Beatmania

beatmania (ビートマニア) ist eine DJ Simulation von Konami. Die erste Version erschien 1997. Mit beatmania begann der Musikspiele-Boom, der auch heute, zehn Jahre später, noch anhält. Die Serie endetete mit dem Erscheinen von beatmania THE FINAL 2002. Beatmania wird mit fuenf, klavierähnlichen Tasten und einem Turntable gespielt.

Als Nachfolger von beatmania erschienen die Beatmania IIDX Serie mit sieben anstatt fuenf Tasten sowie die Beatmania III Serie die dem "klassischen" Tastenlayout ein Fußpedal hinzufügte.

Basic rules

The player is a club musician who must manipulate the controls according to the instructions on screen to win the praise of the audience. Each game consists of a set number of songs of various difficulties, and each song must attain a certain degree of satisfaction from the audience in order to progress to the next.

The game controls consist of five plastic vertical rectangular keys that are arranged in a zig-zag pattern alike the letter "M". They resemble the layout of the keys of a piano (e.g. C, C#, D, D#, and E) and are color coded, in the same fashion, with the lower row white and top row black. A turntable is to the right of the five keys, and is turned, or "scratched".

Each key has a corresponding vertical bar onscreen, as does the turntable. The bars indicate the path which rectangular icons cascade down towards a horizontal line near the bottom of the screen. The player must hit the corresponding key or rotate the turntable when the icon matches with the line, which will trigger a preset sound sample and recomposes the song properly. Players are judged for each key press for the accuracy of the timing on a scale of GREAT, GOOD, BAD and POOR. BAD and POOR, as well as hitting keys/scratching when corresponding notes are absent during the chart's duration, deplete from a bar indicating the audience satisfaction. The passing range is shown on the bar as a red region on the right, and green for the failing range on the left. The game may end pre-maturely if the bar is completely depleted, but this depends on individual machine settings.

The unit of score in the game is "money". A final grade is given at the end of the game to indicate the player's performance. This grade is not directly based on the "money score", but is instead based on the player's overall accuracy.

Additional rules

Various game modes are available, with different rule alterations that provide suitable challenges for players of various degrees of skill.

Practice

First available in the arcade 2ndMIX, beginner players can go through the rules with DJ Konami. Two stages follow, where poor performance will not result in a game over. DJ Konami was not featured in any of the following games. Before the addition of the Practice mode in the original beatmania, players had the choice of playing a practice stage for every normal game.

Free

Introduced in 6thMIX, Free mode is another practice mode that follows all the rules of the Normal mode, with passing and failing scores, but allows the player to play all the predefined number of songs regardless of each song's grade.

Expert

A mode for skilled players with courses that predefines the songs to be played. The rules for this mode have been modified throughout different versions of the game.

• beatmania

  Players must play through all the songs in a set order, with the audience bar dropping in greater degrees and increasing less. All the other rules follow the normal mode. Continues are allowed.

• 2ndMIX

  Different themed course are given, each running five songs long. The scoring rules follow that of the previous beatmania.

• 3rdMIX

  In addition to the courses format of 2ndMIX, the audience bar is now full from the beginning, and any decrease will carry onto the next stage, where good performance does not recover the bar. The audience bar is characteristically colored in red, and no continues are allowed upon game over.

• completeMIX and after

  With the introduction of the Internet Ranking service, scores are now counted as 2 points for JUST GREAT and 1 point for GREAT, which makes the overall EX Score. Upon completion of the course, a password is given to the player to submit to the official website for worldwide ranking. All of the internet ranking services have ended and are no longer available.

• featuring DREAMS COME TRUE

  Unique to this release is MONKEY LIVE that comes between songs of the courses. Players are given a set amount of time where rapid scratching of the turntable will replenish the audience bar. The remainder of the rules follow those set in completeMIX.

Expert+

First offered in 6thMIX, this mode is designed for the most skilled of players. A single course is provided, featuring ten of the hardest songs in a particular version. The audience bar functions similarly to that of Expert mode, but falling to zero doesn't result in an immediate game over. Rather, DANGER is displayed on the screen, and it will take another subsequent miss to end the game. The bar is restored after each song.

Easy

Available since 3rdMIX, the Easy mode offers simplified playing sequences for songs. The selection of Easy and Hard modes were discarded altogether from 6thMIX and after, with difficultly selection becoming options within the integrated Normal mode.

Liste aller Beatmania Spiele

Arcade

Japan

• beatmania
• beatmania 2ndMIX
• beatmania 3rdMIX
• beatmania complete MIX
• beatmania 4thMIX -the beat goes on-
• beatmania 5thMIX -Time to get down-
• beatmania complete MIX 2
• beatmania Club MIX
• beatmania featuring DREAMS COME TRUE
• beatmania CORE REMIX
• beatmania 6thMIX -THE UK UNDERGROUND MUSIC-
• beatmania 7thMIX -keepin' evolution-
• beatmania THE FINAL

1stMIX, Complete MIX 1 und 2 sind in Korea unter dem Titel beatstage erschienen.

USA

• hiphopmania
• hiphopmania complete MIX
• hiphopmania complete MIX 2

Heimversionen

Japan

• PlayStation
  • beatmania
  • beatmania APPEND YEBISU Mix
  • beatmania APPEND 3rdMIX mini
  • beatmania APPEND 3rdMIX
  • beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX
  • beatmania APPEND 4thMIX
  • beatmania APPEND 5thMIX
  • beatmania BEST HITS
  • beatmania featuring DREAMS COME TRUE
  • beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX 2 - Going Global
  • beatmania APPEND ClubMIX
  • beatmania THE SOUND OF TOKYO
  • beatmania 6thMIX + CORE REMIX

• Playstation2
  • beatmania-dadada!!

• PC
  • beatmania-da!

• Game Boy Color
  • beatmania GB
  • beatmania GB GatchaMIX
  • beatmania GB GatchaMIX2

• Wonderswan
  • beatmania for WONDERSWAN

• bemani Pocket
  • beatmania Pocket
  • beatmania Pocket2
  • beatmania Pocket -SummerMIX-
  • beatmania Pocket -AnimeSong Mix1-
  • beatmania Pocket -Tokimeki Memorial Edition-
  • beatmania Pocket Skeleton
  • beatmania Pocket -AnimeSong Mix2-
  • beatmania Pocket 2000
  • beatmania Pocket -enjoy GEORGIA SIGNATURE-
  • beatmania Pocket -HELLO KITTY Edition-
  • beatmania Pocket -AnimeSong Mix3-
  • beatmania Pocket -TIGERS version
  • beatmania Pocket -Kawaii! version-
  • beatmania Pocket -Tokimeki Memorial 2 edition-
  • beatmania Pocket -Love Stories-.
  • beatmania Pocket -KONAMIX-
  • beatmania Pocket -Best Hits 2000-
  • beatmania Pocket -TIGERS version2-

Japan

• PlayStation
  • beatmania (European Edit)

Verwandte Links

• beatmania AC Gateway
• Liste von beatmania Pocket Spielen
• beatmania Notecharts