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Title: beatmaniaIIDX 13 DistorteD
Platform: PlayStation 2 (Japan)
Release Date: August 30, 2007
Publisher: KONAMI
Buy Now: $64.90 at Play-Asia
Reviewed by rmz for Bemanistyle.com
Once upon a time, the future of home releases for Konami's DJ simulation series was uncertain. Fans all over the world, desperate to see a release of beatmaniaIIDX 7th style for the consumer market, petitioned Konami, filled out questionnaires, and diligently pre-ordered to show their support of the series. Looking at the brand new beatmaniaIIDX 13 DistorteD for PlayStation 2, one would never know that such a well-rounded, polished game could have arisen from the ashes of a nearly-discontinued game series. That is what DistorteD is -- the future of IIDX that many of us envisioned years ago -- and it speaks as a testament to the dedication of the series' fans as much as it is a testament to the idea of breathing such new life into a well-trodden gameplay concept that has been around for ten years. Indeed, 2007 marks the 10th anniversary of Bemani, Konami's ambitious brand that has branched in many different directions and has taken on many different faces, but in the end has always been about weaving music and gameplay together in a way that has had fans coming back for ten years, with popularity still growing and with no end in sight.
beatmaniaIIDX 13 DistorteD is, in itself, is the console adaptation of the fourteenth incarnation of Konami's beatmaniaIIDX DJ simulation series, and the eleventh beatmaniaIIDX game released for PlayStation 2. Despite being the eleventh beatmaniaIIDX game to be released for the PlayStation 2 and more than the twentieth beatmania game released for any console platform, the series has avoided growing stale thanks to a constant infusion of new music, new features, and new graphics. Not only are all of the Konami-produced DistorteD songs included, but two of the three licensed songs from the arcade version are included as well, along with a healthy assortment of songs from previous iterations to round out the songlist.
Through and through, DistorteD gives a feeling of polish and "slickness" and comes from its reworked graphical design. The Free Mode configuration menu has been redesigned to look a little more modern than the design used in 9th-12th styles, and Training Mode has received a much-needed graphical overhaul after having used largely the same graphical design ever since 3rd style. A variety of minor features have also been added that give the game an overall feeling of polish, such as SUD+ being usable in Training Mode and Grade Pacemaker settings added for Ghost mode.
The original DistorteD soundtrack is largely strong, featuring new songs from many popular artists such as dj TAKA, DJ Yoshitaka, Tatsh, Orange Lounge, Kanako Hoshino, Mr. T, Seiya Murai, Ryu☆, and kors k. The music itself spans a wide variety of genres as well, from house and pop to trance and hardcore. The DistorteD soundtrack also features a number of fan favorites imported from other Bemani games such as GuitarFreaks/DrumMania and pop'n music, so even newcomers to the series will likely recognize some of their favorite songs. The revival song selection is fairly solid, with a hearty collection of TaQ songs making an appearance (but no TaQ course, oddly enough) and other classic IIDX songs reaching as far back as IIDX Substream. It's a bit confusing why Konami would bring back five TaQ songs but not make a TaQ expert course; it may be possible that one was in the works, only to have its spot filled by a different course during production. A number of old songs that have never seen a revival still continue to go unseen, which is a shame, but in the big picture, turns out to not be such a big deal in the end considering the game's other goodies. Also of note is ZERO from beatmaniaIIDX 14 GOLD being included, with a brand-new GOLI produced video. The video is decent, but comes across as far too similar to DoLL for my tastes. Even some of the individual scenes in the video can be compared side-by-side to DoLL with relatively little difference. GOLI's art style is great, but a little more originality might have been nice after we've seen the "IIDX DJs in giant robots" theme driven into the ground.
The DistorteD arcade songs are all well and good, but the real draw here is the extra goodies. Eight brand-new songs are available right off the bat, three of them being collaboration songs from pairings of Konami artists: dj TAKA Vs. DJ YOSHITAKA, L.E.D. Vs. kors k, and Ryu☆ Vs. Sota. All three songs are very impressive, and neither disappoint in terms of music nor notecharts. The other CS songs are mostly great, including songs from now-familiar faces such as DJ CHUCKY, and new faces such as Manabu Namiki of shoot-'em-up fame (his song is, appropriately, entitled "Shoot'Em All"). The new songs have something to offer every player, with difficulties that range from 3 to 12. (There may be a few more songs that will reveal themselves as you play, as well…)
If that weren't enough, a handful of songs brought straight over from the original beatmania series are included as well, completely intact. In addition, Attack the music and super highway both contain their remixed ANOTHER charts (49 MUSIC MIX and SUPER SUBWAY MIX, respectively). Since the original beatmania series featured only five keys, the notecharts remain intact but have been adapted for IIDX's seven-key layout. The spirit of each chart remains identical, and the number of notes and keysounding of the notes remain the same as their original versions as well -- the charts have just been expanded to utilize seven lanes instead of five (this is true for 321 STARS, Attack the music, LIGHT MOTION, and super highway, at least -- some other classic songs may be found lurking, featuring completely original, harder notecharts, however...) For an extra dose of nostalgia, all of the original beatmania charts are playable in their unaltered form by enabling the 5KEYS modifier. While normally this modifier simply puts two of the keys on Autoplay, when used on a beatmania song it enables you to play the song with its original 5-key notecharts. This is a present from Konami to its fans -- to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Bemani, and to give new players a view of the series' roots -- and certainly an inclusion that is worthy of a lot of attention. Hopefully Konami will keep up this trend and include classic songs in future versions!
Other extras have found their way onto DistorteD as well. A number of songs have received new notecharts, most notably RUGGED ASH [ANOTHER] and eRAseRmOToRpHAntOM [NORMAL] and [HYPER]. Doubles players also have reason to rejoice, as Smoke, dual control, Bloody Tears, Concertino in Blue, and EURO-ROMANCE all receive new [DP ANOTHER] charts. You may also find that a couple returning IIDX songs are also hidden, perhaps even containing a new, longer cut of the song and brand-new notecharts, but I won't spoil the surprise for you. All of the statistic-analysis features from Happy Sky have returned, and roughly three times as much rival data is included -- along with an "auto-select" option that suggests rival data for you to use. Konami staff data is included from TOCHI, MAYA, JONY.C, and others, just in case you want to see how you stack up against some of the members of the IIDX development team. The Cardinal Gate system from DistorteD is included here too, albeit in a slightly modified way that suits a console format a little bit better. All of the Cardinal Gate skins are included, and are unlockable by playing through the Cardinal Gate system. Four new Customize BGM tunes not found in the arcade version are included, plus one new frame design.
In all, DistorteD is a faithful recreation of the arcade version that goes above and beyond by introducing a number of new features, a shiny coat of paint, and a bonus collection of both brand-new and classic beatmania songs. Gone are the days are bare-bones direct arcade ports -- Konami has shown that they have a lot of tricks up their sleeve and have gone far beyond the norm in packing in all sorts of surprises and bonuses into this version. DistorteD has, by far, the most secret bonus songs and features to ever grace a IIDX game, and sports a solid set of new songs and a nice level of polish to boot. We can only hope that this trend continues into the future. In the meantime, we will play DistorteD and enjoy every minute of it, thankful that our vision of IIDX's once-far-off future has come to fruition.
Pros:
+ Solid songlist
+ Classic Beatmania songs with both new & original notecharts
+ New features
+ More hidden stuff than any IIDX game to date
Cons:
- New ZERO video is a little too similar to existing Hyper J-Pop videos
- Some revival songs still MIA after several years
(beatmaniaIIDX 13 DistorteD is available for $64.90 at Play-Asia.)
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