READ THROUGH THIS THREAD BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY POSTS! WE WANT TO CUT DOWN ON THE NUMBER OF REDUNDANT THREADS. YOUR QUESTION MIGHT BE ANSWERED!
Over the years, we who have nothing better to do than be here have noticed that certain questions get asked a lot. To be honest, we would rather you stop asking these questions, so our good buddy Kimcicle put together a FAQ and general information thread. It was good and all was well, but now some time has passed, a new Bemanistyle is here, and so we've given the FAQ a bit of an update. The majority of this thread is still Kimcicle's work; he's been kind enough to let me copy and paste it rather than put a whole lot of real work into myself.
As much as we've tried to make this as comprehensive as possible, this FAQ is probably still far from perfect. If you have corrections to make, info to add, or any other suggestions, feel free to throw them at us.
Thanks ~CStarFlare
The beatmania line of games is the flagship series of the Bemani franchise, dubbed "dj simulation" by Konami. There are three different games: beatmania, beatmania IIDX, and beatmania III. They all follow the same principle: 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. Pressing keys at the right time will increase your "Groove Meter"; the Groove Meter is the measure of how well you are doing on the given song. You must work to get your Groove Meter above a certain point before the song ends (for beatmania IIDX, it must be at 80% or higher). At the end of the song, you are graded by how well you were able to time the key presses and are presented with a results screen. It's possible to get a good grade a fail the song and it's possible to get a bad grade while passing the song.
beatmania is the first bemani game to be released by Konami, released in 1998. With 5 buttons and a turntable to the right of the buttons, 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. In Korea, it's known as beatstage and an US release was even attempted (HipHopMania). There are 12 different iterations of beatmania:
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beatmania
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beatmania 2ndMIX
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beatmania 3rdMIX
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beatmania completeMIX
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beatmania 4thMIX
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beatmania 5thMIX
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beatmania complete MIX2
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beatmania Club MIX
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beatmania CORE REMIX
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beatmania 6thMIX -THE UK UNGERGROUND-
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beatmania 7thMIX - Keepin' Evolution
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beatmania THE FINAL
In addition to these Japanese releases, Konami released three 5 Key arcade games in the US.
- Hiphopmania
- Hiphopmania Complete Mix
- Hiphopmania Complete Mix 2
beatmania IIDX is by far the most popular of the 3 beatmania games. Introduced by Konami in 1999, this version now had 7 buttons and turntables positioned based on which side you were playing on (The 1p side has the turntable on the left while the 2p side has the turntable on the right). Featuring a huge wide screen, significantly improved graphics, flashing neons, 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. There are currently 13 iterations of beatmania IIDX:
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beatmaniaIIDX
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beatmaniaIIDX substream
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beatmaniaIIDX club version 2
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beatmaniaIIDX 2nd style
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beatmaniaIIDX 3rd style
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beatmaniaIIDX 4th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 5th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 6th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 7th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 8th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 9th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 10th style
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beatmaniaIIDX11 IIDX RED
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beatmaniaIIDX12 HAPPY SKY
beatmaniaIIDX 13 DistorteD is scheduled to be released this Spring.
beatmania III was an effort by Konami in 2000 to "evolutionize" beatmania; the theme for beatmania III was "The latest evolution machine". 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. However, by this point most of the thunder has been stolen by beatmaniaIIDX, and not many different mixes were made. There are 5 iterations of beatmania III:
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beatmania III
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beatmania III APPEND CORE REMIX
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beatmania III APPEND 6thMIX
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beatmania III Append 7th Mix
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beatmania III THE FINAL
For those of us that cannot experience the arcade thrill, there are always home versions. There are currently 12 different beatmania mixes available on the Playstation:
- 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
- beatmania (EU)
In addition to those Mixes for Playstation, Konami also released a handful of handheld 5 Key beatmania games:
- beatmania GB (GBC)
- beatmania GB 2: Gotchamix (GBC)
- beatmania GB Gotchamix 2 (GBC)
- beatmania (Wonderswan)
As far as I know, none of the 5 Key CS games have websites that are currently open.
* 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.
There are currently 7 different
beatmaniaIIDX styles that be purchased, all of which are available for the PlayStation 2.
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beatmaniaIIDX 3rd style
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beatmaniaIIDX 4th style -new songs collection-
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beatmaniaIIDX 5th style -new songs collection-
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beatmaniaIIDX 6th style -new songs collection-
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beatmaniaIIDX 7th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 8th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 9th style
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beatmaniaIIDX 10th style
A US version of beatmania, which includes separate 5 Key and 7 Key modes, is slated for release in March 2006.
Sadly, Konami never released any home versions of beatmania III, nor did they bother to add the beatmania III stuff to the home version of beatmania 6th Mix (which was the first game beatmania III appended).
In addition, there's a typing game based on beatmania called beatmania Da! Da! Da! It appeared on PS2 and PC.