Unofficial FAQ - Guide for Guitar Freaks 4th Mix And DrumMania 3rd Mix
- Cheats |
- Unlockables |
- Hints |
- Easter Eggs |
- Glitches |
- Guides
Scroll down to read our guide named "Unofficial FAQ" for Guitar Freaks 4th Mix And DrumMania 3rd Mix on PlayStation 2 (PS2), or click the above links for more cheats.
THE COMPLETE UNOFFICIAL DRUMMANIA/PERCUSSION FREAKS FAQ Version 0.1 - Jointly Compiled by the Members of the Team 'Ranking Task Force', typed and compiled together by GurtyGurt ([email protected]) - Last Updated: 20 November 2001 (first release) - Ranking Task Force's homepage is at: http://rtf.genxer.net - Some of us also are in the Bemeni Order of Madness: http://gurt.50g.com This FAQ covers the following Drummania/Percussion Freaks games to date: Drummania/Percussion Freaks (Arcade) Drummania/Percussion Freaks 2nd MIX (Arcade) Drummania (including Guitar Freaks 2nd MIX Session Mode) (PS2) Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX & Drummania Freaks 2nd MIX (PS2) Drummania 3rd MIX (Arcade) Guitar Freaks 4th MIX & Drummania 3rd MIX (PS2) aka Gitadora (PS2) Drummania 4th MIX (Arcade) Drummania 5th MIX (Arcade) Contents: _____________________________________________________________________________ 0.0 Introduction 0.1 FAQ History 0.2 About Ranking Task Force 0.3 An Introduction to the Contributors 1.0 Basic Information 1.1 Frequently Asked Questions 2.0 Arcade Operation 2.1 Drum Layout 2.3 Session Play (old) 2.3 Session Play (new) 2.4 Drummania 2nd MIX 2.5 Drummania 4th MIX 2.6 Drummania 5th MIX 3.0 Console Operation 3.1 Drummania 3.2 Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX & Drummania 2nd MIX 3.3 Gitadora (Guitar Freaks 4th MIX & Drummania 3rd MIX) 4.0 Manouverability and Techniques 4.1 Seat Position 4.2 Drum Rolls 4.3 The 'Bounce' Roll 4.4 Buying Your Own Drumsticks 4.5 Listen to the Music First! 4.6 Home vs. Arcade 4.7 The Learning Curve 4.8 Auto-Bass Mode 5.0 Score/Song Guide 5.1 Normal/Basic 5.2 Real/Advanced 5.3 Expert Real/Extreme 6.0 Game Myths, Legends and Trivia 7.0 Codes and Cheats 8.0 Outroduction 8.1 Links 8.2 Credits 8.3 Disclaimer 8.4 Future Versions 8.5 Requests _____________________________________________________________________________ 0 . 0 I n t r o d u c t i o n _______________________________ Thank you for reading this FAQ! This guide was written due to two main reasons and several other smaller ones. The main reasons are that no other FAQ existed at the time of writing this for the series, and this game really could benefit a lot from a FAQ. Drummania/Percussion Freaks (hereto referred to only as 'Drummania') according to many has the highest learning curve in the Bemani series. This means it takes longer for a beginner to progress to an expert. The learning process of this game will take months if not assisted. Like I said in the opening of my (GurtyGurt) Dance Dance Revolution FAQ, it is completely possible to get good at this game without the assistance of a FAQ. However, like DDR, a FAQ will ensure you have more playability in this game. This time, I have invited several of my teammates in 'Ranking Task Force' to help me, for your maximum benefit. This means you can learn many different playing styles. This was a crucial descision in writing this guide and you, the player will benefit. Note I usually call the Excite Gauge the 'energy bar'. Excite gauge is a stupid name. It does not gauge my excitement at all! 0.1 FAQ History --------------- v0.0b1 > Initial private beta. Began July 01, 2001. v0.0b2 > Second private beta. Released August 01, 2001. v0.0rc1 > Secondary private beta. Began September 01, 2001. > FAQ past the 100kb mark. 0.2 About Ranking Task Force ---------------------------- Founded on 25 January 2000 (the day before Australia Day), Ranking Task Force ('RTF') is the largest Bemani team in Australia. The team leader is H.Edward. RTF has strong connections with Japan, as H.Edward is a member of the North-Kantou area DDR Team in Japan, whose leader is a member of the famous 'RCA' team in Japan. Partially due to this strong connection, H.Edward has managed to promote the Bemani 'scene' within Australia to levels it would never have achieved by itself. RTF's philosophy is to have fun and to support the Bemani community ourselves. We are in now way elitist and we are all warm and friendly towards other Bemani fans! RTF members have been selected not only for their skills in games, but for their involvement in helping out with things. Even though members of the team are of many different races, with many different languages being spoken, we all enjoy each others company and do our best to make life fun for everyone and not just ourselves. I hope someday other countries may have a team which does as much as RTF, or at the very least a community with a similar mind...and anyone who thinks because we win all the competitions we cheat somehow (as indeed Galactic Circus in Melbourne did when they barred us entry from their DDR competition in November 2000, which had a prize of AUD$2,500), should remember that we only organize them so people may have more fun playing their games - that's why we rarely have prizes! We encourage the growth of new teams, both within and outside of RTF...so anyone who enjoys these games, don't wait for us! Go ahead and start a team! 0.3 An Introduction to the Contributors --------------------------------------- Note that on 'Current Skill Level', this is simply the highest song difficulty for a song that you can pass on a majority basis (ie 70% or better basically). 'Play Speed' indicates both the learning speed (first number) and highest playing speed _under_normal_circumstances_ (second number - this is not the fastest we can play the game at, it's the fastest we usually play the game at!) By the way, when we started the FAQ our skill levels were way different, with Kupster@RTF being in the higher Real songs and me and EBE@RTF around 5 star Real...just for those who wondered. Yes, I wrote down these ratings and that's why this section was started! Name: EBE@RTF Contribution to FAQ: Song tactic writer, play strategy writer (NOTE: Probably could use some padding for the above. Is the below right?) Current Skill Level: 67 (NOTE: Everyone please submit NEW ratings, PLUS DM4th ones based on what difficulty songs you do on average - see mine. Doesn't have to be accurate, it won't impress anybody :P) Play Speed: 2.5x/2.5x Favourite Song to Listen to: Stop Spinning Me In Circles, Giant Slug, Monkey Magic Favourite Song to Play to: Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Grey/Real, I'll Remember You/Expert Real, Giant Slug/Expert Real, Wanna Be Your Boy/Real Notes: * My uncle has been a drummer since I was young. He's played with a number of different Australian bands, and I always used to play around on his drumkit when I stayed at his place. So, it was a complete shock when I sucked majorly at this game! I found DM so hard that for 6 months after my first go, I didn't play it. After playing solidly for 9 months now, I've found that it's not hard to build up skills with a little practice and patience. Name: GurtyGurt@RTF Contribution to FAQ: Head writer, main design, initial concept, song tactic writer, proofreader and many other bits Current Skill Level: 10 Star/Expert Real / 93 DM4th Play Speed: 4.5x/5.0x Favourite Song to Listen to: Anything by Mutsuhiko Izumi or Thomas Howard Favourite Song to Play to: Fire In The Dark/Extreme, Carnival Day/Extreme, Jet World/Extreme, Day Dream/Advanced Notes: * Left handed - this affects my playstyle immensely, meaning it is much easier to do hi-hat/snare/kick patterns without arms crossed but it is harder to do tom rolls right-to-left and to do songs like Right On Time * I do insane stuff a lot (Carnival Day 7.0x, Day Dream/Extreme with no person on cymbal or auto-bass). Not that I pass! * Also has written a Dance Dance Revolution FAQ, and is writing a secret FAQ which will be out sometime before the end of the year! (_hopefully_) Name: Kupster@RTF Contribution to FAQ: Song tactic writer, play strategy writer (NOTE: I think all these need adding to...) Current Skill Level: 10+ Star/Expert Real / 93 DM4th Play Speed: 2.5x/3.5x Favourite Song to Listen to: Primal Soul (Long Ver.)/Dynamite Favourite Song to Play to: Least 100 Sec/Basic Notes: Name: Panda@RTF Contribution to FAQ: Song tactic writer, play strategy writer Current Skill Level: 10 Star/Expert Real Play Speed: Favourite Song to Listen to: Favourite Song to Play to: 1 . 0 B a s i c I n f o r m a t i o n _________________________________________ 1.1 Frequently Asked Questions ------------------------------ Q. Why were some songs removed from Drummania 4th MIX? A. I'm not sure yet, but most of the songs (Bad Medicine, You Oughta Know and also Smoke On The Water in Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX) are liscenced songs from the West. It may have something to do with the conditions of licence, such as them being for a limited time, a set number of versions or because of Drummania 4th MIX being released outside of Japan (was it?). Of course, it may be due to limited space (Body Operation was removed too, as was the original version of Newspaper). Q. In Drummania 1st and 2nd MIXes there sure seem to be a lot of songs ending with 'you' (I Only Want To Be With You, I Think About You, I'll Remember You, When I Dream Of You). I only like one of them and I can't remember which and what difficulty it's in! A. This is a common problem for some reason and the similarities in the names are rather stupid. When I Dream Of You is only in Normal and it's way down the bottom of the list, so odds are that's not it as most people have never seen or played that song (due to it being rather lame). I Only Want To Be With You is obviously a cover of the Dusty Springfield song, so you obviously know what that sounds like. Perhaps the best way to remember is the animations. It's just kinda odd that they have so many similarly named songs! Q. Why is a Real mode version of I'll Remember You shown in the Drummania 2nd MIX demo? A. I may be wrong, but I'm guessing it is in fact the Expert Real version - keep in mind Expert Real is 'hidden' and putting Expert Real down the bottom would have given that away! I also think there's a 7 star version of Across The Nightmare in Session which is identical to the Normal one... Q. Why was Anarchy In The UK removed from Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX & Drummania 2nd MIX for PS2? A. No idea - but it's in Gitadora now... Q. Why does Anarchy In The UK have no Basic version of the song in Drummania 4th MIX? A. No idea - perhaps Konami felt there weren't enough hard songs in 4th MIX. Q. What happened to Eyes Of Kids/Extreme in Drummania 4th MIX? A. Once again, no idea. Perhaps Konami hate the song too. Play this, When I Dream Of You and Loud! and watch all the people leave (Loud! is good, but it sounds pretty distorted and...well, loud at first!) Q. Is the PS2 version's drumkit like the arcade one? A. No, but Gitadora allows you to use a Yamaha DTXpress drumkit (at your own expense!) via the USB port, and no doubt further sequels will too. The PS2 drumkit supplied should do fine, though! It is a far cry from dodgy DDR mats... Q. Why aren't their any new Thomas Howard songs? A. There are - in Drummania 5th MIX. Thomas Howard is only contracted by Konami and doesn't work in-house for them. Q. Was Drummania ever released in North America? A. No, another company holds the US Patent for Drum Simulations. I was told this long ago and I forget who by, but they also said the drum sim that IS over there is really bad. It's probably too late for Konami anyway now - but the machine is about as common as imported DDR machines, perhaps slightly less so. Q. Is Day Dream possible? A. Yes. Q. Are there any cameo appearences from other Konami games in this game? A. One possible one - the moon in Classic Party 2 (see Other Notes for Classic Party 2). I've only spotted one penguin in the entire game! (see Cassandra) 2 . 0 A r c a d e O p e r a t i o n _______________________________________ 2.1 Drum Layout --------------- An arcade drumkit is generally laid out like this...pardon my crude diagram: C H T L S This would indicate the height, in other words this diagram is of a side on view, not a birds eye view. H is Hi-Hat, C is Cymbal, L is Lo- Tom, T is Hi-Tom and lastly S is Snare. No need for indicating a Bass Pedal here. Note this appears very similar to the PS2 controller here, except for the fact that the ride cymbal is higher. This is half true. In the arcade, the ride cymbal is at a 65ø angle roughly, the toms are at 45ø angles, the snare is at 15-20ø and the hi-hat is at 30-45ø. Also, the bass pedal is fixed to the middle-right side of the machine. There are only two place it can be installed, either there or on the middle left. If it is on the middle left, it covers up some text on the machine. Also, the drums can be fixed at any position - however these are the correct ones. Unfortunately at our local arcade the ride cymbal is too low and this often results in is habitually over-reaching and hitting the much less sensitive black thing attached to it! You should consider how the arcade has set up the drums to find the optimum position to sit. It isn't often in the middle an inch back. For those drummers out there who are wondering, there is no floor tom, although the arcade model is based on the Yamaha DTXpress electronic drum kit (I think). Also, the drums aren't really adjustable (although our hi-hat has a habit of snapping off, and the cymbal can be set elsewhere too I believe), and they're more laid out for neatness and appearance than for convenience. This may take some getting used to, but if you find it a poor simulation of a real drumkit, you're looking at it the wrong way - because it's still an excellent game. The patterns in the game are rarely in the style that most drummers play, too, and they have a lot more flair in them. 2.2 Session Play (old) ---------------------- (Old refers to DrumMania 2nd MIX and loosely to DrumMania 3rd MIX) * Difficulty can be changed from Session to Extreme Session mode by tapping the hi-hat twice. Only two difficulties are available for drums, however difficulties are as normal for Guitar. Difficulty is changed using the hi-hat on drums. * Drummania's animations are played, energy is displayed in the usual place on a DrumMania machine. The yellow bar marked 'Dr' is the drummer. * If one player fails, whenever he loses any more of his 'excite gauge', the other players' energy will go down slightly (more so than if it went down from his own bar). When every player is emptied of their energy, regardless of if one player has not made any misses or whatever or not - the game is over. 2.3 Session Play (new) ---------------------- (New refers to DrumMania 4th MIX) * Each different player can change their difficulty level without affecting the difficulty of those on the other machines. This is done by tapping the hi-hat twice. All difficulties are available. * If one player fails, whenever he loses any more of his 'excite gauge', the other players' energy will go down slightly (more so than if it went down from his own bar). When every player is emptied of their energy, regardless of if one player has not made any misses or whatever or not - the game is over. * Players are not all required to select or highlight a song - feel free to just sit there! * If the song menu timer runs out, the song will be the one the first player who started the game (usually the drummer) is currently highlighting. * The song is selectable by any player - the first song selected is picked, regardless of if the other players have picked one or not. * The animation window displays the energy bars individually, the Drummer being the far right one (or the middle one if KeyboardMania 3rd MIX is linked). The normal energy bar seems to display overall energy for all players... 2.4 Drummania 2nd MIX --------------------- Here's what distinguishes 2nd MIX from the others: * All menu/non-ingame music is from long versions of the 1st MIX sound track. + Result screen- Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray + Name Input screen- Depend On Me + Ranking/High Score Table after getting high score- I Think About You + High Score Table during demo- Look At Me * Animations differ severely from Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX, like DM1, because of the different size of the animation window. This allows a higher framerate but limits the size of the graphics. (eg, Wanna Be Your Boy - Dancing Gorby walks on and off the screen rather jerkily in GF, but is smooth in DM and in DM4/GF5 he kind of 'floats' on and off screen instead) No actual new graphics, though (mostly pallete changes and timing changes) 2.5 Drummania 4th MIX --------------------- Quite a few changes in this version, worth mentioning on its own: * Graphics changes majorly - appears to run on different hardware to DM3, but in actual fact the viewing window is probably just resized to the GF3+ window size. Thus, now all animations are identical to GF. (this is why Cosmic Cowgirl calls it 'GF 3rd' in animations) Because of this many song animations are completely redone. * Song ratings now given as a difficulty rating out of 99 instead of 1-10 stars. * The Bonus song, given if you get A/S or higher overall (depending on the settings), is 'Classic Party 3.' If you pass well, you get the encore song, 'The Least 100 Sec', which is rated 86-98 on each difficulty! * 'Auto Bass' feature, so you don't have to use the bass pedal. * 'Newspaper' was removed and replaced with 'Newspaper (Vocal ver)'. * The following songs were removed: Bad Medicine, Body Operation, Holiday, Killer Queen, Virtual Insanity, You Oughta Know. * 'Double Orbit' and 'Primal Soul' have Basic versions of the songs identical to the Advanced versions (bug). * The vocals for 'P.P.R. (Long Ver)' were done by a different vocalist to the original. * 'Spring', 'Bambina' and 'Sunny Day Sunday' now in Guitar Freaks 5th MIX, therefore they are new Session Mode songs. These songs were added in the PS2 version of Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX & Drummania 2nd MIX. They do not have Bass Guitar for some reason, though. 