Beatmania IIDX 15: DJ Troopers CS Review
Posted: Wed Dec 17, 2008 8:56 am
Now that the game is out in the wild, I may as well do a complete review on this release.
First and foremost, anybody whose played IIDX before knows the drill. However, compared to prior games in the series this entry is definitely not for beginners. Something that everybody has seen in this series is that over time more difficult notecharts are developed, but this game goes farther than even it's arcade counterpart in some respects. In the case of the new songs from the arcade they reflect natural evolution as some 10s in this release are more difficult to clear than older 11s in the series. However, in this release it's obvious that Konami is hell bent on challenging even the best of players with 'Another+', a new mode featuring new notecharts for select songs. Upon first hearing this some people considered this to be a gimmick, but the difficulty of these notecharts reflects the decision to have this type of mode as with one 10, two 11, and all other songs in this mode being 12 this will add replay value for even some of the best players. Also, new another notecharts have been made for Gentle Stress and Bad Routine which like Rugged Ash serves as a logical extension of the hyper notecharts for the songs. The console premiere songs that are available at the start of the game are all consistently high quality and also reflect how much more difficult over time the series has become. While I personally approve of them increasing the difficulty of songs, I disapprove of the decision to make unlocks more difficult to obtain.
When it comes to revival songs, Konami revived 16 songs for this release, but in the cases of Switch, Rise'n Beauty, and the Another for Sweetest Savage decided to use new notecharts instead of what appears in the arcade. While some people will like this, I personally do not as it goes against the 7th Style CS survey Konami conducted that indicated that players wanted the releases to be more arcade based. In addition, the decision to revive Spica, Colors (Radio Edit), 1st Samurai, Debtty Daddy, and Innocent Walls is perplexing to me as they have all appeared in 9th Style or newer in the console series. The most important songlist tidbit that I should mention is the omission of I'm In Love Again (DJ Yoshitaka Remix) which has got to be the most perplexing thing I've ever seen since it's a Konami original song.
In terms of unlocks, some unlocks are the same as before, but in some important aspects unlocks have been drastically changed. Noteblasts still are unlockable via Dan Mode and frames are still unlocked by playing the matching songs in Extra Stage. However, BGM songs this time cannot be unlocked via playing the triggering song in Dan mode and Expert mode and the song must be played in Free Mode or Standard Mode. The biggest change though is that to unlock most hidden songs the player must be able to reach military splash and hard clear AA all military splash songs on one difficulty. For lesser players I can see songs like Do It! Do It! even on Normal will keep them from getting all unlocks either due to not being able to hard clear it or missing the AA barely. Also, this type of unlock requirement does feel tedious compared to prior releases.
Finally there are some issues concerning the notechart design for some songs. For some songs like Trip Machine Phoenix and Children's Sketchbook the decision was made to double the BPM to reach speeds of 320 and 280 bpm respectively. With that in mind some people feel that such a decision makes the notecharts feel cheap and ill conceived at best. Also, the appearence of Pluto and fffff (Known as Five Hammer to Pop'N Music players) as hidden songs is a polarizing decision as many IIDX players will argue that these songs don't feel right within IIDX as a whole. At the same time though the addition of Implantation as a hidden song will be a welcome addition given it's status as the boss song of 5 key Beatmania releases.
Overall, this release is not without it's flaws, but it is a very strong release overall for experienced players. For beginners though despite the redone tutorial mode this release may not be for them.
First and foremost, anybody whose played IIDX before knows the drill. However, compared to prior games in the series this entry is definitely not for beginners. Something that everybody has seen in this series is that over time more difficult notecharts are developed, but this game goes farther than even it's arcade counterpart in some respects. In the case of the new songs from the arcade they reflect natural evolution as some 10s in this release are more difficult to clear than older 11s in the series. However, in this release it's obvious that Konami is hell bent on challenging even the best of players with 'Another+', a new mode featuring new notecharts for select songs. Upon first hearing this some people considered this to be a gimmick, but the difficulty of these notecharts reflects the decision to have this type of mode as with one 10, two 11, and all other songs in this mode being 12 this will add replay value for even some of the best players. Also, new another notecharts have been made for Gentle Stress and Bad Routine which like Rugged Ash serves as a logical extension of the hyper notecharts for the songs. The console premiere songs that are available at the start of the game are all consistently high quality and also reflect how much more difficult over time the series has become. While I personally approve of them increasing the difficulty of songs, I disapprove of the decision to make unlocks more difficult to obtain.
When it comes to revival songs, Konami revived 16 songs for this release, but in the cases of Switch, Rise'n Beauty, and the Another for Sweetest Savage decided to use new notecharts instead of what appears in the arcade. While some people will like this, I personally do not as it goes against the 7th Style CS survey Konami conducted that indicated that players wanted the releases to be more arcade based. In addition, the decision to revive Spica, Colors (Radio Edit), 1st Samurai, Debtty Daddy, and Innocent Walls is perplexing to me as they have all appeared in 9th Style or newer in the console series. The most important songlist tidbit that I should mention is the omission of I'm In Love Again (DJ Yoshitaka Remix) which has got to be the most perplexing thing I've ever seen since it's a Konami original song.
In terms of unlocks, some unlocks are the same as before, but in some important aspects unlocks have been drastically changed. Noteblasts still are unlockable via Dan Mode and frames are still unlocked by playing the matching songs in Extra Stage. However, BGM songs this time cannot be unlocked via playing the triggering song in Dan mode and Expert mode and the song must be played in Free Mode or Standard Mode. The biggest change though is that to unlock most hidden songs the player must be able to reach military splash and hard clear AA all military splash songs on one difficulty. For lesser players I can see songs like Do It! Do It! even on Normal will keep them from getting all unlocks either due to not being able to hard clear it or missing the AA barely. Also, this type of unlock requirement does feel tedious compared to prior releases.
Finally there are some issues concerning the notechart design for some songs. For some songs like Trip Machine Phoenix and Children's Sketchbook the decision was made to double the BPM to reach speeds of 320 and 280 bpm respectively. With that in mind some people feel that such a decision makes the notecharts feel cheap and ill conceived at best. Also, the appearence of Pluto and fffff (Known as Five Hammer to Pop'N Music players) as hidden songs is a polarizing decision as many IIDX players will argue that these songs don't feel right within IIDX as a whole. At the same time though the addition of Implantation as a hidden song will be a welcome addition given it's status as the boss song of 5 key Beatmania releases.
Overall, this release is not without it's flaws, but it is a very strong release overall for experienced players. For beginners though despite the redone tutorial mode this release may not be for them.