starting Happy Sky...

malictus · Post by **malictus** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 2:25 pm

OK, so for a long time I've only had the US version of Beatmania. I basically pull it out every once in a while and play a bit, then put it away and forget about it --- I've never really tried to get very good at it.

Now, I have Happy Sky (thanks lgolem!) and this has definitely gotten me excited about playing Beatmania a little more seriously. The interface is much cleaner, there are a lot more songs, and (based on the songs I've tried so far), the timing seems much better.

So here are a few dumb questions for you guys, because I don't read Japanese and have no idea about some of this....

1. Unlike the US version, it looks like the songs are already unlocked in "Free" mode from the beginning. Is there any reason to play songs in the standard arcade mode, such as extra song unlocks or anything?
2. There is a mode that's a Japanese word, with a series of courses that you can attempt. This appears to be the 'Dan' mode or whatever it is called. When I tried a course, I appeared to 'pass' it even though I was only at 18% on the last song. What is considered a 'pass' in this mode?
3. Every once in a while, there is text that pops up with 'gallery' in it, plus lots of Japanese characters. Are these unlocks?

Thanks in advance

- Jim, the clueless Beatmania player....

Merk · Post by **Merk** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:14 pm

1. Yes, every song is more or less unlocked in Free Mode from the beginning. The only reason to play Arcade is to get some of the Gallery Collection backgrounds that can only be earned in Arcade mode (ie. from getting the Extra Stage and One More Extra Stage)

2. Yes that's Dan mode-- it's basically a skill test that's used to see how good you are at clearing songs and they range from very simple (7th Kyu to 1st Kyu) to extremely difficult (1st Dan to Kaidan, the "God" or 11th dan). It's a good idea to play this every once in a while to see how you've progressed, I'm at 9th dan personally. This mode as well as Expert mode don't use the standard groove guage, you only fail if the groove guage depletes to 0%.

3. Everytime you get a new background after clearing a song it gets saved into the Gallery Collection and it serves as nothing more than eye candy. Unlocks in IIDX (with the exception of 7th style) aren't announced like in other games, you'll have to just look at the songlist and see if anything new pops up.

Hope that clears things up, good luck with the game! It's pretty rewarding but it requires a pretty large time investment before you start clearing the hard stuff and the learning curve is steep and frustrating, especially with Happy Sky. If you're interested in the game I'd start off with the early styles since they're much, much easier.

Fluffyumpkins · Post by **Fluffyumpkins** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 3:29 pm

I recently picked up IIDX again as well. If you want to play sometime, I can bring 6th - 13th over. I'm willing to bet you could get good at doubles rather quickly.

Amp Divorax · Post by **Amp Divorax** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 4:43 pm

A bit of an update, there are 3 hidden songs in Happy Sky that are unlocked by by the number of times Arcade Mode, Dan Mode, and/or Expert mode are played.

Sayonara Heaven = 1 time
Just A Little Smile = 3 times
In The Sky = 5 times

malictus · Post by **malictus** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 9:27 pm

Thanks for the answers everyone. Maybe you'll see me posting over in the beatmania brag thread someday soon