2.6 Drummania 5th MIX --------------------- For those who are wondering what's in it so far, here is some poorly translated info as I haven't played it much: * The lisenced tunes aren't that special, but out of the western tunes there are You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi), Long Train Runnin' (Doobie Brothers) and Power Of Love (Huey Lewis And The News, not Cher or Frankie Goes To Hollywood if you were wondering). * Other songs of note: 'Blind', which both sounds and animates like Furi Furi '60, 'Feel The Earth' which is supposedly like Captain's Voyage, 'Balalaika /Carried With The Wind', which if you're wondering, Balalaika is a Russian musical instrument with a trangle shaped body 3 strings, 'Brazillian Anthem' which shouldn't be confused with 'Brazillian Rhyme' in BMIIdx, 'Hypnotieque' is the latest in the Hypnotica/Hypnotic Crisis 'Fireball' which is the new Extra Stage and is similar to Heaven is a '57 Metallic Gray, 'Miss You' which is a long version of Right On Time but sung in Japanese, and of course 'Classic Party Triathlon' which is not a medley as it sounds, but in fact a completely redone mix of some bits from the Classic Parties (which, of course, are re-recorded and sound more fresh than before), plus several new bits and is VERY hard - and in actual fact is the new 4th hardest song in the game, perhaps with the exception of the Extra and Encore stages (but perhaps not). The hardest long song, anyway! Also, Jet World ~Long Ver.~ has finally been added and Riff Riff Paradise, a medley of several of Mutsuhiko Izumi's Guitar Freaks 1st/2nd MIX songs, has been added. * A Nonstop mode is included, which is similar to Beatmania's Expert mode apparently - your gauge does not recover. This is how internet ranking is done, and you can either select preset orders or a random one (and god help you if you get The Least 100 Sec/Extreme!) * Auto bass mode might only be able to be switched on and not off (not sure). There is also a auto hi-hat and auto-cymbal mode which obviously is for the lazy and those who want to look cool by passing Day Dream/Extreme when anybody could with auto bass and auto cymbal. It doesn't fool anyone if you don't hit the cymbal! * The following songs appear to have been removed: Look At Me, Sunny Side Street, When I Dream Of You, Good Times, Ska Ska No 1, Love Affair, Anarchy In The UK 3 . 0 C o n s o l e O p e r a t i o n _________________________________________ NOTE: At the beginning of each sub-section here is a small graph showing the number of songs in each version. N is the number of songs in Normal, R is for Real, X for Expert Real, S for Session and T is the total. P for Practice and E for Easy are used if applicable. Total is for songs playable in Drummania or Session ONLY. 3.1 Drummania ------------- N: ************* (13) R: **************** (16) X: ************ (12) S: **************** (16) T: *********************** (23) ***** (+5 Session Only = 28) As I don't own this game, I can't say much except the PSX only features which I have read about: * 3 PS2 only songs from the PSX version of Guitar Freaks 2nd MIX Append are included: Koi No Dial 6700, Love This Feelin' and Eraser Engine. These are not in any arcade versions. * Although Session Mode is included, you cannot play Guitar Freaks by itself in this game. * Jet World, Holiday, The Adventures, Mr.Machine and Body Operation are in the game, but are available for Session only. (these are GF2nd songs but I don't think were in DM1st - except for maybe The Adventures and Mr.Machine) 3.2 Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX & Drummania 2nd MIX --------------------------------------------- P: **** (4) E: ***** (5) N: ****************** (18) R: ************************* (25) X: *********************** (23) S: ********************* (21) T: *************************** (27) Here are the differences from the arcade version and the features: * Session mode is included. It is played using a multitap and can be viewed in two screen layouts: Type A (normal, all 3 playfields displayed fully, one energy bar in the middle, 3 score bars, no animations) or Type B (same as Type A, but widescreen with an animation in the middle and two energy bars - one between the two guitar displays, one where the drum one normally is). Type B works on a normal TV but will be squashed. Difficulty for session is restricted - you cannot do Normal on Guitar and Extreme Session on Drums. * Spring, Sunny Day Sunday and Bambina are in Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX now, and thus are in Session mode. They were not in the arcade version (and are only in Guitar Freaks 5th MIX and above). * Jet World, Holiday, The Adventures, Mr.Machine and Body Operation are in the game, both for Session and Drummania 2nd MIX. They also are in Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX now. * Anarchy in the UK and Love Affair have been removed due to copyright reasons of some sort. (Anarchy in the UK is in Gitadora, and Love Affair wasn't much fun anyway) * Used Cars, Wanna Be Your Boy and Primal Soul are in Drummania 2nd MIX, Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX and Session mode even though they were already in Guitar Freaks 2nd MIX Append for PSX by themselves. * Like the arcade version, 1175 is only selectable in Session mode. 1175 was not selectable in Drummania by itself until 3rd MIX (1175 is of course now in Gitadora) * Training mode is included, similar to the same mode in other Bemani games. * Free mode is included, which removes restrictions on songs - ie, you can go back and forth between difficulties and play any song you have already played. You can also select whether the player is controlled by a human (HUM) or the PS2 (COM). This can be done in Session mode, too. Free mode is NOT a freestyle mode. * No Edit Data function is included. * The number of stages and automatic Game Over on failing songs cannot be changed/enabled, except for a 'Forced Game Over' option in Free Mode. * Scores and results are recorded like other Bemani games. * The Bass Drum (kick pedal) can be set to automatic, ie you don't need to press it. Useful if your pedal is broken/poor quality. The game won't keep record if you use this or change difficulty. * Volume levels can be changed for guitars, drum and bgm individually and the drum and two guitars can be channeled to specific directions. * The timing of the notes can be changed (I don't know why this would be needed, it would not fix a PAL desync problem) * Background type, combo display position and judgement (standard/tight) can only be changed in options. Small/Silent has been removed (because you can change BGM volume now anyway). 3.3 Gitadora (Guitar Freaks 4th MIX & Drummania 3rd MIX) -------------------------------------------------------- N: **************************** (28) R: ********************************* (33) X: *************************** (27) S: ********************************* ******* (33, +7 long (S/XS only)) T: ********************************** ******* (34, +7 long (R/X/S only)) Here is what is known for certain (unofficial, but verified; my copy is on order): * The Drummania side of the game is based on Drummania 3rd MIX. * All tunes are available for session. * It is a DVD-ROM. * Yamaha DTX series electronic drumkits can be plugged into the USB port and be used with the game for the ultimate arcade style playability! * The game will use the PS2 HD attachment as a cache. Because of this, Endless mode is included. * Anarachy In The UK and 1175 from 2nd MIX are in the game - both are available in all modes (1175 was formerly session only). * Depend On You, Marionette and Silly Girl from Drummania 4th MIX are in the game. These Replace Sakura no Toki and Killer Queen, which are not. Both these songs were licenced, as are Depend On You and Marionette (Silly Girl is not). The normal version of Newspaper is still in the game. Why Sakura no Toki was removed is not known. * Several new songs are included: Pretty G, Jet "G" Crew, Complete Conquest, Star of Muse (normal and long versions), Session Xmas (normal and long versions) and Pegasus(?) (normal and long versions). Pretty G and Complete Conquest are from Drummania 5th MIX. * Note that as in the Arcade version, Classic Party 2 is an Extra stage that you get if you get S's or SS's for all the songs, and Day Dream is the Encore stage that you get for an S or SS on that. * The total number of long versions of songs up from 3 to 7! 2 less than 4th MIX arcade (but there's different songs) (see www.konami.co.jp/kcej/products/) 4 . 0 M a n o u v e r a b i l i t y a n d T e c h n i q u e s ___________________________________________________________________ 4.1 Seat Position ----------------- The first thing to do is find the perfect stool position. Most people will find it's roughly in the middle. For me, I position the stool about 1 foot back from the pedal and, if there were a vertical line running straight away from the machine on the top of the padding for the stool right along the middle, that line would be parallel to the right side of the pedal. Basically I position myself a foot back and a few inches to the right. But I'm left handed - this may not suit everybody. The key things are, you must be able to manouver freely on all drums and you must be comfortable with the kick pedal. It is easier to do rolls on snares than toms, so position yourself close to the toms if you need to. Do not go too close to the ride cymbal or you'll hurt yourself hitting just about everything but the cymbal. Of course, if you're using the PS2 version, you only have to worry about where to place the pedal. You should place it slightly to the right of the middle area under the drumkit (this is where it would be in the arcade). 4.2 Drum Rolls -------------- Drum rolls are always hard to get used to. They can be mastered, though. If you can, I suggest you learn to more or less flip and bounce the sticks into the drums lightly from the outset, but if like most people you like to play the game with more force, then you need to know a few things. First of all, the main mistake beginners make is they roll too fast (and mess up anyway). You only need to roll at the speed indicated - fast rolls are used in PPR/Normal and later in Double Orbit/Real, but for most songs, you can do slow ones. On this topic, also if you can, know which drumstick to -start- with if you have to come out of it fast. EG, in Break Out/Normal, you will find it easiest to do rolls on the hi-hat towards the ends, but there are snare beats in between sometimes. You don't have time to stop, hit and resume rolling. The solution? Start rolling with your RIGHT drumstick, as the snare is to the right. When it comes up, hit out to it, then hit back in with your left stick and it flows that simply. Sometimes it is hard to perform a drum roll when coming out of long strings of patterns, eg hi-hat/snare/kick patterns. This is because you are holding the drumsticks really tight - loosen up your grip on them (not completely! Just a bit) and it should be better. Practice a little with this. One way to tell if you're holding it tight is simple as the result of a typical drumroll (ie not Sunny Day Sunday or something slow like that). If you miss most of the roll because you cannot move fast enough, or your drumstick 'sticks' to the drum, you are holding it too tight. Ideally, the drumsticks should bounce lightly in your hand. (this is slightly different with the smaller PS2 drums and drumsticks as if these are held loosely, they bruise your index fingers quite badly!) Basically the best way to loosen grip is by not holding the drumsticks with your whole hand, only with the fingers. If they're firm enough (the fingers that is), they should give the drumsticks enough freedom to do movements like those nasty hi-hat/snare/kick patterns AND drum rolls. Finally, sometimes if the drums don't need to be rolled on, it is less risky to just hit them fast. This is the case in some parts in the Classic Party songs, and probably Break Out/Extreme as well. 4.3 The 'Bounce' Roll --------------------- Although I call it many names in the FAQ, this is not really a roll anyway. In a few songs - Ska Ska No 1/Real and Sunny Day Sunday/Real, for example - you need to hit the same drum twice quickly. You MIGHT be okay on Sunny Day Sunday doing it with one stick, but you're deadmeat if you try that in Ska Ska No 1. The trick is similar to 'skipping' in Dance Dance Revolution - one drumstick must hit it, then the other must hit it immediately after. This motion should be fairly gentle, and gravity should be used to clear the first drumstick out of the way. These kinds of rolls are especially common in Real mode. 4.4 Buying Your Own Drumsticks ------------------------------ A lot of people hate it how arcades tie up the drumsticks to the machine. Obviously the solution is to buy your own. They're very cheap to start off with - about $5 US is the starting price...but if weight is a problem, be wary. My cheapo drumsticks were pretty heavy and whilst it was easier to hit things, it slowed me down on songs with fast patterns. Also, in experiments with my PS2 drumsticks I have found that the shorter drumsticks supplied can be better or worse depending on the song. Shorter drumsticks make rolls infinitely easier, as well as odd patterns. However, longer sticks help out when you need to move around a lot. Shorter sticks are a big help on Sunny Day Sunday/Real, for example, but a hinderance on Depend On Me/Real. It all depends on whether you're playing at home or on the arcade machine though! Ultimately, though, you can get the same effect of a short drumstick by holding a normal one halfway down the stick. This technique is especially useful in songs like Newspaper or Dynamite/Expert Real. 4.5 Listen to the Music First! ------------------------------ If you don't know how the music goes, songs can be amazingly hard, unlike in DDR or Guitar Freaks. Try to watch other people play the songs first, or if you can, find the MP3. Knowing the song makes it infinitely easier, because you know what to expect. Also, in the case of REALLY hard stuff, try to find the patterns on the internet first! 4.6 Home vs. Arcade ------------------- The PS2 versions (and the PC simulators) are good for practicing on if you play in the arcade regularly. However, keep in mind the drumkits for these are a lot smaller! Also, the foot pedal is just foam. This can be hard on songs like Spring/Expert Real, so if you have problems with it, either ignore the problem or turn on auto bass and just use the pedal anyway. Also, some songs are infinitely easier on the PS2/PC drumkits, especially Depend On Me/Real it seems. Songs like Cutie Pie/Real are harder due to the location of the toms. Despite the overall lameness of the foot pedal for the PS2, I strongly recommend using it whether it works or not, or at least tapping when appropriate because it is by far the easiest way to master tricky kick patterns for harder songs! 