Old scale, apparently, which puts me in the 8-9 section of the new scale, heh. Most of the stuff I got was pre-Supernova with the rest being keyboard only when I thought I could do that stuff. Thanks, I’ll go exploring when I’ve got a chance.
Trip report: I grabbed two packs from Chewi and DMAxel and they are incredibly playable; I’'m good for 10 steps in some cases but there’s some 8s that have dirty tricks that I really appreciate as dick moves (changing tempo being one of them). I wanted to find something by the guy you asked from twitter but couldn’t match his name to any packs from Zenius, unfortunately. 
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None of the names on his twitter match up at the moment, but if you search for Telperion you’ll probably find them
The latest music gaming drama is that today’s wave of Bemani updates (pop’n, Voltex) have songs credited to “BEMANI Sound Team” as opposed to the individual in-house artists, as has always been the case in Bemani games since 1998. Commissioned artists continue to be credited appropriately. Everyone is in a weird state of confusion/mourning/anger as the last great Konami franchise started falling to the same kind of Konami bullshit every other franchise got hit with in recent years.
It’s a totally shitty move, and it’s kind of appalling they thought this would fly when their entire fan community is based around the artists people like. You get excited because you hear there’s new Nekomata Master song in the game, but that excitement is dulled when the only information you have is a song title and that it’s by “BEMANI Sound Team”.
It’s also a complete U-turn from recent years where individual artists have been featured much more heavily as personalities, either through coverage of tournaments, occasional autograph signings and handshake events, and weekly streams such as Bemani Namahousou.
On the other side, the new IIDX is going to be pushed as an esport, which isn’t too surprising given a) numerous IIDX appearances on weird late night Japanese esports shows this year, b) the hiring of DOLCE. as a professional player representative earlier this year, and c) the rise of Konami e-Sports as a brand over the past few months.
Konami are really committed to the idea that there are no individuals working on videogames, just the Company. It’s like they think it’s the early 90s again. Admittedly I’m curious to see how they intend to turn high score challenges into audience-friendly esports.
why are konami so evil now?
a motivated boardroom has realized the power of game workers in Japan is lower than it’s been since the '80s
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What is going on at Sega HQ? Who came up with this bizarre concept? A lever you pull left and right, six square buttons, and then two buttons on vertical side panels. Are you supposed to elbow them in high level play? Also magical girls, I guess.
Someone find out what O.N.G.E.K.I. is an acronym for.
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I have a drinking buddy who works on the Sega music game team and I desperately want to ask him why this game exists. It’s pretty much just a bunch of ideas from World’s End Chunithm charts put into a game with controls vaguely resembling Sound Voltex. My pet theory is they just wanted a game that is more tactile than maimai or Chunithm, and this is what they managed to put out.
The licenses to the Steins;Gate themes are expiring with the release of the newest Chunithm version which means I will never get to trick @Rudie into playing them with me next time I’m in Japan
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this isn’t an arcade game but i just want to post it somewhere
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After three weeks of doing yoga 3-4 times a week, my regular RSI wrist pain is just… gone? Was 2-3 hours of yoga a week all I needed to be able to play IIDX regularly all this time? (my PS2 isn’t hooked up right now but I hope so)
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do it! I’m still stuck at 8dan, you can catch up to me
I’m AAing some 11s but still can’t do any 9dan courses
8th Konami Arcade Championship (I guess?} Live now
these are the regionals, the finals are in two weeks during jaepo
WACCA
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Got a chance to experience arcades in Tokyo this week. I visited a few Taito Stations and a Round 1.
I’ve mostly been playing popn, ddr, and iidx since those are the games that I know and love already, but I’ve also been trying all the cabs that aren’t avaliable in the US.
Ongeki is kinda wack in that it definitely plays like a music game, but it’s not really designed like one. You can perfect a song but if you’re not doing enough damage (character level and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t understand) then you won’t win a battle.
Groove coaster is ridiculously easy to pick up which works to its favor as most of the appeal is the audio visual experience. I particularly loved the necrodancer songs.
The songlist is pretty interesting and includes several songs from the undertale soundtrack. Almost every touristy group who I saw try groove coaster at Taito Station went immediately for megalovania. One group just played it 3 times in a row without trying any other songs!
Although Chunithm probably has the more interesting control style with its air movements, I’ve been enjoying Nostalgia a lot more.
Having each of the keys as physical buttons but with a lot of leniency in which ones you need to press to count as a hit gives an amazing feeling of being a master pianist without any of the nuance or precision that you’d gain by actually practicing an instrument.
Apparently in the first release of this game it was controlled with a touch screen which sucks and probably would not have been fun.
There’s some progression system that involves moving between islands and it seems to have a story, but I can’t read enough Japanese to have any idea what’s going on with that.
The last game I tried was Dance Rush Stardom, which is sort of like ddr if ddr was actually about dancing.
Unlike ddr you don’t have any specific foot placements and instead the whole pad acts as a touch controller. Since this makes the game a lot less precise it becomes way less about stomping your feet around desperately and more about following the movements while trying to look as cool as possible.
Here are some people playing it who are definitely way cooler than me
Oh there was also a washing machine lookin game that seemed really popular but I haven’t tried it yet
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