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DrumMania

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DrumMania (alternately drummania, abbreviated DM) is a video game created by Konami as part of the Bemani series. The player uses a simulated drum controller to play the notes of a chosen song's drum part as they are displayed on the screen. The game's music consists largely of rock and roll and J-Pop, many of which are covers by famous Japanese artists.

Certain versions of DrumMania have been released in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and other Asian countries, under the title Percussion Freaks. Konami has not produced an American version of DrumMania, since MTV Drumscape holds the US patent for "drum simulation games". Nonetheless, imported versions of DrumMania can be found in various locations across the United States and Canada.

Contents

Controller

DrumMania is played using a controller designed to imitate a drum set. Five pads are arrayed from left to right for the hi-hat, snare drum, high tom, low tom and cymbal. There is also a foot pedal for the bass drum near the snare and the high tom. During play, the player depresses the pads and stomps the pedal.

The pads are actually a modified version of the DTXPRESS electronic drum kit made by Yamaha Corporation which is available in almost any musical chain store.

To the right of these pads, there are three buttons, Left, Start and Right, which are used to select and decide in the selection screens. In those cases, the Left button is assigned to the snare drum pad, Right to the low tom, and Start to the cymbal.

Gameplay

The screen setup is simple. On the left side, notes scroll vertically downwards. Colorful animations for each song are displayed in right side of the screen. Each note scroll consists of 6 columns: one each for the Hi hat, snare drum, bass drum, hi tom, low tom and cymbal. Individual notes are represented by small colored bars that scroll downward in the columns. To play the correct note, the player must hit one or two of these pads and/or stomp the pedal when the note bars reach the yellow line. The note scroll in DrumMania is in essence a drum tablature timed with the music and placed vertically.

The player's accuracy is judged for each note played, and while the individual note judgments have changed throughout the series, the current system uses Perfect, Great, Good, Poor, and Miss to evaluate performance of each note. Ratings of Poor or Miss will deplete the player's "Groove Gauge", while accurate play will replenish it. If the Groove Gauge is emptied completely, the game ends. Players will be able to play anywhere from three to five songs depending on the game's configuration, with the potential to earn one or two additional stages in certain versions of the game if performance is good enough.

At the completion of a song, players are given a letter rank for their performance which can range anywhere from E to A, as well as S and SS depending on how well the song was played, and how the particular release of the game being played computes ranks.

Generally, the breakdown is as follow:

In a 3-stage setting, players who receive a combination of "S,S,S" (2nd-7th Mix) or "S,S,A" (8th Mix onwards) will get to play an "Extra Stage". In some versions, players who get an S on "Extra Stage" may play the "Encore Stage". From 9th mix on, player will need 95% "perfect" to get "Encore Stage", while having 98% "perfect" will allow player to play "Premium Encore". To reach those stage, player cannot use auto-accompaniment (in which many players would probably have used, especially the auto-bass), and during the encore/premieum encore player cannot play a level above the song they used for the extra stage (for example, if they play basic on extra, they can only play basic in encore)

Because DrumMania only has five drum pads and one bass pedal, each pad may produce different sounds at different points in a song. For example, the high tom will sometimes act as a floor tom, and both the hi-hat and ride cymbal often take on the role of crash cymbals. Less commonly, parts of the drum sets will produce more unusual sounds, such as vocals or sound effects.

Most songs in the game have 3 difficulties: basic, advanced and extreme. The difficulties are ranked out of 10 (1st-3rd mix) or out of 100 (4th mix onwards). The extreme version of a song usually resembles a real drum part, thus making the game sufficiently challenging for advanced players.

Session Linking

One of the major selling points of DrumMania is its ability to be linked to another of Konami's Bemani games, GuitarFreaks. This allows up to 3 players to get together for a virtual jam session. When set up correctly, the music will play from both games, and the players' guitar and drum sounds will be relayed between the two games as well. This is known for being quite loud and extravagant at times.

Konami's numbering scheme for the GuitarFreaks and DrumMania series is such that the current release of DrumMania is numbered one less than the current release of GuitarFreaks. For example, as of this writing, GuitarFreaks 11thMIX can be linked with DrumMania 10thMIX.

This naming system changed completely with the 2005 release of DrumMania V & GuitarFreaks V, with the "V" representing the fifth anniversary of the series. This tradition will be continued, as Drummania V2 and Guitar Freaks V2 was released in November. Otherwise, the functionality is the same.

Super Session

Seen only in two releases each of GuitarFreaks and DrumMania, Super Session (or Multi Session) allowed the games to be linked up with Keyboardmania 3rdMIX as well. In addition to having three players control the guitars and drums, two more could be added playing along on keyboards. However, when linked with Keyboardmania, only about a dozen songs are available to play. Keyboardmania 3rd Mix can be linked with GuitarFreaks 5thMIX and DrumMania 4thMIX, or GuitarFreaks 6thMIX and DrumMania 5thMIX.

Notable Songs

Home versions and simulators

DTXmania, a DrumMania sim
Enlarge
DTXmania, a DrumMania sim

Four home versions of DrumMania have been released in Japan for the PlayStation 2 game console. The lastest version is Drummania V, released in March 2006. The game supports Yamaha's line of DTX drums, as well as the PS2 Dualshock controller and Konami's own drum controller.

A handful of DrumMania simulators have been created for use on PCs, the most popular of which is called [DTXMania], which also supports GuitarFreaks. It can be controlled using the computer keyboard, any USB device that can act as a joystick, or any MIDI instrument such as a MIDI keyboard or professional quality electronic drumkit. It was written by a Japanese team so little English documentation is available. However, an FAQ on DTXMania and other DrumMania simulators can be found at [GDAmania].

DrumMania V2

DrumMania V2 is the latest version of the series, and it links to GuitarFreaks V2. They are essentially DM 12thMIX and GF 13thMIX, but the games had been united with a single version number since Drummania V. V2 follows in the footsteps of V where 7 of the 34 new songs are performed by the original artist. The number of songs available is also larger than ever - with over 280 songs from previous mixes available.

V2 introduces a new play mode called Hazard Mode, in which 2 "poors" or "misses" will instantly end the song. Successfully clearing the song without failing will give you an extra score bonus. Other enhancements in V2 include sorting by mix and the result screen showing your skill point percentage.

Like recent releases, machines in Asia can be linked to the e-AMUSEMENT network. With the network, players can use special game cards to earn "skill points" as well as play GITADOCHANKO and SHOPCHANKO, which allows them to unlock hidden songs in the game. Machines with e-amusement will also submit high scores to the main server. The current Top 10 scores for each song with the player's name are available at the game's official website. Unfortunately, e-AMUSEMENT is only available some Asian countries such as Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan.

See also

External links

 

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