4.7 The Learning Curve ---------------------- Most Bemani games have tricky learning curves and Drummania is no exception. The learning curve for this game, from start to being able to do most songs in Expert Real, is 3 months. This may be slightly higher or lower depending on your own skills and how often you play it - I played it 3 times weekly and quite heavily myself. This means the learning curve is similar to DDR. Unfortunately, it is also much more jagged: BEGINNER Beginners typically struggle to pass songs, so I would recommend using Easy mode to get the hang of the game. Skip practice, though. This first hurdle will be slightly easier to get over if you've played other Bemani games (I had a hard time, being left handed). NORMAL So named because of Normal mode. This learning curve basically extends up to about 4 or 5 stars on Normal mode. You will not be able to do Real at first, but one day, you will suddenly gain the ability...literally, it's that sudden and unexpected. Nobody gradually works their way up to Real that I know of. REAL Real mode has a steady learning curve until you reach 5 star songs. Then you get horribly stuck (nasty, isn't it?). The only way I managed to break this was by learning two songs harder than I could manage; Wanna Be Your Boy/Real (which wasn't too hard) and Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Real (which was). This is probably the longest phase because you have to learn all sorts of complex things in your mind to make hard stuff easier. EBE@RTF says he's been told that the only way to beat the '5 star Real' barrier is to play easier Expert Real songs, as they use different patterns to Real. This is true - Spring, Hypnotica, Ultimate Power and Sunny Day Sunday are some of the ones that are easiest to pick up on. EXPERT REAL (A) After a while, once again you will 'suddenly' gain the ability to do complex kick patterns. That mental block which confuses kicks with other drums disappears totally, once and for all. You may still have trouble doing REALLY nasty kick patterns, hence the 'A'. EXPERT REAL (B) Same but after you get the complex kick patterns. This might take practice to reach, or it might just unlock in your mind again - it depends on your own mentality, really. Songs in this category include Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real and Jet World/Expert Real. This usually unlocks in your mind rather quickly. EXPERT REAL (C) This is when you can do Day Dream/Expert Real or similar stuff. This takes time to reach, but if you just play a heap, you'll get there very quick. Once you reach this point, I guess you've masted the game, haven't you? Honestly, it isn't anywhere near as impossible as it appears to beginners. One week before moving onto Real mode, I tried Real mode and believed Spring to be nigh on impossible. Ditto when I was on Real and I tried Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Real. Ditto when I saw people do anything on Expert Real. It always appears impossible, but once you know half of it...and can do similar stuff, it's just a matter of filling in the gaps. And that is basically where the learning curve comes from. Do as many songs as possible if you get stuck, even go back to old ones that you've done from time to time to measure your progress - usually you soar through old songs when you're ready to move up a level. That's all - you don't need heaps of practice, but it helps. Make sure you DO get heaps of practice on kicks when you move from Real to Expert Real, though. It makes it so much simpler! 4.8 Auto-Bass Mode ------------------ Auto-Bass is in the PS2 versions of Drummania, and Drummania 4th MIX and later. It is useful and a lot of people use it, but I recommend not using it where reasonable. The fact is, Extreme mode is pointless with it and it ruins it. Jet World becomes weak, Double Orbit becomes weak, Carnival Day is the same as on Advanced and the Classic Parties become too easy. It's best to accept that you will fail sometimes, but practicing the bass pedal will help you improve - eventually. Nobody is any good at it at first, and you probably won't be until you're well into the Advanced songs. But deal with it. Also note it nullifies your high scores. I only use it on songs like Day Dream Extreme, Fire In The Dark Extreme -maybe-, The Least 100 Sec/Extreme, and so on. Basically if the drums themselves are extremely hard, use it, elsewise do not. 5 . 0 S c o r e / S o n g G u i d e _______________________________________ KEY H - Hi-Hat S - Snare K - Bass Pedal (Kick) T - Hi Tom L - Lo Tom R - Ride Cymbal Actual Difficulty: How hard the song is rated. Drummania 1st-3rd MIX songs only. New Difficulty: How hard the song is rated in Drummania 4th MIX. Highest rating is 99 (Day Dream, Expert Real(Extreme). Overall Difficulty: How hard we think the song is overall. Two or more individual ratings must be present. Animations: The in-song animations displayed in Drummania 1st-3rd MIX and if 'New Animations' is not below it, in 4th MIX as well. This is used both as a guide and for your own humour! New Animations: The in-song animations displayed in Drummania 4th MIX only. Only if they have changed! (Name of FAQist): Song hints provided by that person, ending with a difficulty percentage which they believe represents the song (overall, not for the difficulty level (eg Expert Real)). Eg, a 50% rated song means you'll learn it about halfway through the entire song list (for that mix or otherwise). 100% would be Daydream or The Least 100 Sec. Basic Expert Real Pattern B-Type: Involves HH/Snares/Kicks. Goes roughly like this: H+K K H+S K H K H (kicks are more messed up and this pattern varies slightly) 5.1 Normal/Basic ---------------- ACROSS THE NIGHTMARE Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: 33% New Difficulty: 61 Animations: Various shots of a Samurai wielding a katana, unsheathing it, meditating with cherry blossoms falling around, etc. Other Notes: Ride Cymbal makes a guitar sound if hit at the start! Also there may have been a Real version of this song at one stage as in the PS2 version of Drummania, Across The Nightmare has a 7 star version in Session. It has the exact same combo so without the game to test it, I dunno... GG: It might be the hardest song on Normal...but probably not. This combines the patterns from Wanna Be Your Boy/Normal with Jet World/Normal and has a bit similar to Loud!/Real (but more in time). Make sure the speed is set to 2.0x or higher - preferably higher! Try to keep your timing right with the patterns used throughout like at the very start. It's very easy to lose it when it repeats after a while. When it turns to patterns involving the snare, hi-hat and ride cymbal one at a time going back and forth, only use one drumstick on each side. When the notes all become kicks and cymbals when the sword unsheathing animation is playing take note that even though all the notes are off time they are still exactly one beat apart. After this, you REALLY need to have the song playing fast to see what happens. No advice here other than that! And make sure you do well enough on the drum roll at the end! It can be a life or death matter! RATING: 37% - EBE: By the time I'd gotten around to playing 'Across The Nightmare' seriously, I had enough practice at rolls. A lot of people tackle this and speed up the moment they see a long snare roll. This song is a good way to learn how to set your pace back a little and relax into the rhythm of a long, single-drum roll. The thing that got me the most on these was the kick replacing the last beat of the roll... I always hit it too late or forgot it was there. It's not vital, but it will take a few tries to get used to. Another mistake I've seen other players make is the timing of the beginning and end bits of the song (after the initial roll). The pattern is like this: KC-S-KC S KC-S-KC S KC-S-KC S KC-HSK (repeating). The mistake is often: KC-S-KC S-KC-S-KC (ie the snare is hit too late). Both this and the 'unsheathing' patterns are good times to listen well to the music and follow it's lead. RATING: 30% CLASSIC PARTY 3 Actual Difficulty: 51 Overall Difficulty: 54% Animations: Ballerina with a swan on his/her head. The word 'HALELUIJAH' split up into syllables along with faces singing it (their mouths move correctly, too!). Some wierd split-face princess thing. A toy windup soldier. A Spanish looking lady in a long dress with a rose in her mouth. A William Tell scene where a grinning boy gets an apple shot on his head. Other Notes: Extra Stage in Drummania 4th MIX. The haleluijah chorus at the end actually sings other things, including "CLA-SIC-PAR-TY". This is most audible at the very end - the odd double notes before the final note/s synchronise with the word 'party' (both syllables). Tunes include March of the Toreadors (from Carmen), William Tell Overture (Rossini) and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (Macdonald/Jessel). Parade of the Wooden Soldiers is also in KeyboardMania 3rd MIX as an individual song. GG: Make sure you know roughly how the original versions of these songs go or you'll be in trouble (less so than in the Advanced and Extreme versions of this, though!). The difficulty on this is rather excessive so watch out. It starts out easy enough, and for most of the song it's easy enough - if you're good enough. Odds are you aren't though. Since this is an extra song in Drummania 4th MIX and you can't pick it, I wouldn't recommend trying to get this song as it will most likely be too hard for you unless you play on Advanced level, in which case, how did you get this version of it? No advice nessecary. Just don't assume you will pass and if you do you have to survive The Least 100 Sec. anyway. If you pass this, you're ready for Advanced, I'd say...all I'll say is if you want The Least 100 Sec, you WILL need to get the rolls near perfectly in this. RATING: 53% - EBE: You should really be passing the original Classic Party on Real before you expect to pass this one. If you do get the extra song in 4th MIX, just try your best. RATING: 55% DOUBLE ORBIT Actual Difficulty: 38 Warning: This song is a bug - the patterns for this are identical to the Real/Advanced patterns for it below in every single detail! Although it is rated 23 or something like that, it is a lot harder. Avoid! PRIMAL SOUL Warning: This song is a bug - the patterns for this are identical to the Real/Advanced patterns for it below in every single detail! It is incredibly hard even for Real - don't even consider it at this stage in the game! THE LEAST 100 SEC Actual Difficulty: 87 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Sketches of Churches and things, usually paired with wireframe/vector shapes (mostly pyramids). Wins the prize for lamest animations in the game (and only barely beats Eyes Of Kids)! Other Notes: Encore Stage in Drummania 4th MIX. GG: On the off chance that you pass Classic Party 3, this will be your encore stage in Drummania 4th MIX. The start of it is similar to Waza/Real, and isn't too hard. Then about halfway through, it starts going a bit crazy with the toms. They don't really go with anything so I cannot give advice on this, except practice Helpless and River Crossin' on the highest difficulty you can manage first. After this the pattern becomes similar to Right On Time/Real, and after that it becomes more like Day Dream/Real (ie you have to hit other drums randomly too). If you can survive all this, you'll have a simple enough end which is like the start, just make sure you don't panic! Just remember, this song is the crux of Drummania 4th MIX as well as Guitar Freaks 5th MIX and Keyboardmania 3rd MIX, and not only is it going to be hard to get the song in the first place, it's going to be even harder to pass it! No instruments rest for a second...if you have a lot of skill and play on Expert Real a lot, this will be easy, of course. It's probably one of the most fun songs! RATING: 85% WHEN I DREAM OF YOU Actual Difficulty: ****...... Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: 37 Animations: One of those wind up music boxes with the plastic ballerinas on them. That's about it really. Other Notes: Sometimes mixed up with 'Remember You' (Dance Dance Revolution 5th MIX song) because the two are similar. GG: Avoid! This song is HARD for a Basic song. 4 stars would be underrating it slightly on Real, even. I'd give it 5 Real stars, myself. This uses many patterns from Expert Real songs, however because the song is so abysmally slow, it's not that hard. It just has awkward kick positioning and near constant hi-hatting. It also mixes a bit of tomming in as well. I struggled through this when I was well into 5 Real stars, but the song I'd compare it to is Onion Man/Real. My advice? Skip it, nobody likes this song anyway. It's amazing how many people don't know it's there (since it's only playable on Normal!). RATING: 50% - EBE: Mostly a personal comment... I hated this song. I ignored it until I was well into Real songs, and even then it was so slow and irregular I had trouble with it. Add to that the fact that it's in no way fun to play, I decided I didn't really need to learn it. RATING: N/A 5.2 Real/Advanced ----------------- 1175 Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: 78 Animations: P.P.R. is the same, Cosmic Cowgirl has the Cosmic Cowgirl backgrounds with the girl is replaced with the Butthead clone from P.P.R. (he dances in the capsule and is in the tv), and Say What You Mean uses P.P.R.'s animations a bit again, as well as some of the ones from the original version (see our Guitar Freaks FAQ) Other Notes: Medley of P.P.R., Cosmic Cowgirl and Say What You Mean (a Guitar Freaks song). Only available as a session song in DM 2nd MIX but also available by itself in sequels. Called '1175' because it has 1175 notes in Guitar Freaks. GG: P.P.R. and Cosmic Cowgirl are identical to what they are on Real anyway so see those bits for them. Make sure you have at least half your energy for Say What You Mean because it is H-A-R-D hard. Auto bass is a BIG help. The kicks are fairly constant and all quite odd. If you do well you might have a full bar before the final chorus, but that even might not be enough. The kicks are more or less every half-beat, but make sure you are VERY good at kicks before you try it. Auto bass mode is a must otherwise, and you might want to do Expert Real in that case. Don't do this until you've done a heap of songs with tricky bass in Expert Real - and I don't mean simply Mr.Machine and things. Do the Classic Party trilogy if you can as well. Say What You Mean makes this hard, not any of the other songs - they aren't _too_ hard. But it's still very possible that you'll lose lots of energy or fail on them..however, with the snare/cymbal combos with the kicks in between, treat them like they were exactly in the middle and allow yourself to fill out to their exact position in the future. On the hihat/snare patterns, just watch the kicks because they're not terribly frequent. If you don't panic this is realistically possible. Watch out for the roll at the end - it is in the style of Heaven Is a '57 Metallic Grey/Expert Real (complete with the kicks for the cymbal splashes), however at the end of the snare roll it speeds up. Say What You Mean is VERY tough and is one of, if not _the_ toughest non-fusion/jazz/etc songs in the Drummania/Guitar Freaks/ Keyboardmania series. RATING: 92% BREAK OUT Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: 62% New Difficulty: 48 Animations: Waitress with dynamite, skulls, etc. Psychotic looking chef. Stretching guy in what looks like a mouth. The words "r u ready?", "It's a Gourmet Night." and most amusingly of all, a can labelled 'BOM' opening by itself and a purple monster coming out, with in large capital letters from the top left foreground to the top right background saying, "SNIKT". 'SNIKT' has remained an enigma to everyone who has seen it! New Animations: Many of the effects seem to be more windowed or fancy, and "It's a Gourtmet Night." seldom appears. Other Notes: At the start, before the first "Break the boundaries, my philosophy" line, there is a distorted sound. It appears to be a speech sample from what could be a MSX, Arcade or X68000 game saying "You are all under my command"! (See trivia for further info) GG: This was the first 5 star song I did, but most people moving on past it still can't do it. I dunno why! So here's my advice. The start is simple as it's just like Normal mode. Once the song starts properly, it repeats this pattern for most of the first half of the song. The only tricky part is the S-K-S K-S-S - I find it more relaxing (and sorta easier) to swing back, kick at the pedal for the first kick, and let it go back a bit before bringing it forward again. You only need your left stick for this bit. Don't use your right until the drum roll comes along. The next bit has hi-hat and kick patterns. It basically goes H H H H-K-H HK... or as I see it when I play, tap tap tap tapkicktap both. Make sure you see that tapkicktap bit as a different pattern to the rest. It's way easier that way. Then you shouldn't have any hard parts until the SNIKT scene. I must admit I don't have a proper tactic for this bit, but what usually gets me through with maybe even a full combo is doing the HK and HS bits as normal, but where a half beat is involved, I drag my drumsticks down both the drums. It's hard to describe, but it usually works. On the chords, it's a simple pattern - KR (3/4 pause) L(repeat). This is basically my secret tactics I've used all this time and hopefully, they'll help you! RATING: 60% - EBE: I was one of the people that skipped this one (after an initial extremely bad failure) and tried some higher-rated songs. At the time I tried, I found the early kick patterns very difficult. Going back now, I do find it very simple... not sure I have any advice to help with this. RATING: 64% CARNIVAL DAY Actual Difficulty: *********. