IIDX Distorted Previews and Reviews

[Amp Divorax]

Ok, I've gone through the game enough to give a definitive review, first I'll cover what we have in this release.

Songlist:

95 songs, the largest IIDX release to date featuring all songs that premiered on DistorteD AC except for Samba De Janeiro.

20 Revival songs:
* AA
* Digital MinD (A/T Libra mix)
* dual control
* era (nostalmix)
* eRAseRmOToRpHAntOM (First CS Exclusive Revival)
* General Relativity
* I Was The One
* IS THIS LOVE?
* Karma
* OUTER LIMITS
* Presto (BMUS based revival)
* quasar
* RED ZONE
* RUGGED ASH (First CS appearence of this song)
* Schlagwerk
* Smoke
* Sphere
* stoic
* 桜
* 冥

2 'Wrath of Sota' songs:
The Hope of Tomorrow
Back Into The Light

8 Regular Console Exclusives:
Go Beyond!! - single: 6/10/12 double: 7/10/12
quell -the seventh slave- - single: 4/9/12 double: 4/9/12
SOLID STATE SQUAD - single: 5/10/12 double: 5/11/12
Bleeding Luv ～Immorality act～ - single: 6/8/11 double: 6/9/11
breathless - single: 4/7/9 double: 4/8
Shoot'Em All - single: 4/7/11 double: 4/7/11
VANISHING POINT - single: 4/8/10 double: 4/8/10
WaterCube Pf.(RX-Ver.S.P.L.) - single: 3/7/10 double: 3/7/10

3 Hidden console exclusives:
TEC-DRUM'N'BASS Hybrid Landscape Sota Fujimori - single:4/8/9 double:4/8
DRUM'N'BASS Infinite cave 猫叉Master+ - single:6/9/10 double:7/10/12
TECHNO QUANTUM TELEPORTATION L.E.D. - single:6/10/11 double:6/10/12

1 Preview Song:
零 -ZERO- / beatmaniaIIDX14 GOLD

4 Regular Anniversary songs
* 321 STARS / beatmania complete MIX2
* Attack the music / beatmania 3rdMIX
* LIGHT MOTION / beatmania 7thMIX
* super highway / beatmania 3rdMIX

2 hidden Anniversary songs:
* Caldera
* Drunk Monky

There have been several contraversial decisions with this release in terms of songlist. First is the fact that the 'Wrath of Sota songs', Rugged Ash, and Outer Limits are classified as 'old songs' in the game despite the fact that this is the console debut for Rugged Ash and the other songs are different versions. Then there are the Anniversary songs, I find it a very nice touch to bring back some classic songs from the original series. As for the notecharts, while the regular anniversary songs remain faithful to their 5 key notecharts (right down to using the correct remixes for Attack The Music and Super Highway) the two hidden anniversary songs are substansial departures in this respect. This could possibly be attributed to the fact that both of them were amongst the hardest songs in the original series and reflect how the series has evolved to be substansially harder since then.

The Dan courses have been changed to better match the arcade than before. In prior releases players could only initially play up to 1st Dan and had to play through them to get to higher courses. This time though everything from 7th Kyu to 8th Dan is available initially with only 9th, 10th, and Kaiden courses having to be unlocked.

As for the unlock system, this time it makes full use of the Cardinal Gate as 4 out of 6 of the skins can only be unlocked by getting the Cardinal Gate Extra Stage and playing each song. (The Cardinal Gate expert course unlocks the skin for Nageki No Ki for those who are unable to reach the OMES.) As for unlocking Caldera, it can be unlocked by clearing the Beatmania expert course. Drunk Monky can be unlocked by either hard clearing all anniversary songs on another or by picking and hard clearing 3 anniversary songs with an A on another in standard mode and selecting Drunk Monky for the Extra Stage. Noteblasts are unlocked by clearing Dan courses, but for those who are able to do so, clearing 8th Dan unlocks all of them automatically.

The timing is the same as Happy Sky and the timing adjustment has returned so resyncing from one release to another is not a problem between those two releases.

