STsung’s Blog

…almost. Few more days and Beatmania IIDX 16 Empress will be released (19th November).

Finally the long awaited DJ Troopers CS is announced. The game will be released on 18th December 2008.

Starting tomorrow a location test will be held in Tokyo. Second location test will start the day after in Osaka. All the location tests will end on 1st of July. So wait for more information.

Obviously KONAMI wants the next game pink. I guess we can say that DJ Troopers was more aimed at male players and Empress might be aimed at gals. But anyway who knows what KONAMI is thinking?

HAZARD mode is available. If you get a regular poor on a note the game ends. (comes from GFDM)

Location test info (some might be fake but still you get the idea):

RECKLESS RAVE / B4U(BEMANI FOR YOU MIX) / DJ Yoshitaka feat. Michael a la mode / BPM 170 / 6-11-? ?-?-?
* HAPPY☆JIG / bridal festival!!! / S.S.D.FANTASICA feat. ななっち / BPM 160 / 4-7-? ?-?-?
* ? / dazzle / kobo feat. kr:ague / BPM ??? / ?-?-9 ?-?-?
* ? / Fly Above / Sota Fujimori / BPM 150 / 5-6-? ?-?-?
* ? / JEWELLERY STORM / L.E.D.-G / BPM ??? / 5-9-? ?-?-?
* TRANCE / MY FUTURE / PINK PONG / BPM 148 / 5-8-? ?-?-?
* ? / naughty girl@queens palace / DJ Mass MAD ism
* ? / PUNCH☆LOVE 仮面 / 上野圭一 feat. 星野かなこ / BPM 172 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* BIG BEAT / Queens Tragedy / 猫又Master+ / BPM 152 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* ? / secrets / good-cool feat. CHiCO / BPM 150 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* CANDY RAVE / smooooch･∀･ / kors k / BPM 177 / 4-8-? ?-?-?
* ? / THE SHINING POLARIS -kors k mix- / kors k / BPM 172 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* ELEMENTAL CHANT / Turill-PENTA RHEI- / Zektbach / BPM 148 / 4-9-? ?-?-?
* PROGRESSIVE / V2 / TAKA / BPM 150 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* J-DANCE POP / まほろば / HHH+H / BPM 149 / 5-7-? ?-?-?
* DRAGON’BASS / アタック No.3 / IDEA NOTE / BPM 170 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* ? / 鉄甲乙女-under the steel- / Seiya Murai / BPM ??? / 4-7-? 5-9-?
* まほろば / ミッドナイト堕天使 / Dr.Honda / BPM ??? / 5-7-? ?-?-?

* ALL I NEED YOUR LOVE / guhroovy fw. M-PROJECT
* B4U (BEMANI FOR YOU MIX) / よしたかマイケル (joke?)
* Turill-PENTA RHEI- / Zektbach (*looking forward to this one^_~*)

アタックno.3 / IDEA NOTE ポラリスこーすけりみ

Removed songs:
* IS THIS LOVE?
* never let you down
* Sense
* Nasty!
* JIVE INTO THE NIGHT
* Time is money
* Free Style
* Secret Tale
* 2002
* Spooky
* あと1曲（Burning Heat)

Today IIDX Gold 14 was finally and officially released in Japan. You can either get just the game or Special Edition or Special Edition Complete (15,950 Yen).

Today is also a release date for “Puzzle Maya Takamura’s pieces” and L.E.D’s album 電人. Both are part of the Special Edition Complete IIDX Gold Box.

Maya Takamura’s pieces DVD contains 19 videos (among them Xepher, Blind Justice, Zenius-I-Vanisher, Ageha…).

Lately Maya Takamura’s video DVD was released. Maya Takamura is the only female in the IIDX staff. She works along other members of the graphics team on 2d and now 3d movies for IIDX games (Movie Designer). Her 2d drawings easy to recognize. Her lineart is not so strong and her coloring style reminds of water color use (no cel shading as most other artist do).

She brings a bit of lightness to IIDX graphic. She is most known for the illustration of Killer from Genocide. (from IIDX Red)

She has done videos for Xepher, Zenius-I-Vanisher, Blind Justice, Twelfth Style, Little Little Princess etc.

