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Guitar Freaks and DrumMania has been put under the spotlight as of late because of the local competition's software, and by all means, Konami now has to show that they've got what it takes to compete with the "American counterpart," so to speak.
Those that have played Guitar Freaks and DrumMania, we know what to expect. However, with this U.S. location test, did Konami do enough?
To make this easier, we'll start from the perspective of one that already know what to expect.
GFdm V4 is everything you can expect from a new release. The song selection is far more diverse though, and for better or for worse, it gives the game more of an American feel. The default sort already showcases a fair amount of American songs, as opposed to the other versions of GFdm, where the default sort is all the new songs. The interface and...well everything about the game gives the atmosphere of more an American-focused game than a typical gimmicky Japanese GFdm game of the past (such as the industrial thing of V, "Live2Go" from V2, and the space galaxy I-don't-know-WTF-that-was from V3...we won't even go into the super-pink "It's A Showtime!!!" from 11/10).
Initial impressions aside though, what about the rest of the game? Definitely not disappointing.
First off, let's go about with the features; the old command for increasing scroll speed now brings up the Play Style Menu. This is way more invaluable than having to choose the song first, then holding start down and get the menu that way.
Although Hazard was taken out, Konami now implemented "half-dark," which is pretty cool for those that want to play with the feature on, but don't like the entire screen being blackened out, relying purely on gut instinct timing...although I don't know if it was worth replacing Hazard for. Maybe a Nonstop bar.
Which brings me to my next point: Grand Prix mode. The good thing is that if you have e-amuse, Grand Prix replaces Nonstop mode. The good parts: you can choose from a pre-set course, which you may have to fulfill prerequisites for (such as having enough Grand Prix points, which you earn through other GP modes), or you can play the ROCKxROCK cup, which allows you to play any song for 4 stages. Best part of GP mode? You don't have to deal with the Nonstop Mode bar. This means you can actually recover your bar instead of being stuck with a one-way bar for the entirety of your 4 song set, AND your scores can be saved, PLUS you earn GP points so you can qualify for other GP courses! Pretty sweet deal, except that you can't play any Extra Stage songs and you cannot use any Auto or Light options.
Now what if you don't have e-amuse? Sadly, you're SOL; you're stuck with basically Standard Mode, Beginner, and Battle.
This brings me to my next point: Battle mode. Luckily, the Location Test let's you use Battle Mode just like they have in Asia, as long as e-Amusement is up and running. Later in the night, we were able to play real-time against people overseas, which proved far more feasible to beat than the computer opponents, which were plain frustrating, even on easier modes. If you've played V3 CS, you know what to expect: you pick a song, and your opponent picks a song. You each play a song, and person with the best total points/combo/perfects (you choose what you want to battle) wins. You can win new titles (which are mostly for showing off), songs, modes, and stuff! It's pretty fun, especially if you know you're playing against a live person you don't even get to see.
The only real downer about that is that to play against a live person overseas (since there's no other US test location yet), you can only battle around after 9PM to find an opponent. If you don't find anyone, you're stuck against the computer, which sometimes just isn't fair.
Standard Mode is...well standard mode. The timer seems to be slower thankfully, but I think some changes to the interface may make it easier to read for non-players. Those that are already familiar with the interface might find too many things going on in the screen at once or too many songs to choose from.
So if you're a non-GFdm player, what can you expect?
The nice thing about Konami is that the default sort is that they have a chunk of songs (in yellow) lined up so that if you don't know ANY songs on GFdm, some of these might appeal to you...songs such as September (EW&F), Fat Lip, Blood And Thunder, Move Over, Nemesis (Arch Enemy), Black Night (Deep Purple), Paranoid (Black Sabbath), Misirlou, Rock And Roll All Nite, Panasonic Youth, Get Going, and much more. However, the game still needs to be a little more beginner friendly; there aren't many people who will actually want to play Beginner mode, especially since most people are already thinking "I already play that guitar game on PS2 or 360, this is the same thing, I don't need a beginner mode," just to be unpleasantly surprised that it's a different game.
Overall, it's great that Konami's making an effort and knows what they're dealing with, but there still needs to be some more done before they can start attracting the non-GF and non-DM playing audience.
As a first step, it's very good. At the same time, they're also appealing to those that are already familiar with the GFdm franchise.
Oh yeah and the songs are really good to boot.
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