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 80 Animations: Poorly drawn. Sometimes they say the lyrics. Some of them look very 8-bit. Other Notes: At the start of the second verse after the first line, the backup choir type singer things sing 'KO-NA-MI' instead of 'Clap Your Hands'! (some lyrics sites say this is 'From a ring' but it clearly isn't) Vocals by Paula Terry, of DDR/Naoki song fame, and the Fu Fu's (Go Go Again - Guitar Freaks). GG: Lots of hi-hats. Lots. Use one hand if you wanna be safe. You're bound to lose some energy, so it's good that during the stupid bit in the song the pattern is incredibly basic (in comparison) and it's a golden opportunity to recover. Do this when you're up to Expert Real. Any soon is suicide, sorry! RATING: 81% COSMIC COWGIRL Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 75 Animations: Maid-looking girl with white hair in capsule dancing/riding a 'love rocket' and in a tv so on. Also shows astronauts spinning into a vortex (so don't mix it up with Double Orbit) and the title of the song and game in yellow circles on cyan circles (which I presume should be lights) - 'COSMIC COWGIRL' (or '1175') and 'DM 2nd' (or 'GF 3rd') New Animations: None - but the 'lights' now identify the game as GF 3rd regardless of whether it's Guitar Freaks or not! Other Notes: In 1175, the Butthead clone from P.P.R. (the song before Cosmic Cowgirl in it) is dancing in the capsule instead, and is on the TV's. He doesn't ride the rocket though! GG: Similar to the Normal version, but with kicks. The kicks are all by themselves, so that's not a problem unless kicks are your weakness. A snare/cymbal/kick pattern shortly after might prove to be hard, but it uses the same rhythm as the first pattern and the kicks are only every 4 beats (2 every 4 after the first 3). It's rather simple, really. Next, another pattern comes up using the same drums. It is an utter bastard once again! Kicks are all 1 beat apart, so try to remember to stick to that and then just focus on the drums. It's the only way to do this and this could fail you from a full energy bar if you mess it up in any way at all! Very unforgiving...afterwards, the triple hi-hats from normal mode come back (but with kicks now). Beware! After this, the older energy recovering pattern from before the last one I mentioned comes back, although it is slightly harder now, before returning to the first pattern (sometimes with more kicks). Cosmic Cowgirl sounds easy, but it's hard - consider how poorly people do on the Normal version first, and maybe it's worth practicing on I Think About You/Real. A lot of people still fail the normal version of this when they're well into Real songs, so tread carefully! RATING: 74% CRUNCHY NUTS Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: 58% New Difficulty: 55 Animations: A busy city. Ends with a digital (ie calculator screen style) sign saying 'CRUNCHY NUTS', although people often say because of the way the N's are shaped, it looks like 'CRUHCHY HUTS', hence this song is often known as CRUNCHY HUTS. (here anyway). Other Notes: AKA 'CRUNCHY HUTS' (see above) and 'CRUNKY NUTS'. GG: The kicks for this song are mostly on beat. In fact, the whole song is simple except for the one part where the kicks and left hand patterns are on beat and you need to hit the cymbal off-beat. This is confusing but can be contrasted to MAGICAL JET TOUR (if you're playing on 4th MIX!) how at the end there is a similar pattern - although it is entirely on the left side. As such, use this mentality and a similar strategy to overcome this problem. The rest of the song is easy, but keep in mind it is only 1 minute 9 seconds long! Pick something longer! Look At Me is just as short, too! But if you absolutely must do this, Look At Me happens to be a similar song, and for that tricky part, I would strongly recommend you concentrate on the patterns to the left - the right ones are all half-beat-off cymbal hits and are easier to do than if you concentrate on them and do the other bits in your head. That's the big secret to passing! RATING: 55% - EBE: Given it's position on the songlist in DM 2nd MIX (where I was learning most of my skills) I never played this, thinking it would be too hard. Playing it for the first time recently, I found it pretty easy. And yes, it is too short. RATING: 62% CUTIE PIE Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 35 Animations: Lady walking Pug dog who sometimes get skeletonized (the lady, not the dog). Comic books with nonsensical speech bubbles saying things like 'Konami' and 'LOVE LOVE' 'YES!'. New Animations: The lady's head flies out where it used to be tiled (on two identical chords) Other Notes: GG: Not that hard. The thing you should try to remember is, when you see the patterns with the hi tom AND the ride cymbal, hit the tom with your left stick. These end up as rolling motions, so they're quite easy with practice. Try to do the rest with your right stick. Also, there's some parts where everything looks messed up. DON'T try to do what I said above on these, it's not nessecary! Just use your eyes...if you're ready it'll be obvious what to do, but it's easy not to remember to do this if you're focused on the left stick/tom trick... RATING: 53% - EBE: This was one of the first songs I ever played on Real. The patterns aren't complex, just more synched with highlights of the music rather than any real beat structure. There are the odd hits you will miss the first few times, but don't panic, and you will pass this easily. RATING: 40% DAY DREAM Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 96 Animations: Soccer players on hills that hold ping pong bats for some reason, also with wierd sheep and submerged upside down castles and kicking blue legs and strange large heads coming up and down and I'm pretty sure Thomas Howard's head is in there somewhere too and it's green (dunno why). Seriously. I always suspected Konami used drugs, but thanks to this song, we now know it for a fact! The credits are displayed during the song, and the only other text is before the very last nasty bit which says "ARE YOU READY?". Other Notes: Encore Stage in Drummania 3rd MIX. Speed changes from 80bpm to 300bpm to 170bpm to 90bpm to 170bpm. GG: I'd like to say "not that hard", but that'd be a lie. Not as hard as on Extreme. Keep hitting the cymbal fast enough, and concentrate on kick and snare/toms accuracy, and pre-empt the rolls if you can. Messing up any part of this song IS fatal. The final roll WILL sap you, because it is VERY fast. I recommend playing this song at a very fast speed - I use 5.5x minimum. RATING: 95% DEPEND ON ME Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 87 Animations: Features a bi-plane flying past lots of stuff way up in the sky (including very old cars, for some reason...I didn't know cars could fly! Except DeLoreans maybe!). Ends with it turning into a paper airplane and a hand catches it (which is rather stupid). NOTE that DEPEND ON ME (CD ver.) has identical animations, only the sky is orange instead of blue. DEPEND ON ME (LONG ver.) has the same sky, but has photos of people instead and also credits the 'ASMD Band'. Other Notes: GG: Very hard. God knows why this is in Real mode, but I guess it gives experts a reason to try out Real every so often (other than Sunny Side Street, which ExpertRealists often point out things they like about it when I play it). (Note: It's been moved up to Extreme mode in Drummania 4th MIX thankfully) Every single drum is used a LOT in this song, so be wary! If you can, go through it once or twice with auto bass on. Alternatively do it on the last song if the machine is set to let you finish the song if you fail. Also, make sure you do this on at least 3.0x speed - 2.5x is too clustered. Make sure you are decent at kicks (the patterns aren't overwhelmingly hard) and make sure you can do the pattern which is done throughout the chorus: snare+kick, pause, snare, tom1, tom2, tom1, repeat. Tom1 and Tom2 switch and sometimes it might not even be like that - one may repeat twice in a row. There are two ways used to do this: Both use the left stick on the snare, but if the next hit is the hi-tom, some people hit it with the right stick then move that stick to the lo-tom and back to the hi-tom, while others use the left stick on the hi-tom. The first is the most common. If you have problems with the kicks, do them every beat instead of every second beat. Also, after this pattern ends, it becomes a little complex - it looks simple enough, but note that the hi-hat (and later the cymbal) often use 1/3 beat strikes. The song even ends on some of these - be careful! A deadly but fun song! Good practice too! The kicks aren't so bad in this, just make sure you are rather good at them. Ultimately though this song is great practice for other songs which are even harder than this! One problem you may have is the right drumstick working its way up your hand until you are holding the top end of it and thus have nothing to hit with. If you get this, just experiment to see what fixes it - maybe using both the previously mentioned methods of doing the chorus will help. RATING: 84% DEPEND ON ME (CD ver.) Actual Difficulty: 54 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Features a bi-plane flying past lots of stuff way up in the sky (including very old cars, for some reason...I didn't know cars could fly! Except DeLoreans maybe! Or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!). Ends with it turning into a paper airplane and a hand catches it (which is rather stupid). Also note that DEPEND ON ME has identical animations, only the sky is blue instead of orange. DEPEND ON ME (CD ver.) is a short version of DEPEND ON ME (Long ver.), not vice versa (see DEPEND ON ME (Long ver.)) Other Notes: Slightly different to DEPEND ON ME (starts different, most obviously). In DEPEND ON ME, there were hi-hat sounds that you never played that are played in this. DEPEND ON ME (LONG ver.) is the long version of this, not the original. This version is one of the longest normal songs in the game at over 2 minutes! GG: Considerably easier than the original version. Be sure you're decent at kicks. Most of it has simple patterns, although by no means is this song easy. Towards the middle it starts making unusual kick patterns. Towards the end, the cymbal hits become random sets of 1/3 beat strikes. It is best to decide on your own which to concentrate on - those, or the kicks and snares that accompany it. I would say the rating for this song is fair. Also, on the bits where there are two hi-hat strikes with either a snare or kick accompanying them, only use one stick on the hi-hats and it shouldn't be too hard as you don't need to do it for long. Make sure you can do these before you try it on Extreme - because that makes up the body of the song in Extreme! RATING: 55% DOUBLE ORBIT Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: 54% New Difficulty: 57 Animations: Space themed. Other Notes: In Drummania 4th MIX, the Basic version of this is identical. It is presumed the reason why there is no Guitar version of this is because it is strikingly similar to L.A. Rider, guitar wise (as Say What You Mean is to Newspaper drum-wise). The astronauts in the background talk backwards (they seem to be talking about velocity and mostly say numbers). Double Orbit is also a cover of 'Prologue' from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (or at least is near identical). GG: Can be hard, can be easy. It depends on you and how good you are at wierd patterns. If you don't pick them up immediately, then avoid this until you've done several other 5 star songs. If you do, this should be one of the first you do. Personally, I couldn't do it for ages (too many kicks and patterns with kicks, plus the non-snare drum rolls), then I came back after Wanna Be Your Boy and easily passed it with the energy bar (sorry, 'Excite Gauge') well into the green. I probably could have passed it sooner! So long as you can do decent drum rolls on the toms and can kick well, not to mention do simple kick patterns, you should find this not too hard at all! It's essential that you get the tom rolls at the end. RATING: 52% - EBE: I found Double Orbit really easy to get into. Tight rolls like these are something I really get into (although it's easy to mis-time the end... finishing with the KC too early can be embarrasing). If you ignore the cymbal during the KC S-KC K-SC section, the pattern is fairly standard (K S-K K-S K-S K-K-S), you then 'punctuate' the right beats with the cymbal. With the wierd toms-pattern at the start, I just hope for the best. I find it hard to get a fix on the pattern in my head. RATING: 57% GIANT SLUG Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: 57 Animations: Fat bright pink guy in referree shirt with glasses features a lot, often getting hit with pies being hurled by fat people, morphed into a blob, etc. - also features a guy with a hinged mouth eating sausages a lot (I think it's the guy who chops the plank of wood in Loud!, actually!), as well as nonsensical garbled stuff which might be newspaper clippings which says, if you can read it, 'YOU SHOULD TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF.' Other Notes: Vocalist is Aaron G (of B4U vocalist fame) GG: Simple, yet has a great beat! For most of the song you can simply just hit the cymbal once every beat and concentrate on the kicks and snares. They're all pretty simple, so it's not very hard - I almost max combo'd it last time, and I've never max combo'd anything (I never try to!). If you're not ready or willing to learn snare/kick patterns whilst you keep a beat with the cymbal, avoid it. Otherwise, it's an excellent song for practicing on (or warming up). RATING: 50% HEAVEN IS A '57 METALLIC GRAY Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: Animations: Elvis clone. Closeups of Car Engine. Neon signs. That's it. Other Notes: EBE: If you can pass Used Cars, this shouldn't be to hard to pick up. It has that early 60's rock/swing crossover sound. A lot of fun to play towards the end, just be careful of the final roll. RATING: 55% HYPNOTICA See Expert Real/Extreme. IMPLANTATION Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 72 Animations: Crazy. And not in the fun kind of way, just dumb. Other Notes: GG: Obviously one of the hardest songs in Real mode. It starts out innocent enough, but once the left-to-right odd drum patterns come in, it gets odd. The key here is to know how the music goes! It follows a fairly basic pattern for these drums, and it goes with the techno gargling sounds. The snares after this are odd, I recommend looking at the beat lines or comparing them with the kicks. Once the Ska Ska No 1 style pattern comes in near the end, you should be fine. It's pretty self explanitory. You should not need many special skills here - this song is rather simple, really. So long as you memorise the music! Listen to it, know how all the odd prominent sounds go, and you'll be ok. I passed this on my first attempt, for the record (not that I had the guts to do it before starting on Expert Real, or before doing Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Real or Depend On Me). With the snares, I have found that the pattern it uses is a pretty common one - but the only way I can think of describing it is like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme (to the words of the chorus, basically). It's not exactly like it because there's ONE last beat before the pattern repeats, but it's all that springs to mind. Maybe it'll help, who knows? Once you can pass this and the left-to-right bit, this is a piece of cake. Oh, one last piece of advice: On the part after the wierd snares, you have some snare rolls and left-right-left or vice versa tom patterns. DON'T do these like Depend On Me/Real, it doesn't work because it's too fast. Instead, incorporate the toms into the snare rolls if you can. RATING: 75% JET WORLD Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: 63% New Difficulty: 61 Animations: Circus themed. Something is always lip-synced to the words (the clown, the rolling balls, the divas) and the words appear down the bottom (except for the grunting sounds). Easily the most skillfully animated scenes in the whole game! New Animations: Clown appears to be more pogo-stick shaped and wearing a peach colored costume, balls are not lip-synced and zoom in/out (with the elephants), the divas close their mouths early and no pigs fall down and the sheep are gone, as are the spinning hair lady things. The clown replaces them, as do stupid balls with his face on them. This marvellous animation was slaughtered! Other Notes: Suprisingly, Thomas Howard does the non-"Wow!" lyrics! GG: Looks hard, doesn't it? Well in truth, if you're not good at kicks, it is, but it's also possible to learn if you're _not_ good at kicks. The pattern used from the start, alternating between snares and kicks - it is used throughout the song, except sometimes it is varied so it uses the hi-hat or the toms a little. Memorize this one kick pattern and do it every time from memory, and you have this song in the bag. It's that simple. You also have to worry a little about the snare/hi-hat and kick patterns in the first third of the song, because the song is fast and the kicks are pretty random here. As the snare/hi-hat bits don't change, focus on the kicks. The speed might upset you at first, but after a few tries this song will be a piece of cake (and a very tasty cake at that! maybe one of those choc mud cakes...) RATING: 68% - EBE: Keep your left hand on the hi-hat for most of this, even if you're comfortable playing cross-over (which I was practicing more at the time someone suggested I play this). The section involving repeated H-SC-H-SC-etc it's easy to just alternate between hi-hat and snare with your left hand, and swing the right hand to the cymbal in time. It's a tricky song, but not as difficult as it's position on the DM2 songlist suggested. RATING: 59% LOOK AT ME Actual Difficulty: ****...... Overall Difficulty: 44% New Difficulty: 43 Animations: Completely nonsensical. Mostly features a girl taking her top off/putting it back on (but there's always another shirt underneath) and shots of some horseheaded guy, and a guy who looks like Bill Clinton oggling at her (which makes sense). Also features crab claws sticking out of doorways which are later revealed to belong to a martian in a spacesuit with crab claws for hands (I call him the Man-Crab!), a wierd snail looking creature with a wierd head (Kupster calls him the Jester Snail!), and a UFO which comes along, hovers above the Jester Snail, a beam comes out the bottom and just when you think he's going to get sucked up, it burns Jester Snail (to death I guess). Easy one of the most zany animations in a Bemani game ever! New Animations: The girl only takes her top off now - but she still has an unlimited supply of them. Other Notes: Composed by Jimmy Weckl & Thomas Howard, vocals by Elizabeth Dobbs. GG: I think the hardest thing about this is the beat...the start of the song uses half beat hi-hat hits a lot, so it feels a lot faster than it is. The other day my friend was playing it and when it got to the slow bit, he said "oh, so that's what speed it is" - so I guess it's not just me. It is easy to lose your timing in this song. The patterns are pretty simple, though. I'd leave this until after the other 4 star songs if you aren't confident - except maybe Onion Man. During the main verse, the pattern is simple, but it's interrupted periodically by hard patterns. These patterns are on par with those used on 6 star or above songs, so I suggest you use this to practice a little. The end bit (3 snares a pop, with a kick in between each set) can be tricky but once again, it's great practice. It'll seem very easy once you're an expert! RATING: 48% - EBE: When I first moved into Real, I was very cautious about new songs. As it turned out, by the time you've mastered the hardest Normal songs, the earlier Real songs aren't that hard. This was the case with Look At Me. I passed it pretty easily the first time I played. I *always* missed the pattern at the end... it's tricky to get used to the pause of the snare for the kick. It's easy to get a little off time with the hi-hat all through the start of the song. Another song where keeping the left hand on the hi-hat is a good idea, due to the HKCs towards the end of the first bit. Half-way through the song becomes more relaxed, so if you make it there, passing should be certain (just don't panic at the very end). RATING: 39% LOUD! Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: 57% New Difficulty: 45 Animations: Wierd people chopping planks of wood with hands/holding window cleaners/etc yelling "HI!" "HEY!" a lot. Wierd people coming out of a womans head. Wierd guy who is lifting barbells. Little girl kissing mother a lot. Most 'wierd' people in this have bad moustaches (except the woman, girl and the old guy karate chopping the plank of wood). Sometimes almonds (or Peanut M&M's!) fill the screen and 'DO YOUR BEST!' is written over the top of them. Other Notes: The lyrics, other than "LOUD!" include "Can you feel the groove?", "I feel so good!", "Open up your heart!" "Dance to the rhythm" "I'll show you how it's done", "Make some noise for me!" and "Lets get moving!". GG: For the kicks at the start, I recommend you use the 4 hi-hat beats at the start to sync yourself to the beat. If you start getting great/good/ etc, then you are probably going too fast. Slow down a little. Once the music starts if you are ready for the song you should be okay. At the section which has kicks and ride cymbal hits, remember to slow down a bit and try not to kick when not needed, it's good practice. Towards the end you find bits which require you to go from the left side to the two toms REALLY fast. There is one way you can do this if you're really REALLY stuck: From the second kick in these bits, simply cross your arms and hit the hi-hat with your right stick then as you uncross them hit the toms with the left and right sticks respectively. This requires practice but can be done! It's usually easier just bouncing the right stick over, though...but we all have to start somewhere. RATING: 55% - EBE: Another song I didn't like much the first time I played, mostly due to the difficulty. Coming back to it, it's a lot more fun to play now. RATING: 60% MAGICAL JET TOUR Actual Difficulty: 61 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Similar to Jet World, except featuring zooming in on the Divas' mouth in a hall-of-mirrors effect, fire breathers (why do fire breathers in games always wear red pants and have curly moustahces? I fully blame Karnov for this!), dancing girls and a magician who pulls rabbits out of his hat, as well as characters from other songs (A green flower headed guy from Ride On The Light(KeyboardMania 2nd MIX), Dancing Gorbachev, the bull from Classic Party 2, the barbell guy from Loud!, the gimp from Classic Party 1, fake Elvis from Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray, some teeth from Stop Spinning Me In Circles, a programmer). Refreshingly different and self-mocking! Also note another programmer swings on the trapeze with the clown at the start before he swings back across with another clown (nobody ever sees this in time) Other Notes: Fully intended to be 'Jet World 2' (I believe Konami even refer to it as this in Musician's Corner on their site). The "HEY!" yells every so often are by the AM Sound team, whilst the rest of the vocals are by Taeko. GG: Not much like Jet World as far as the patterns go. It's fast, so be ready for it. The first pattern is simple enough, as is the second (the one that involves kicks and snares). After this it develops into a more complex pattern, but the kicks are exactly the same. Remember that and it should be easy enough. The next pattern is very similar to the most common pattern found in Loud!/Real - kick, lo-tom, snare. Loud! is an excellent way to learn these, as the speed here can be a disadvantage (Loud! is faster though!). Watch out for the off-beat hi-hat/cymbal/bass combinations before the next pattern, which involves HEAPS of hi-hats and snares, as well as a lot of toms - all very fast. Don't use drum rolls on these - the catch is, if you do these TOO fast, you get lots of Poor's...and the section is long enough so that'll fail you entirely. Just tap them. It takes practice, but this pattern is used in a few other songs - only worse! After that, the Loud!esque patterns return, except they are more densely packed - beware. After that, there's a few bits involving both toms at once being thrown in randomly. These aren't on beat, and I can't really give any advice on them (yet - wait for the PS2 version of this to come out!). After this, you should be alright until the end of the song. RATING: 60% MAGICAL JET TOUR (LONG ver.) Actual Difficulty: 57 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Same as the normal version. Other Notes: Fully intended to be 'Jet World 2' (I believe Konami even refer to it as this in Musician's Corner on their site). The "HEY!" yells every so often are by the AM Sound team, whilst the rest of the vocals are by Taeko. GG: More or less the same as the normal one. Some patterns repeat, however the nasty fasty hi-hat crazy one doesn't (it's still in it, of course). There are minor variations which make it simpler if anything, and in the overall sense, the length of simple sections in this means you are less likely to fail (slightly). No suprises here! RATING: 58% MARIONETE Actual Difficulty: 46 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Other Notes: Licensed song (Japanese). GG: More advanced kick pattern song. Very basic, drum wise, semi-complex, kick-wise. Everything is on beat or on half-beat, and it's not too fast, but even so, be cautious. At least try to pass Venus first. Slightly underrated. Very little else to this song...it's a learning song at best. So give it a try! It's also good if you want a massive combo or score for some reason...like if you want to try to get the extra stage. RATING: 53% MONKEY MAGIC Actual Difficulty: 43 Overall Difficulty: 45% Animations: Actually does portray Monkey Magic very well! Monkey even rides on clouds and stuff! Other Notes: The theme from Monkey, the 80s TV show (obviously) GG: Quite simple. If you can do basic kick patterns, you should survive easily - if you can't, it might be a good place to learn. The first pattern is very basic. The next one is identical to Ska Ska No 1/Real's. They basically repeat these two patterns a lot. A third similar to the first one is used as well, but with extra kicks. It's fairly harder, but excellent practice and honestly, it's not too complex. The speed of the song helps enormously. When a row of only kicks sets in, beware because the snare/hi tom combination pattern sets in quick. This is quite hard unless you're an expert because it's hard to concentrate on the two at the same time - you end up delaying somewhere. My advice is to keep the drumsticks absolutely rigid - without the swing motion of the sick, there's less room to screw up. That's essentially all there is to this song. Do it around the time you do Spring/Real. RATING: 45% - EBE: The early pattern is almost constant hi-hats on each beat with snares and kicks on some beats. The pattern involving constant toms after the single kicks. If people have practiced cross-over for hi-hat/snare up until this point, this is no different. You right hand just keeps moving on beat. RATING: 45% MR.MACHINE Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: 62 Animations: IN GF: Shots of Guitarist with very tall hairdo. IN DM: Shots of some kind of head thing with headphones and dancing people scrolling up and down. IN BOTH: Shots of guy on some kind of bike going through a green tunnel. The words 'MR. MACHINE' zooming up and in to the screen. New Animations: 'MR. MACHINE' zooms in, but not up. Other Notes: In the GF animations, very small words sometimes scroll up the screen. Although these are at too low a resolution to be read properly, they are a list of the things the Guitar Freaks announcer used to say in the older versions of the game (not 5th MIX though). Clearly visible is "Are you ready?" and just below that is "You set a new record!" and "That was the best play so far!". These are also shown a bit in DM 4th MIX. GG: Similar to Double Orbit/Real, and in fact it's the easiest 6 star song of them all by far. If you can pass it on Normal, and you can do most 5 star songs, you should manage this fairly well. Double Orbit is very similar...just this hits outwards more, and has no really fast drum rolls (mind you the song itself is also much slower, so that's a bonus). Not really harder or easier to Double Orbit/Real, just different. Treat it accordingly. RATING: 55% NEWSPAPER Difficulty: *********. Overall Difficulty: ?? Animations: ? Other Notes: The pattern is identical to the pattern for Say What You Mean in 1175/Expert Real in most parts of the song! This appears to be nothing more than a Drummania version of it... See NEWSPAPER (Vocal Ver.) NEWSPAPER (Vocal Ver.) Actual Difficulty: 75 Overall Difficulty: ?? Animations: Similar to both Happy Man and Wanna Be Your Boy. Pictures look like they're cut out from a newspaper and often displays wierd animations that don't make much sense with newspaper cutout letters saying 'CONVERSATION' or 'ETIQUETTE' (and yes they spell it right). Other animations include an ugly green guy flexing muscles, human headed fish, pig/human faced hybrids and the title of the song. Other Notes: NEWSPAPER was removed from DM 4th MIX because the pattern and animations are identical to this version of it. This version sounds identical apart from the addition of words (nothing else changed). Other Notes: See NEWSPAPER above. GG: Quite tricky. Starts with a pattern like Magic Jet Tour's in terms of speed and a bit of the way the pattern itself is. After that, there is a snare/kick pattern very much like Jet World/Real's. Treat it the same and it'll be easy. Looks hard to watch, though. The main problem with this song, however, is the cymbal/kick/snare patterns - much like The Adventures AND Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real. VERY fast. VERY nasty. The first one isn't so bad. When it repeats, like Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real, it adds more kicks. It is hard to do these, the snare and especially the cymbal! Auto bass is used a lot on this song. If you don't use it, do Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real first if you can - you still might be able to do this first, but I personally don't see why. Happy Man/Real also might be good practice, but maybe not. For the rolls, I suggest holding the sticks a bit closer to the ends of them, or just using shorter sticks. RATING: 84% P.P.R. Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: 56% New Difficulty: 61 Animations: Looks like Butthead in a bunny suit (seriously). New Animations: None. Other Notes: Also a long version in DM 3rd MIX and later. GG: Decent pattern here, but if rolls are your weakness, leave this song until later. It's hard for a 5 star song! It uses simple enough patterns other than the rolls. If you can do rolls on all 3 drums, you won't have too many problems here - the drum patterns might be a little advanced (lots of hi-hats with snares/kicks every beat), but they're the same thing that you're doing soon anyway on songs like Classic Party so I strongly recommend learning them here. No other advice, except learn your rolls! Oh, one little tip to save you embarassment, although it won't be the difference between passing and failing - during the section where the lyrics are "where nobody wants to beat anyone, and nobody's bugging me, P-P-R!", there are some fast and short (ie 3 notes) drum rolls. Start on the right stick with these - it's a similar trick to the very start of Mr.Machine/Real, in fact. One tip for the rolls at the end - all kicks are with the cymbal, so rather than kicking randomly try just forcing your right leg and you right arm down at that time. It is merely a much easier way of thinking about it. RATING 60% - EBE: The rolls are the thing. A good song to learn cross-over on early. If you've played PPR on Normal enough, the roll patterns are still the same, you just have to do them on different drums, and the kicks and cymbals make it that little bit more difficult. The first few times you play, the rolls towards the end probably will cause you trouble, leaving that long speed-up/slow-down kick stretch to sap your energy bar as you panic...but P.P.R. is well worth practicing. RATING: 53% P.P.R. (LONG ver.) Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ?? Animations: Looks like Butthead in a bunny suit (seriously). At the start the guy who looks like Konamiman a bit is in different colored suits to normal. New Animations: None. GG: More or less the same as the normal version, except (a) it's spread out more like most long versions of songs, so in that respect it's harder to fail, (b) the third quarter is a bit like an extended Heaven Is..., due to the strange kick patterns and things (you're not leading though, so just copy the vocals), and towards the end it gets a bit crazy. Fortunately, the final sets of rolls are simpler because only every second one needs a kick. Ends with a double snare hit, I believe... refreshingly different, yet like the regular P.P.R. still - which can't be a bad thing. RATING: 64% PRIMAL SOUL Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 71 Animations: South American/Aztec themed. Sometimes has athletic looking people on a trippy background. Other Notes: GG: Probably the hardest song in Real mode (except for maybe Implantation and Depend On Me, which both have their own 'traits')! The first thing to say is, don't play this on your usual learning speed and don't play it any faster than 2.5x at first. The reason is the bongo style tom patterns. These can be learnt much easier at a slower speed. They don't require much learning unless you're doing them at too fast a speed. Also, with the hi-hats, it's probably easiest not to do rolls - it's easy to mess them up if you do rolls on them and it's hard to mess them up if you don't. With everything else, rolls probably work best, except of course on the bongo style tom patterns. Stick to one stick for each drum on those bits. Overall, this isn't terribly hard once you get those bongo-esque patterns down! And that is not very easy! But personally, I can't do this but CAN do it on Expert Real. Go figure. RATING: 75% PRIMAL SOUL (LONG ver.) Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 69 Animations: Identical to normal version. Other Notes: Long version of Primal Soul (obviously). Has vocals, unlike the normal version. Vocalist appears to be Thomas Howard, too... I may be very wrong, but this song -may- have been in a Castlevania (Akumajou Dracula) game. I'm pretty sure I'm wrong, but I distinctly have a feeling of nostalgia about it and I seem to remember something about a werewolf...which certainly goes with the lyrics! GG: If you pick this, you will forever regret it, because it is both one of the most painful and one of the most addictive songs in Drummania! You'll hate yourself! Anyway, it borrows some of the nasty traits of the regular Expert Real version - heaps of rolls, nasty tom patterns that sound like bongoes. Except guess what? Now there's even MORE rolls, and the tom patterns are WAY longer! Arrgh! Fortunately, there's less kicks during the rolls and the tom patterns are just that now - patterns. They were a bit random before, but now they have pattenrns. Unfortunately when it's lo-hi-hi-lo-hi-hi-lo-hi-lo-hi-lo, that doesn't help. Thankfully, the patterns seem to be in your favour if you mess them up - if for that one you didn't see the doubles at all, you'd end up doing the right thing anyway. This song is what I'd call an 'utter bastard', but this is slightly easier than the vanilla version of Primal Soul. I'd also say, in the case of Drummania at least, that it's more fun. Honestly, if you can pass it in Real, you should try this, because it's not much different - this is sort of between Real and Expert Real. And the song is so much better with words. The lyrics are good, the patterns are fun, what more could you want? Perhaps easier tom patterns...they're way too long. Expect to fail if you try this because it's pretty random...two big tips though: (a) On the continuous tom bongoesque pattern, just alternate left/right and ignore what you see. You will lose a little energy, but probably not as much. (b) On the chorus hi-hat rolls, the rolls seem to go faster but they don't - the music just doesn't match them very well. Don't assume that because this is roughly as hard as the Expert Real version of the original that you can do the Expert Real version of this, because it is very hard, auto bass or not! RATING: 88% ROAD FOR THUNDER Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: 67% New Difficulty: 59 Animations: Guy on a motorcycle. Vaguely like L.A. Rider (Guitar Freaks) Other Notes: GG: Like Depend On Me, this is far too complex for a Real mode song. The patterns ARE simple in their own way, but the kicks are just too hard for Real mode. You should be able to do this shortly after you're ready for Expert Real. Try Body Operation/Expert Real first, or at the very least pass Double Orbit/Real and Mr.Machine/Real. This song is harder if you're not good at kicks, even if you do pretty good on Expert Real- but it's definately too hard for Real! One last piece of advice - at the start, you have to move from the hi-hats to the cymbals very quickly. Don't do what I did and flip your drumstick way up into the air by catching it on the cymbal. It's lucky I caught it or I'd have failed! RATING: 69% - EBE: I first tried this when working my way up through Real, which was a mistake. The kick patterns are a little too complex. A good song to come back to, though. RATING: 65% SAKURA NO TOKI Actual Difficulty: ???....... Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: ?? Animations: Wounded animals drawn in the wrong colors, often with nurse headwear with silhouettes of hearts on them. One purple thingy with tentacles coming down from its face with a Doctor's thingy with a heart on it (Kupster calls him Dr. Crabs!). Purple blob thingies crying with gigantic boils ont heir head with "I LOVE YOU" written on them. Other Notes: GG: In parts, the patterns are the same as Body Operation/Expert Real, so I would treat those the same. Lots of short but very fast snare rolls - be prepared for them, and always start them with the right stick! The kicks are wierd in this song, so unless you don't mind that, beware of it. SECRET OF YOUR HEART Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: 84 Animations: Often displays 'NOW:LOADING,,," in the top corner. Often has pictures of a train going through some residential area, and of a man's head - the man is sleeping (and is usually drawn in red over a yellow background). Starts with some dancers and the words 'PLEASE WAIT'. Ends with sideways faces and the word 'SECRETS'. Other Notes: The title of the song makes it sound relaxing but it's more like Stop Spinning Me In Circles with the way it sounds. Also, the vocals sound like they're done by both Thomas Howard and Taeko (whoever Taeko is). The music itself is by Hideyuki Ono (of Classic Party fame). The vocals may not be by Taeko as all sites that say they are only mention the one name when two vocalists are clearly audible... GG: Overrated. Kicks are simple. The patterns are basic and similar to Hypnotica/Expert Real's. The catch is, the song is FAST. While songs like Newspaper and The Adventures paralyze your right arm, this one does the same with your left. If you can handle the stamina it requires, this song isn't too hard. I'd put it in the same boat as The Adventures. If you can beat Hypnotica, you CAN beat this, but you might not have the energy. Wait a bit. No rush. Difficulty is roughly the same as Stop Spinning Me in Circles/Real but for different reasons. Once you can handle the speed, you might want to use this song regularly to 'calibrate' yourself. It's a good warm-up song. It's also got such a basic pattern that it's fairly simple to learn the song well enough to pass it on 7.0x speed. RATING: 77% SKA SKA NO 1 Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 44 Animations: Muscle men recycling stuff. Goofy Sun/Moon going over city. Sometimes called the Chesty Bonds song. Sun appears to crash into the city at the end. Other Notes: GG: The first pattern is simple. If you can't do that, come back later! When you see two hits really close together, like on the snares at the end of these 'basic' patterns, simply hit the drum with both sticks at once, but make one hit a bit earlier than the other. This trick is a bit hard to learn at first but is essential for the tom patterns in this song. The next hard bit is at the end - same as the start, but with an extra kick. It IS hard, yet simple - practice it a bit. Imagine it's simply kick-hihat-kick-hihat. Then imagine the third kick is also a snare. And that's it! Practice it - it's dead easy then. This pattern is also used again in Midnight Special. RATING: 58% STONE COLD BUSH Actual Difficulty: 52 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Wrestling themed (wrestler getting thrown in the air, a wrestler who looks like he's from the original WWF Wrestlemania NES game bouncing around a ring with 'STONE COLD BUSH' written in it). Other Notes: Original song by Red Hot Chilli Peppers and, as far as I know, has nothing to do with wrestling. I guess Konami's animators just didn't know what Stone Cold meant, but had seen the WWF! GG: Bloody hard! 52 my ass! Nasty kick patterns dominate this song so do yourself a favour and turn auto bass on the first time! Do the kicks if you can anyway, but they're very tricky. Practice is the best way to get this song done. No real tips apart from that. USE AUTO BASS DAMMIT! Or you'll be sorry! (unless you're well and truly good enough for this) No other advice nessecary. RATING: 64% STOP SPINNING ME IN CIRCLES Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 75 Animations: Teeth themed. Teeth driving cars, teeth eating bagels, teeth in spray cans, teeth in slurpees. The text 'WHAT YOU WANT?' is seen from when the lyrics say "You've gotta tell me what you want". At least that answers the golden question, "did the animators listen to the music before they made that random nonsense stuff?" New Animations: 'WHAT YOU WANT?' has been removed entirely. Other Notes: A 'new version' of the song was made which is on the Soundtrack CD (I think). It's an extended version, except it sounds a bit err, retro...also the 'WHAT YOU WANT?' appears to be in 'Impact' font, a standard font in Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP etc. GG: During the first chorus part, there is a really obvious pattern there. 3 beats are on beat, then 5 half-beats, then 2 more beats on beat. Hard to describe, but it sticks to that pattern like glue except for every so often. Once it starts speeding up the patterns get a little complex and a mixture of sightreading and practice is needed - Onion Man/Real is a good practice song. For the next choral bit towards the end of the song, note that the kicks go with the bass very well. Overall, the main thing you need to pass this song is practice - and lots of it! Try to memorise bits! It's a lot easier! If you're used to the bass pedal, and I mean REALLY used to it, you should fly through this without a doubt. Ultimately you'll come back to this in a week or two's time and soar through it. RATING: 77% SUNNY DAY SUNDAY Actual Difficulty: ****...... Overall Difficulty: 33% New Difficulty: 39 Animations: Baseball themed, with the emphasis that one team sucks (fielder dives for the ball and misses it, the score board having lots of 0's on the away team's side and someone accidentally writes up a 1 then crosses it out and puts in 0 again). Other Notes: For some reason, this song is also in Beatmania GB Gattchamix 2! It has to be unlocked using the password GREAT (or use MAXIMUM to unlock everything). It's identical, but hardish! GG: This song is perfect for learning drum rolls! There are heaps of snare rolls, and none of them are very fast. It's also good for learning the 'bouncing' trick you need to use on the toms in Ska Ska No 1 and in swing songs. This is probably easier than Spring is, so I'd probably recommend starting here, especially if you have problems with patterns that have kicks in them! RATING: 33% - Definitely one of the first songs to play on Real/Advanced level. Again, people get panicky about the rolls and speed them up. Relax and groove along...keep the first rolls in time with the words, and remember the rhythm for later in the song. Good use of kicks as well. RATING: 33% THE ADVENTURES Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: 73% New Difficulty: 59 Animations: 60's-ish. Sometimes displays the words 'Jack Up'. Other Notes: GG: Cymbal hell! No other way to describe it! This will mess up your right arm/hand, guaranteed. Do Stop Spinning Me.../Real first, hell do Giant Slug/Expert Real too. In fact, skip this if you can. It is the hardest song of its type...well, hardest on your arm! The pattern with the snares and kicks is simple, but it can be very hard to those who are not good at kicks or these kinds ot patterns. And I'm sure nobody will think that The Adventures/Real is easy to do...VERY painful. You can't do rolls, either! RATING: 75% - EBE: I like this song too much to never play it... but it *is* murder on your right arm. Build up your stamina any way you can. It should technically be no different to playing cross-over onto the hi-hat, but holding your arm in position for the entire song is what causes the pain. RATING: 72% THE LEAST 100 SEC Actual Difficulty: 9? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Sketches of Churches and things, usually paired with wireframe/vector shapes (mostly pyramids). Wins the prize for lamest animations in the game (and only barely beats Eyes Of Kids)! Other Notes: Encore Stage in Drummania 4th MIX. GG: This differs from the Basic version in being central to the toms instead of the hi-hat. There are still lots of hi-hat rolls, which I suggest only using one stick for. RATING: 96% USED CARS Actual Difficulty: *****..... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 58 Animations: Used cars (obviously). The lines "YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR.", "YOU TAKE A DRIVE TO DREAM WORLD." and "NO. 1 PRETTY CAR!" are shown in parts. "USED CARS" shown at the end. New Animations: 'No 1 Pretty Car!' now clearly visible instead of being flashed up REALLY quickly. Other Notes: GG: Remember, this is a swing song - most of the beats, unless you can see otherwise, are in pairs (dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun...). Kicks are pretty much spaced out, so they're little problem until towards the end where they become more consistant. The main problem here is if you're not good at the swing type beat, you lose your timing and it is hard to regain your energy - especially if kicks are involved! If in doubt, run through it with auto bass on, or do it as the last song. Most people find it easy, but I myself found it incredibly hard for ages due to the kicks. If kicks are your weakness, expect the same. I'm rating the song based on the emphasis on kicks here... RATING: 60% - EBE: I was told to avoid this one, because of the difficulty a lot of people have with the constant swing-style snare pairs throughout. I don't know why tho... for me this song was pretty simple. The only times I've failed it is because getting slightly off-time with the pairs can be enough to lose track of the whole beat... it can be very hard to recover. Also, remember to sing 'Used Caaars!" at the end... this won't help you play, it's just fun :) RATING: 53% VENUS Actual Difficulty: 25 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Rather poorly trying to theme to the song. Other Notes: Originally a song by Bananarama from sometime in the 80s. GG: Rather easy. Excellent for learning the kick patterns contained within. Use it as a learning tool. Do it before you try anything else on Advanced mode if you can. Very little else to say... RATING: 25% VIRTUAL INSANITY Actual Difficulty: ****...... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: N/A Animations: Pretty stupid really. GG: For most of the song you only need to use the hi-hat and the pedal, occasionally you may need the snare, and once or twice you may need the other drums. So keep that in mind. VERY simple to learn. Just don't get too panicky about the way how sometimes one beat might be a millimetre earlier than the one paired with it. If it's too hard, ignore the difference. If you have problems, position yourself facing to the left a bit. RATING: 30% WANNA BE YOUR BOY Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: 68% New Difficulty: 69 Animations: Commonly referred to as 'The Gorbachev Song' because the animations feature a guy that looks a bit like him in 'em. No birthmark though... New Animations: Gorby floats around a lot instead of doing the zoom in zoom out trick with the picture he's carrying of himself that it used to do. Other Notes: Written/Arranged by Mutsuhiko Izumi. GG: The difficulty on this varies according to your own skill. If you're an expert of sorts at Beatmania (inc. IIdx), Dance Dance Revolution or any similar games, you should choose this after you can pass 50% or so of the 5 star songs. If you're good at Guitar Freaks or ParaParaParadise I'd wait a bit. If you're not good at any of these, wait until you're up to 8 star songs! Anyway, the patterns involved in this song are not too complex. The hardest part I find is at the end where sometimes you have to kick twice - if you are using the arcade machine, try literally kicking the pedal - swing your foot to the lowest part of the pedal. It should bounce the pedal and your foot and it'll in effect do two kicks a split second apart. Otherwise, try to use the whole of your foot, not the heel as a lot of people do. The rest of the song just requires a bit of 'sightreading'. There's also two parts which look very hard - you'll know when you see them. They simply go kick, lo-tom, hi-tom. Just don't ignore them and you'll not need to worry about them too much...just watch you don't lose your rhythm in this song! RATING: 75% - EBE: Good cross-over song. Makes switching from the hi-hat to the cymbal much less complicated. I've found starting with the left hand on both the S-S-S and S-T-S bits makes it much easier. I would occasionally miss one of the first snare hits if I started with my right (which is natural for most rolls). RATING: 62% 5.3 Expert Real/Extreme ----------------------- 1175 Actual Difficulty: ********?. Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: ?? Animations: P.P.R. is the same, Cosmic Cowgirl has the Cosmic Cowgirl backgrounds with the girl is replaced with the Butthead clone from P.P.R. (he dances in the capsule and is in the tv), and Say What You Mean uses P.P.R.'s animations a bit again, as well as some of the ones from the original version (see our Guitar Freaks FAQ) Other Notes: Medley of P.P.R., Cosmic Cowgirl and Say What You Mean (a Guitar Freaks song). Only available as a session song in DM 2nd MIX but also available by itself in sequels. Called '1175' because it has 1175 notes in Guitar Freaks. GG: P.P.R. and Cosmic Cowgirl once again are the same. Be wary that you can beat Cosmic Cowgirl, as it can be quite tough. Say What You Mean is more or less the same except now you're only doing the hard patterns you got at the end of the song before. Guess what? That makes this song almost identical to Newspaper! No kidding! The hihat/snare/kick pattern is identical to the Expert Real version, as is the snare/kick/cymbal pattern. Do either 1175/Real or Newspaper/Real or Expert Real as practice and make sure you do adequately enough before you take this song on. RATING: 95% ACROSS THE NIGHTMARE Actual Difficulty: *********. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 84 Animations: Various shots of a Samurai wielding a katana, unsheathing it, meditating with cherry blossoms falling around, etc. Other Notes: Ride Cymbal makes a guitar sound if hit at the start! GG: Looks pretty hard, but the fact is only the kicks are hard. The start is simple - just basically kick for every drum beat you do. When you got the hi-hat/snare patterns, if you aren't sure, just kick twice or so for every kick you see. This way, you still improve your technique and can pass the song. When it slows down to every two beats for a kick, Note it is on 'even' beats, not 'odd' ones - ie the start (0), 2 beats later, 4 beats later, etc. The kicks go with the hi-hats, not the hi-hat AND snare. After that, there's only one hard part...the 'weaving' pattern near the end. Looks hard, but it's dead easy. Once again, the kicks ONLY go with hi-hats. If you have to hit snares, or both, there is no kick. They are also all on a beat. The first is two hi-hat's/kicks then two snares (think of it as a 'pause'), then a 5 beat 'weave' (hihat/kick- snare- hihat/kick- snare- hihat/kick) then another 'pause', then 3 hi-hat/kicks, then another 'pause', then a smaller weave (hihat/kick-snare-hihat/kick), then after a slight delay, another 'pause', before it repeats 2 times. On the final time, it is slightly different. This IS hard, but it's nowhere near as hard as it looks. On first glance you probably thought this was impossible, and I'm here to tell you it's not and I managed to get good enough to do it! RATING: 80% ANARCHY IN THE UK Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: 79% New Difficulty: 80 Animations: Horribly deformed animals, mostly rats on skateboards or in cars with a 'R' plate on them. Pictures of skateboards (or surfboards maybe?) scroll by, themed on Drummania 2nd MIX songs (Implantation, Stop Spinning Me In Circles x 2 (slurpee container thing and teeth), Loud x 2 (punching lady and pink underwear baldy guy), etc. Other Notes: GG: The main thing about this is the kicks are damn wierd. They're all in sets of 3's, which sounds simple but in reality is hard to do. If you are VERY good at kicks, they aren't hard, and the rest of the song has a pattern similar to normal mode (but with more rolls - but they're relatively easy rolls) as well as the generic Expert Real Hi-Hat/Snare/ Kick pattern. So basically, the drums are easy and the kicks are not. The kick pattern is non-standard, so beware. PPR might be a decent practice song. RATING: 80% - EBE: I still haven't passed this, mostly because I haven't gone back to it yet. The kick patterns, from what I remember, are all on the beat, so it shouldn't be too hard... what caused me problems was K KC K S K KC K S. I can do it off the machine with no problems (like on the desk and floor) but my foot and hands get mixed up whenever I try in the game. Still one of the easier Expert Real songs, but don't try it until you're truly at that level. RATING: 78% BODY OPERATION Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: N/A Animations: Heart beating in a stone octagon. Words flashing up. Meteors flying out from the screen to the background. Other Notes: GG: Like on Normal, the hardest thing about this is the way how the song feels like it slows down then speeds up. It's definately one of the easiest Expert Real songs - the kicks might be wierd at first, but the pattern is so basic, and the song is so slow. If you're ready for Expert Real, you should pass this and you certainly don't need any advice. It's fun, too! Shame it's not in 4th MIX... RATING: 66% BREAK OUT Actual Difficulty: *****??... Overall Difficulty: ?? New Difficulty: 77 Animations: Waitress with dynamite, skulls, etc. Psychotic looking chef. Stretching guy in what looks like a mouth. The words "r u ready?", "It's a Gourmet Night." and most amusingly of all, a can labelled 'BOM' opening by itself and a purple monster coming out, with in large capital letters from the top left foreground to the top right background saying, "SNIKT". 'SNIKT' has remained an enigma to everyone who has seen it! New Animations: Many of the effects seem to be more windowed or fancy, and "It's a Gourtmet Night." might be missing. Other Notes: At the start, before the first "Break the boundaries, my philosophy" line, there is a distorted sound. It appears to be a speech sample from what I (GG@RTF) assume to be a MSX game, saying what sounds like "You are all on my command"! (See trivia for further info) GG: This is rather unusual for an Expert Real song, being that it's based on the NORMAL pattern, not the REAL pattern. The verse starts out sort of similar to the end of the Real version - concentrate on the hi-hat and snare, as after the first few kicks, there's only two more in the pattern and the snare is much more complex. The next pattern is unchanged. By the time the next new pattern appears, as I said it is based on the Normal version, except now it has kicks. This is similar to Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real - if you can do that, you can do this, if you can't, you might be able to do it after this! All the patterns are pretty straight forward until 'SNIKT' comes up. Once again, the next pattern is based on Normal except with heaps more kicks. As you did with normal, do a roll starting with the right stick. When the chords come, ignore the kicks and just kick on every chord, and focus on the rest of the stuff. You can see it basically moves left to right, alternating between toms for the middle of the sweep each time. If you look at it AND the kicks, it will look like one big mess, so don't! The rest is easy. RATING: 85% CARNIVAL DAY Actual Difficulty: *********. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 8? Animations: Poorly drawn. Sometimes they say the lyrics. Some of them look very 8-bit. Other Notes: At the start of the second verse after the first line, the backup choir type singer things sing 'KO-NA-MI' instead of 'Clap Your Hands'! (some lyrics sites say this is 'From a ring' but it clearly isn't) Vocals by Paula Terry, of DDR/Naoki song fame, and the Fu Fu's (Go Go Again - Guitar Freaks). GG: Almost the same as on Real, but reinforced with a truckload of kicks! With auto-bass on, this is both identical and a waste of time. The kicks, however, are utter bastards once again. Simple enough patterns, just they're in clusters of fast ones. If you're good at kicks, you can pass this, but only if you can pass it on Real, and that's a mission in itself! If you got smaller sticks, use 'em because it makes the song a LOT easier. Bouncing your foot with the kicks is the key. One of the most fun songs, in my opinion. RATING: 89% CASSANDRA Actual Difficulty: 76? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Walking dogs (right to left). Some bimbo with wierd hair in what looks like a 16 color Windows BMP (the animal on her shirt changes, too). Two still pictures of dogs wearing bandanas (the colors change so it appears to be 4) Other Notes: GG: A perennially favourite song for Session (dunno why, it's pretty dull in Guitar Freaks - like Vitalize!). Very similar to Ska Ska No 1 in most bits, except faster. In fact, the only hard part is the first pattern which involves one massive set of tom rolls with kicks. If you can do rolls on these drums, you should survive. Being able to do the kicks helps, too. Sometimes there are 3 kicks in a row instead of just the one (ie, a second kick between two kicks). Beware of this! Keep the kicks constant and this song will be simple. Needless to say, the song revolves around the kicks, so be good at them - I suggest using a fair amount of force with them. RATING: 75% CLASSIC PARTY Actual Difficulty: *******??. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 8? Animations: Woman with a rose in her mouth, dancing batmen thingies and angel baby thingies (who fight too sometimes), a Mozart looking guy who goes red in the face, a wierd looking conductor (who appears a bit in Magical Jet Tour in DM4) Other Notes: Tunes in the medley include the Orpheus in the Underworld Overture, Fuer Elise (Beethoven), GG: No really tricky elements in this. The start is simple enough. The off- beat kicks before the slow bit aren't terribly hard if you have enough experience. The slow bit is odd, but not lethal. The lo tom/snare/kick bit is an easy version of Spring. The second to last pattern is generic Expert Real stuff. In fact, the only REALLY hard bit is at the end - where you have to hit the hi-hat then move to the snare and the cymbal. Sounds easy but the music speeds up and it becomes very hard. It won't kill you though. Good, solid Expert Real stuff here. RATING: 80% CLASSIC PARTY 2 Actual Difficulty: *********? Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 8? Animations: A grinning moon, two classic musicians playing rock/paper/ scissors (and one wins then laughs at the other, and the other pulls a face, then they reverse), wierd M.Bison/Vega looking heads on sticks popping out of holes with symbols in the background shaped like T's with horizontal lines above them (I think this is some sort of train symbol in some countries, which is why it seems odd!), a bullfighter with a bull (who appears in Magical Jet Tour out of the magician's hat in DM4), and Dancing Napeoleon (see Wanna Be Your Boy's Dancing Gorbachev - it's the exact same dance) Other Notes: Extra Stage in Drummania 3rd MIX. The grinning moon appears to be very similar or identical to one in an old Konami game, Quarth (known as many other games, including 'Block Game' on the Konami Collection GB Carts, but Quarth is the original name). Quarth was a puzzle game similar to Tetris where you had a spaceship who had to shoot single blocks up into Tetris like formations and make rectangles out of them to make them disappear before you crashed into them. Tunes in the medley include Rondo Alla Turca (from Piano Sonata No.11, Mozart), Also Spach Zarathustra (Strauss), March of the Toreadors (from Carmen) GG: Beware of the speed changes at the start. The first pattern is similar to CP1 on Expert Real, as is the pattern after that. The slow pattern is the most unique one - it is only in two other songs as of Drummania 4th MIX, that is a similar one in Depend On Me (CD Ver) and the same one in Classic Party 3. Pay attention to what you do - it's rather simple at this point in the game. When the generic Expert Real pattern comes up, beware! The music speeds up during it - this catches out almost EVERYONE and MANY people fail here. The hi-hats go every half-beat and only don't get hit when you have to hit the snare/cymbal - but there is NO break unlike most patterns, so beware of that as well, it is the other mistake people make here! After this, you only have one last problem, which is usually the coup de grace for most people - the offbeat kicks. No tips for this from me, except practice! It's not as hard as it looks or feels or seems or anything. Oh, and in the section where I said the music speeds up, I personally keep the left drumstick as straight as I can so it can move left to right quick enough. Just a tip. RATING: 86% CLASSIC PARTY 3 Actual Difficulty: 8? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Ballerina with a swan on his/her head. The word 'HALELUIJAH' split up into syllables along with faces singing it (their mouths move correctly, too!). Some wierd split-face princess thing. A toy windup soldier. A Spanish looking lady in a long dress with a rose in her mouth. A William Tell scene where a grinning boy gets an apple shot on his head. Other Notes: Extra Stage in Drummania 4th MIX. The haleluijah chorus at the end actually sings other things, including "CLA-SIC-PAR-TY". This is most audible at the very end - the odd double notes before the final note/s synchronise with the word 'party' (both syllables). Tunes include March of the Toreadors (from Carmen), William Tell Overture (Rossini) and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers (Macdonald/Jessel). Parade of the Wooden Soldiers is also in KeyboardMania 3rd MIX as an individual song. GG: The hardest of the three Classic Parties. Uses all of the elements from the first two, but mainly the second, so play that first for your own sake, or at least read my advice! The only new bit is after the slow bit (which is the same as CP2) - very nasty toms here. Most people try to roll on them and mess them up completely, so here is a big tip: DON'T roll. one stick on each drum, unless if one of the sticks...well, sticks to the drum, in which case, use two for that side only. This way, you might even keep your combo through it and you'll only get a few misses! Same as Advanced, really...except harder. Take caution! RATING: 88% D.M. 'POWERFUL' MIX Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 73 Animations: Similar to Depend On Me (flying plane), except no other animations at all apart from a radio at the bottom of the screen showing how long the song has been playing for and the 'track number' (1,2,3). New Animations: Same, suprisingly. Other Notes: Features 3 songs: Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray/Expert Real, Ultimate Power/Expert Real and Depend On Me/Real. GG: The songs are near identical to their normal forms, and the same advice goes for them in this incarnation, except note now that Ultimate Power starts completely differently (similar to the patterns later in the song - still easy enough) and Depend On Me has 4 more beats at the end that go REALLY fast (ie half a beat for all 4, and none are hit at the same time) - they are lo-tom, hi-hat, kick and snare in that order, as well as some variations at the start. Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray is the only hard part. RATING: 85% DADDY BROTHER LOVER LITTLE BOY Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: ?? Animations: Similar to Anarchy In The UK - everything looks sort of deformed. Wierd guys driving little cars, women and stuff. Most of the time flames scroll along the bottom of the screen. Other Notes: GG: As with most licenced songs, this has a very generic pattern to it. It's the same as most Expert Real songs...it might be good for learning the pattern on. The only thing new here is the long snare rolls - they are very slow, so using two sticks might be a problem (you might get out of time). Try using one stick instead if you have problems. Overall though, this song is easy. RATING: 65% DAY DREAM Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 99 Animations: Soccer players on hills that hold ping pong bats for some reason, also with wierd sheep and submerged upside down castles and kicking blue legs and strange large heads coming up and down and I'm pretty sure Thomas Howard's head is in there somewhere too and it's green (dunno why). Seriously. I always suspected Konami used drugs, but thanks to this song, we now know it for a fact! The credits are displayed during the song, and the only other text is before the very last nasty bit which says "ARE YOU READY?". Other Notes: Encore Stage in Drummania 3rd MIX. Speed changes from 80bpm to 300bpm to 170bpm to 90bpm to 170bpm. GG: This is rated 99/10 stars for a reason! It is by far the hardest song in the game. Harder than Waza, Centaur and just barely harder than The Least 100 Sec. Forget auto bass, go grab a friend and give him a spare set of drumsticks and he can do the cymbals for you! You can probably manage the rest on your own, the bass is insane but not impossible and if you just go nuts it should be okay (I guess). Your friend has to do a drum roll on the cymbals, and a fast one too - it should be simple enough. Basically, the second makes the song fairly easy until the end instead of extremely hard - it is almost impossible to hit the cymbal fast enough, and I've never seen anyone do it. It makes Centaur look like cakewalk! The end of the song features a long drumroll going over several drums and ending with (on the hi tom) the fastest drum roll in the entire game. This song is pretty much impossible. One last tip: play it at least on 3x speed, if not 4x speed. To make the song pretty much impossible with two people, do it on 1x speed! RATING: 98% DEPEND ON ME See Real/Advanced. DEPEND ON ME (CD ver.) Actual Difficulty: 68 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Features a bi-plane flying past lots of stuff way up in the sky (including very old cars, for some reason...I didn't know cars could fly! Except DeLoreans maybe! Or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!). Ends with it turning into a paper airplane and a hand catches it (which is rather stupid). Also note that DEPEND ON ME has identical animations, only the sky is blue instead of orange. DEPEND ON ME (LONG ver.) has the same animations yet again! Other Notes: Slightly different to DEPEND ON ME (starts different, most obviously). In DEPEND ON ME, there were hi-hat sounds that you never played that are played in this. DEPEND ON ME (LONG ver.) is the long version of this, not the original. This version is one of the longest normal songs in the game at over 2 minutes! GG: Easier than the original for the majority of the song, but it gets a bit random at the end. It's probably the easiest song with these types of hi-hat patterns that are used throughout the verses, but if you REALLY suck at them, try Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray on Extreme. Use the same technique here - one stick on the hi-hat, the other on the snare, no bounce rolls. Like Heaven Is..., don't lift up your hi-hat stick too high. Also, with the double kicks, don't lift your feet up too high. 