Beatmania

Good on March 23, 2008

Gameplay is good, lots to keep track of simultaneously. Timing and hand-eye co-ordination have to be in harmony or the song won't sound right, in addition to breaking a combo if you miss a note. Beyond hitting every note in a song as a full combo, you also have a hit accuracy system. If you hit too early or too late you get a poor rating. Then as you get closer to hitting it exactly when it is supposed to make that sound on the red bar, you go from bad, good, great and finally perfect. Perfect is worth the most points but any of those ratings count as a hit down to good, at the end of the song it lists how you hit the notes, and how many times you hit it in each rating. The US version doesn't have as many songs or as many games, there are now 13 Japanese Beatmania games on ps2 if you get the imported versions. This is still a good way to get acquainted with the series and used to the controls, though it would be closest to playing the arcade game with the beatmania controller... and most likely more comfortable for the gameplay.