older styles, you press select then select which difficulty you want with the turntable.
NOTE: Not all songs have an another.

Why does some the songs sound differently on other difficulties?
Some songs have different notecharts for the Light 7 or Another difficulty, and others sound completely different. Here's a list of songs that sound differently when played on Light 7:
- Indigo Vision
- Lucy
- Murmur Twins
- Piano Concerto No.1 "Scorpion Fire"
- Scripted Connection=>
- Spica

And a list of songs that sound differently when played on the Another difficulty:
- 20, November
- 22 Dunk
- 5.1.1
- .59
- Celebrate
- Deep Clear Eyes
- DEEP ROAR
- e-motion
- Era Nostalmix
- g.m.d
- Genom Screams
- Gradiusic Cyber
- Infinite Prayer ~Floating Flock Style~
- Innocent Walls
- Karma
- Leading Cyber
- Lucy
- moon_child
- Murmur Twins
- Paranoia Max
- Prince on a Star
- Radical Faith
- R3
- R5
- Schlagwerk
- Scripted Connection=>
- Sense
- Something Wonderful
- Spica
- The Big Voyager
- The Earth Light
- The Shining Polaris
- Zenius-I-Vanisher

I dunno....Whats so different about this than DDR?
Well DDR junkie, guess I have to expand your mind on why, so pay attention!

- During the song selection, you don't here the preview music, its time to try the music then to know how it goes before you try it.

- Difficulty is measured in stars rather than feet. The ranking for songs currently go from a 1 star to a flashing 8 star (now up to 12 in Happy Sky and up). However, for all the current home versions available, it goes up only to a flashing 7 star. There is also a difference between flashing 7 star and 7 star rank (the flashing 7 is harder). Difficulty is also relative, so a 4 star ranked song on Light 7 will not be the same difficulty as a 4 star ranked song on 7 Key. The ranking for songs on Another is not shown, because usually referred to by the difficulty of the song on 7 Key with a plus symbol at the end. (5.1.1. is a 1 star, 5.1.1[a] is a 1+)

- Autofail doesn't kick in until you miss about 50 notes without pressing any buttons. As long as you are pressing buttons, the game won't end abruptly (unless you are playing with the Hard modifier on.) You will still have the remainder of the song to rebuild your Groove Meter and pass the song.

- You do not need to get 100% Just Greats to gain an AAA.

- Extra Stage doesn't require a specific grade to be obtained; usually, all you need to do is pass any song that has a certain difficulty (I believe it's a 7 star on 7 Key, and a 5 star on Light 7).

- Obtaining the special extra stage (the exclusive extra stage song) or OMES is a little different in IIDX, instead of just AAing any heavy song on your final stage. you must AAA an flashing 7/8 on another with hard enabled on your final stage. Easy, huh?

FAQ written by Neo-RevenG

What is Beatmania/IIDX/III?

Beatmania is the popular DJ Simulation series by Konami, part of the Bemani Series. There are three different games: beatmania, beatmania IIDX, beatmania III. All three of them all follow the same ploy: there is a background track playing and you must fill in the rest of the song in real time to make it sound complete by pressing the correct button or turning the turntable at the correct time, indicated by the falling rectangles that correspond to each key. By pressing the correct key, your groove meter will increase. You must work up your groove meter to a certain point (for beatmania IIDX is 80% or higher) to be able to pass the song at the end. At the end of the song, you will be presented with a result screen showing how good/bad you did and/or a grade.

Beatmania
The first game of the series to be released in Arcades, released in 1998. With 5 buttons and a turntable, you would press the corresponding button to a sound effect, effectively "playing" a song. This is the game that got the whole Bemani series going. A US release was even attempted (HipHopMania) but didn't get popular. Beatmania came with 12 mixes:

beatmania (1st Mix)
beatmania 2ndMIX
beatmania 3rdMIX
beatmania completeMIX
beatmania 4thMIX
beatmania 5thMIX
beatmania complete MIX2
beatmania Club MIX
beatmania CORE REMIX
beatmania 6thMIX -THE UK UNGERGROUND-
beatmania 7thMIX - Keepin' Evolution
beatmania THE FINAL

Beatmania IIDX
The second and the widely popular of the three, released in 1999. It now comes with 7 keys and a turntable. Featuring a huge wide screen monitor, flashing neons light, huge subwoofers for more effector power, and a "bass shaker" that tranduces the bass lines into your feet, beatmania IIDX aimed to surround you with the visual/audio from the game. Later in 9th Style and above, they released an e-amusment card system, which can save high scores, and unlocks e-amuse contents, but it was only use for Japan only. Beatmania IIDX currently released 12 Styles so far.

Beatmania IIDX (1st Style)
Beatmania IIDX Substream
Beatmania IIDX 2nd Style
Beatmania IIDX 3rd Style
Beatmania IIDX 4th Style
Beatmania IIDX 6th Style
Beatmania IIDX 7th Style
Beatmania IIDX 8th Style
Beatmania IIDX 9th Style
Beatmania IIDX 10th Style
Beatmania IIDX 11-IIDX:RED
Beatmania IIDX 12: Happy Sky
Beatmania IIDX 13: DistorteD
Beatmania IIDX 14: GOLD
Beatmania IIDX 15: DJ TROOPERS

Beatmania III
The third and last of the series. released in 2000. Konami made an effort to enhance the original. The machine had the same layout as a beatmania machine, but added some cool effector knobs, a foot pedal, a headphone jack that you can plug into, and a 3.5" floppy drive to which you can save your scores. The effector for beatmania III is a lot more indepth compared to the sliders found on beatmaniaIIDX. Unfortunately, most of the popularity went to IIDX, so not many mixes has been made. There are 5 mixes of BM III:

beatmania III
beatmania III APPEND CORE REMIX
beatmania III APPEND 6thMIX
beatmania III Append 7th Mix
beatmania III THE FINAL