The biggest weak spot of this release though was the lack of revivals from 8th style and eariler as there are only 10 songs that fall into that category. (Outer Limits and Rugged Ash are not being counted as both are considered CS debuts.) While I do like seeing new console exclusive songs, there are countless songs that would benefit from being revived for a console release.

In the biggest WTF bit though, the opening movie for DistorteD is pixelated to death. (The same thing is true with the arcade release for this and Gold.) Why in the hell hasn't Konami figured out that 640x480 mpeg2 videos require a higher bitrate than the 304x416 bgvids?

Overall though, for any experienced player this is a worthy addition to the series. For newer players though, like Happy Sky jumping straight in with this release may backfire.

[Ho]

Hopefully though the Pop'N interface doesn't return.

Aww...but it was so cute! Horribly unusable, but cute.

[Amp Divorax]

I can understand if they wanted to do something 'cutesy', but my issue was something that you touched upon.

Horribly unusable

If they used fullblown Pop'N-Kuns then it would have possibly worked.

[ImuyumI]

Knowing my attitude towards things like that, I'd probably use that all the time just to say "Me? I always use the Pop N' Interface. It rocks!"

[Amp Divorax]

HUGE UPDATE!!!!

Hidden songs have been revealed along with new notecharts for some songs and more information on features.

[Merk]

It's here, playing it right now. lololololololololol

[Amp Divorax]

The full review of the game is now up. Hopefully VJarmy finally gets DistorteD put in soon so I can update my scores. (I've already AAAed 3 of the anniversary songs on Another and should be able to get 10 of the DistorteD songs AAAed on Another as well.)

[ImuyumI]

Playing it and I love it. But I have two questions:

Who made the Another chart for Go Beyond? And why did they do that?

(I'm not good enough for another yet, but I just had to look.)

[Amp Divorax]

Playing it and I love it. But I have two questions:

Who made the Another chart for Go Beyond? And why did they do that?

(I'm not good enough for another yet, but I just had to look.)

It has to be done as a practical joke.

The review is up on here and a review by RMZ is on that really, really, really big Bemani website that I don't need to mention.

Edit: Oh, I found a little something extra hidden in the game. Anybody who has played all 4 songs in the cardinal gate extra stage can access the cardinal gate through free mode. Hold Start and Select when starting it up and the option will appear.

[danc1005]

that really, really, really big Bemani website that I don't need to mention.

It's so annoying when you say that. Because I know a lot of people have no idea what you're talking about.

[Merk]

The timing I say is much more like RED than Happy Sky.

Happy Sky to me seems a lot more late than the other mixes whereas RED seems just a tad bit early. Distorted is a little early but its much closer than RED

[Amp Divorax]

that really, really, really big Bemani website that I don't need to mention.

It's so annoying when you say that. Because I know a lot of people have no idea what you're talking about.

I honestly find it odd that Bemani fans don't know about Bemanistyle.

As for the timing, it felt the same to me, but then again as Ho and Jizzon have seen firsthand that I am able to move between widescreen setups with no problem. (4:3 setups though are an issue due to how superdeformed they feel due to how slow it feels.) The one thing that is really nice though is the fact that timing offset options are able to alleviate most of these problems.

[lgolem]

that really, really, really big Bemani website that I don't need to mention.

It's so annoying when you say that. Because I know a lot of people have no idea what you're talking about.

I honestly find it odd that Bemani fans don't know about Bemanistyle.

I didn't know that much about it and when you said that I was confused and since you know so much I assumed you were talking about an official site like for and by Bemani/Konami that I didn't know about...and also typing Bemanistyle is 11 letters unlike 63 letters, so it would be easier on everyone including yourself to just put BemaniStyle.

[Fluffyumpkins]

Yeah guys, Bemanistyle. We'll go with that. He's definitely not talking about another site.

Edit: At least I think he's talking about another site.

[Amp Divorax]

Ok, can we get back to the primary topic at hand?

Something that I didn't realize until last night when Ho asked about the logo used with the collaboration songs was that this is the first game that references Beatnation Records, the label created by Konami to release Bemani soundtracks and CDs from fulltime Bemani Musicians. The link for that site is http://bmf.i-revo.jp/beatnation/top.html and can be (somewhat) translated to english using Babelfish.