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BEAT MANIA
VX103-J1 (SLPM 86126-7)
Copyright © 1997, 1998 Konami / ICCE Japan
Sony Playstation, 1 or 2 Players
Simulator(D.J. Simulation)
Available now in Japan
¥ 5,800
—by Maria Rider
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Konami, the creator of hit games such as TOKIMEKI MEMORIAL
and PARODIUS, makes yet another up and coming hit.
BEAT MANIA, a DJ Simulation Game,
incorporates the popular BUST A GROOVE "simon says" game
and incorporates it into a DJ mixing game where the player
must keep to the beat to win.
BEAT MANIA consists of 2 discs, an Arcade disc
and an Append disc, which contain different types of music of ranging difficulty
for the player to mix to. There are 25 different music genres to choose, from Hip
Hop to Ska to Rave. The player can choose to play by himself, or with a friend
competing for Stage Money (points) to advance to the next level.
The player must press six buttons to the colored bars that show up on
the screen and scroll down to the specific button/key as the song plays.
This adds unique own mix-ins to make the song turn out correctly and to
win the stage. The player gets rated on his performance (Great, Good,
Fair, Poor) and depending on how well he does he advances to the next
stage with more difficult song types to mix.
There are three different levels of play, Practice (3 levels only),
Normal and Expert. The player can set options to have the music play
with a certain Effect such as Room, Studio, and Pipe Echo. The Effects
can be set from Small to Large as far as the strength of the effect.
There are the usual Game Options such as Game Level (1-9), Sound Mode,
BGM Volume, SE Volume,
Controller type (Dual Shock/Original), and Auto
TurnTable. The player can configure their keys for the Dual Shock as
well as set it to Vibration Mode to vibrate to the Beat Sync, Miss, or
to the Button Hit & Scratch.
BEAT MANIA has the option of using the original
controller, which has a piano key type button pad on the left of the controller
and a turntable on the right much like a DJ's mix table. I
recommend this controller, because otherwise game play can be difficult. The
alternate controller, the Dual Shock, also works with Beat Mania, but makes the
game even more difficult to play accurately. The game itself is already difficult
as it requires so many buttons to work. The player needs four hands to play it well
or very long and very quick fingers because the author had trouble with her
short fingers trying to hit 3 buttons at the same time.
The music is very well done and will keep players interested in playing
more to listen to them all. I especially enjoyed the Hip Hop and Ballade
songs done by DJ Nagureo and Reo-Nagumo respectively. Of
course, these are only two of the handful of songs that I heard before giving up on
the game out of frustration, but try, try again, right?
The player must really like music or have very fast fingers to continue
to enjoy this game. The author enjoys it, but has yet to get past the
second stage, much to her frustration. The unique controller makes it
fun, yet awkward to play, but it also makes it unique from the usual
PARAPPA games that are out nowadays. Grab this game if you
are into those odd ASCII controllers, or if you just like
PARAPPA type games or modern music in general. Otherwise,
pass this one up. It's not worth the
frustration. 
Rating: *** out of 4 |
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