I didn’t know what to do at work so I drew a fast sketch of Hihumi and then colored it (not so much time taken either). Anyway this is the result…

Everyone waits for the new IIDX15 game to be released soon. KONAMI announced that this game would be released someday in December 2007 and you know what? The game was ACTUALLY RELEASED. Today KONAMI opened the official Beatmania IIDX 15: DJ Troopers site too. There’s not much on the site yet - How To Play, some words from the staff and secret codes (Judge, window hold, expert view and demo skip). The Extra stage is Time to Air - 青龍 and OMES is PARANOiA ~HADES~ - αTYPE-300! The chart actually really looks scary…

New songs are:

[TECH-TRONICA] beatonic nation - Sota Fujimori 5/8/? 5/7/?
[TRANCE] Blue Rain - dj TAKA Vs. Ryu☆ 6/8/? 6/8/?
[HANDZ UP] Dazzlin’ Darlin - HHH 4/7/10 4/7/11
[TECH-BREAKBEATS] Digitank System - DJ Mass MAD* Izm 6/9/? 5/10/?
[FRENZY HOUSE] end of world - 猫又Master+ 6/9/? 5/10/?
[PROG] evergreen - kors k 5/7/? 5/8/11
[TRANCE] I’m In Love Again -DJ YOSHITAKA REMIX- - Remixed by DJ YOSHITAKA 6/8/? 6/9/?
[WORLDGROOVE] JOURNEY TO “FANTASICA” (IIDX LIMITED) - S.S.D.FANTASICA feat.EMI with ARATA 4/8/? 5/9/?
[PROGRESSIVE HOUSE] madrugada - PINK PONG 4/7/9 5/9/10
[UK HARDCORE] Rising in the Sun -original mix- - kors k feat. Rie 5/9/? 4/8/?
[OVERTÜRE] Ristaccia - Zektbach 6/10/? 5/11/?
[RAGGA ROCK] ROCK ME NOW - GUHROOVY fw. NO+CHIN 6/9/? 5/9/?
[TECHNO] SHIFT - AKIRA YAMAOKA 5/8/? 5/9/?
[WALTZ BEAT] soldier’s waltz - DAJI 5/9/? 4/9/?
[NU STYLE GABBA] THE DEEP STRIKER - L.E.D.-G 6/11/? 8/12/?
[ETHNOTRONICA] the trigger of innocence - Seiya Murai 5/7/? 4/5/7
[POST RENAISSANCE] 少年A - 少年A 6/12/? 7/12/?

Well, it’s nothing awesome nor brilliant but my boyfriend showed me the maybe most powerful tool to work with videos. It’s AVI synth. Enables you to write scripts which can do almost anything you’d like.

So we tried our best with it but the source files were already badly taken so well the result is somewhere between not bad and good.

Here’s the video of me (my hands) playing Aurora a 7 level song.

Aurora [n]

Yeah, you heard it right, DistorteD is out and I guess many people got their copy. Mostly those who got the Limited Edition have to be happy^_^.

But I was slightly disappointed with the game (just my opinion at that time, I think it will change). The menu is not the same as the Arcade version and I missed the “shibaraku omachikudasai” (not that I would like to wait for the PS2 to load the songs). Also having the DistorteD theme on Happy sky I saw the differences between DistorteD’s and Happy Sky’s theme which made me look at the differences rather than paying attention to the notes.

Anyway I went through the songlist and was delighted to see there Bloody Tears, Zenius-I-Vanisher, iFuturelist and other songs I like from the arcade version. Also some good songs came back (Quasar also, yep!) so I think I will like the game the next time I play it.

Last Wednesday the location test of BeatMania IIDX 15 Operation DJ Troopers has started. It will end next week and I wonder what all the Japanese players will be saying about this game.
After releasing Happy Sky CS we had Test Location of Gold in America. Everyone wondered what IIDX number 15 would look like or what the name would be.

I have to say that for me the name of the game made me say “This ain’t IIDX”. But after some time I had to admit that this will be the official name of the game. It really sounds like a name for a war game (or FPS game). I know the two letters D and J still stand in the name…but look at the poster. All the previous games had nice/cute people there. If I ever get a double A I will get a picture of an armed person in camouflage uniform? Or just a cute little girl with big guns?

The theme is dark and greenish. It is true that it is more “alive”. It has special effects added to the theme. The color of the effects is mostly light green and it flashes on the screen pretty brightly. Oh you know that the sudden “wall” is now camouflaged? Still it seem not to fit the game. I have to say it is original…but it brings on more questions. What the songlist will look like?