'Bouncing' your foot also works a bit here, but doing gentle kicks is the best technique. The main chorus is easy enough, but after the "one, two, three, go!" bit it gets very random - but only on the cymbal. As such, focus on the cymbal and it's pretty simple. The snares/kicks are all on beat and in a fixed pattern - the same one you've been doing for most of the song. They're so incomplex that it should be easiest this way. The song ends the same as the Real version of the old Depend On Me, but there's three more beats after where the old one ends - be careful! This is still pretty easy, though. RATING: 75% DEPEND ON ME (LONG ver.) Actual Difficulty: 63 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: A plane flying past photographs of people. Also includes the credits for the 'ASMD Band' after the final chorus during the final guitar section. Other Notes: Slightly different to DEPEND ON ME (starts different, most obviously). In DEPEND ON ME, there were hi-hat sounds that you never played that are played in this. This is a long version of 'DEPEND ON ME (Original Edition)' from the Drummania (1st MIX) soundtrack CD. This version is near identical - except for the inclusion of a keyboard in this version (for Keyboardmania 3rd MIX - and it admittedly DOES enhance it a lot) and the lack of a trumpet solo. GG: Do DEPEND ON ME (CD ver.) first. If you can almost pass it but barely fail, you can safely do this because it's the same, but with a few less tricky bits, plus they're more spread out anyway. The same advice goes for it, so read above. Also, on the final chorus, there is a pattern involving hi-hats, kicks and lo-toms. Recognise it? It's very similar to the verse pattern from the original DEPEND ON ME. Slightly tricker, plus it deviates with a few other drums from time to time, but it's still easier than the oriignal DEPEND ON ME overall. As I said, practically identical to DEPEND ON ME (CD ver.). RATING: 72% DON'T HIDE YOUR MIND Actual Difficulty: 7? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: A skull getting X-Rayed (shaded red for some reason). Mechanical arms pulling up knob thingies. The whole thing is very mechanical looking. Other Notes: By the same guy who did Body Operation (hence the similarity) GG: Audibly, this song is most similar to Body Operation but otherwise it's nothing like it. The beginning and end are very simple - but the middle is nasty and uses kicks very effectively. It has very long patterns that don't change apart from the kicks. All I can suggest is doing Anarchy In The UK/Extreme or I'm Gonna Get You!/Extreme first. The rest of the song is so simple it's not funny, though. RATING: 76% DOUBLE ORBIT Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 76 Animations: Space themed. Other Notes: In Drummania 4th MIX, the Basic version of this is identical. It is presumed the reason why there is no Guitar version of this is because it is strikingly similar to L.A. Rider, guitar wise (as Say What You Mean is to Newspaper drum-wise). The astronauts in the background talk backwards (they seem to be talking about velocity and mostly say numbers). Double Orbit is also a cover of 'Prologue' from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (or at least is near identical). GG: Uses the basic DM1 Type-B kick pattern. In fact, this song is very similar to both Mr.Machine/Expert Real and Road For Thunder/Expert Real. If you can do one of them, you can do this. The regular drums move from left to right very fast in this - and in pairs, so it's rather hard to read. I wouldn't think you could do it if you can't do the above two songs (one of them anyway). Possibly. Very little else is worth mentioning... RATING: 78% FIRE (LONG ver.) Actual Difficulty: 86 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Same as FIRE (Rock concert themed), but with flaming tigers running and closeups of normal tigers. Other Notes: Normal version of FIRE is a Guitar Freaks only song. GG: Rather easy, just painful. The bass pedal throughout this song consists of kicks on almost every beat. So long as you keep your timing right you will have no problems with the kicks and you can concentrate on the patterns. The patterns are very right handed and I, being left handed, found it trickiest when the half-beat cymbal taps came in - although it was still easy (but exhausting). You should have no problems with this and you shouldn't have to wait to try it. Very painful! There ARE complex bits in this, but not terribly complex, plus they repeat a lot and are short. I recommend this for practice! That, and pain! If you are some kind of pain loving freak, welcome to heaven! RATING: 64% FIRE IN THE DARK Actual Difficulty: 91 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Best described as gothic tarot cards (Fool, Death, Empress etc). Goth as in wearing lots of black leather, skinny and with very pale white faces. GG: The drums in this are evil. This song has a 3 beats to a bar, and that is how the drum goes primarily. It's essentially the same as Right On Time, except you roll slower and you move out WAY more. At the start, do it exactly the same way as Right On Time, and after the first random set of other drums, unless you're very proficient at the technique, I suggest you just use your left hand for the hi-hat rolls by bouncing the drumstick repeatedly. This song requires a LOT of technique, but if you survive to the chorus, you should survive to the end. It is one of the few songs I suggest you use auto-bass on because it is hard enough with it! RATING: 94% GIANT SLUG Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: 65% New Difficulty: 65 Animations: Fat bright pink guy in referree shirt with glasses features a lot, often getting hit with pies being hurled by fat people, morphed into a blob, etc. - also features a guy with a hinged mouth eating sausages a lot, as well as nonsensical garbled stuff which might be newspaper clippings. Other Notes: Vocalist is Aaron G (of B4U vocalist fame) GG: Very similar to Advanced and it might be a very simple next step up for you, and I thought it was myself, but when I got EBE@RTF to try it, he seemed to have difficulty with the main patterns with the cymbals, kicks and snares. Perhaps it's because I did Stop Spinning Me... more on Real, but the point is the kicks appear to be difficult here. He passed, and quite safely, but not really satisfyingly at all. He can do it fine now, so it doesn't take long to get used to the pattern. If you can do Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Real, you should be able to do this. The other song I would recommend even more is Hypnotica on Expert Real or Advanced in 4th MIX, as it teaches one of the most useful patterns of all and it is needed for this song. Hypnotica is essential, I would say. Stop Spinning Me...is recommended but not needed. RATING: 65% - EBE: This is a good step up into Expert level (ie playing with a lot happening at once - Constant hi-hat and kick with snares and toms in there). Some of the early parts can be confusing, but shouldn't be too much trouble with a little practice. The kick pattern repeat enough and are easy enough that you may miss one kick the first time, but you'll nail the pattern on the second try. RATING: 65% HAPPY MAN Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 89 Animations: Varies. All versions feature ransom note style paper clippings making up the main screen, plus a strange face pulling scene, as well as 3 punks who come on screen and yell whenever a yell is featured in the music. There is also a ransom style dog and a man who has black censor boxes over his eyes for some reason (?). A head thing in a garbage can replaces the well animated punk from Guitar Freaks (all images of guitars were removed) New Animations: The animated guitarist/man in rubbish can is replaced with a large animated version of his head. This is present in both GF and DM now. Other Notes: GG: It starts off simplere than on Real, and the next pattern is the generic Expert Real one (hi-hat, snare, kick variations) and it's rather simple. It shimmys to the right a bit like the Classic Parties but that's not hard to do. There's also a low tom/kick/snare pattern like Wanna Be Your Boy/Real, which you also should have done now. This whole song is like the two songs I previously mentioned, and the only really bad bit is the section with the out-of-beat kicks. This is a trick you'll have to learn, but I fail to see why this is rated harder than Midnight Special, which I could swear speeds up in the hard bits...I honestly had more trouble with the Real version, and I don't think the two are much different. RATING: 86% HEAVEN IS A '57 METALLIC GRAY Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 74 Animations: Elvis clone. Closeups of Car Engine. Neon signs. That's it. Other Notes: GG: Hard at first, but quite simple apart from the rapid kicks that come in once in a while. With the hi-hat/snare/kick swing beat near the start, I recommend using one stick on the hi-hat and the other on snare, and do not do a 'bounce roll' on the hi-hat. It isn't nessecary and it's confusing. The song is sufficiently slow to make sure you won't screw up here, and with sufficient practice you should be able to keep a big combo through here. After this, you have a Used Cars style bit - snare pairs, I guess you'd call them. DO use the bounce roll here, but beware of the kicks - they're every second beat, which can be kind of confusing at times. If you find it confusing, do kicks every beat instead. When you get to the drum solo bits, pay careful attention to the kicks. After that, you only have the same old patterns as before - once again, I recommend not raising your right stick as high as the left one so you can hit the cymbal hits a little earlier than the kicks and snares, and with the cymbal hits at the end (isn't it nuts how cymbals suddenly become hi-hats and hi-hats suddenly become cymbals in this game?), make sure you get the kicks once again. RATING: 76% HYPNOTICA Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 57 Animations: Robotic looking face, the word 'HYPNOTICA' displayed on TV screens, CD's that change color. Target locks onto the eye of the robot's face at one point. Other Notes: In Drummania 4th MIX, this was downgraded to Advanced mode. Hypnotica is heavily remixed in DDR 4th MIX, retitled 'Hypnotic Crisis'. GG: Not too easy, not too hard. Like Spring, Sunny Day Sunday, etc. it involves kick/snare/hi-hat patterns, and this is a little more complex yet somehow easier and more fun. This introduces you to a manouver I call 'weaving' - where the hi-hat and snare alternate for 3 half beats or more, and where there is a kick on at least one of the hi-hat beats. Here it is straightford enough - it ends on these patterns, although it is fast. It is therefore a good way to learn. This pattern becomes gradually more complex in the game (not the song!) until it becomes Across The Nightmare/Expert Real! Anyway, that's all there is to this song really. Nothing else is new. I usually recommend this to people who I think are ready for Expert Real. RATING: 65% I'LL REMEMBER YOU Actual Difficulty: ****...... Overall Difficulty: 65% New Difficulty: 42 Animations: Mostly black with white outlines of some woman and 2 oldish guys in suits. Easily recognisable by the 'Engrish' text, "WHAT'S HAPPEN?" amongst other classic nonsensical out-of-context phrases like 'TRY TO GET ALONG', 'STOUT', 'BOTTOMS UP!!', 'DESIRE', 'CHERRY BLOSSOM VIEWING PICNIC', 'I'M HOME.', and a few others. Other Notes: GG: Pretty tricky. It can seem random in bits, so I suggest you listen to the song first. Definately underrated! Fun to play, though. Still, it is pretty easy apart from the randomness. Listen to the song, play it on Normal, anything to avoid getting yourself laughed at by failing a 4 star song which is pretty hard...it requires little technique so if you know the song, it IS easy as they say it is. RATING: 67% - EBE: A song I played a *lot* in normal mode, because this music is so much fun. If you know Normal mode well, by the time you've gone through most Real songs, this will be a push-over. RATING: 63% JET WORLD Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 87 Animations: Circus themed. Something is always lip-synced to the words (the clown, the rolling balls, the divas) and the words appear down the bottom (except for the grunting sounds). Easily the most skillfully animated scenes in the whole game! New Animations: Clown appears to be more pogo-stick shaped and wearing a peach colored costume, balls are not lip-synced and zoom in/out (with the elephants), the divas close their mouths early and no pigs fall down and the sheep are gone, as are the spinning hair lady things. The clown replaces them, as do stupid balls with his face on them. This marvellous animation was slaughtered! Other Notes: Suprisingly, Thomas Howard does the non-"Wow!" lyrics! GG: A simple test to see if you're ready for this or not: Do the Real version, and if it's too easy, do this. It has more kicks, and odd kicks, but the patterns are the same/less varied and if you do really well on the Real version, you'll almost certainly do almost as well on this version. Looks harder than it is - but it's still hard. RATING: 87% LOOK AT ME See Real/Advanced. LOUD! Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 79 Animations: Wierd people chopping planks of wood with hands/holding window cleaners/etc yelling "HI!" "HEY!" a lot. Wierd people coming out of a womans head. Wierd guy who is lifting barbells. Little girl kissing mother a lot. Most 'wierd' people in this have bad moustaches (except the woman, girl and the old guy karate chopping the plank of wood). Other Notes: The lyrics, other than "LOUD!" include "Can you feel the groove?", "I feel so good!", "Open up your heart!" "Dance to the rhythm" and "I'll show you how it's done". GG: Looks a lot harder than it is. Auto bass won't help here if you are playing on DM 4th MIX or later. Being able to do decent bass helps, but the main thing is being VERY good at basic hi-hat/snare/kick pattern stuff, because you need to keep your energy up because the tom patterns are almost downright impossible. They go hi-lo-lo REALLY fast and almost always out of another pattern, so I recommend using just the one stick and just bouncing it if you can. If you can't, do your best to maintain your strength. Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real helps here, but not too much. It looks hard, but it's not too easy to fail if you know what you're doing more or less. Of course, if you can't do left-to-right stuff fast on the day you're playing, avoid this like the plague because it's damn hard in that case! RATING: 84% MAGICAL JET TOUR Actual Difficulty: 8? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Similar to Jet World, except featuring zooming in on the Divas' mouth in a hall-of-mirrors effect, fire breathers (why do fire breathers in games always wear red pants and have curly moustahces? I fully blame Karnov for this!), dancing girls and a magician who pulls rabbits out of his hat, as well as characters from other songs (A green flower headed guy from Ride On The Light(KeyboardMania 2nd MIX), Dancing Gorbachev, the bull from Classic Party 2, the barbell guy from Loud!, the gimp from Classic Party 1, fake Elvis from Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray, some teeth from Stop Spinning Me In Circles, a programmer). Refreshingly different and self-mocking! Also note another programmer swings on the trapeze with the clown at the start before he swings back across with another clown (nobody ever sees this in time) Other Notes: Fully intended to be 'Jet World 2' (I believe Konami even refer to it as this in Musician's Corner on their site). The "HEY!" yells every so often are by the AM Sound team, whilst the rest of the vocals are by Taeko. GG: Nasty. Like Jet World/Extreme, don't attempt it until you have kicks pretty much mastered - and then don't do it until you've done something like The Least 100 Sec/Basic or Carnival Day/Advanced, because you need to be good at the hi-hat rolls once again. The pattern is pretty basic for most of the time, there's only two odd bits: one is what I just mentioned - the nasty hi-hat bit from the Advanced version of this is reinforced with kicks every (true) beat now (by true, I mean the song isn't really 260bpm or whatever Konami says). Sounds simple, but it's hard to concentrate on two things at once. Something will give and someone will fail if it does. The other problem is the previously Loud!esque low tom/kick/snare patterns. Look at each one first. Some have simultaneous low toms/kicks, some have the low tom then the kick then the snare. Some later on even have the hi-tom as well. Do it on real, do one of the other two songs I mentioned to do and you have a chance. Make sure you can do kicks as well. Jet World/Extreme is vaguely similar. Vaguely. RATING: 89% MAGICAL JET TOUR (LONG ver.) Actual Difficulty: ?? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Same as the normal version. Other Notes: Fully intended to be 'Jet World 2' (I believe Konami even refer to it as this in Musician's Corner on their site). The "HEY!" yells every so often are by the AM Sound team, whilst the rest of the vocals are by Taeko. GG: Has the same patterns, although it uses different drums in some points with otherwise identical patterns. Do the regular version of this on Extreme first, because there is absolutely nothing new here. This is one of the few long versions of songs which is sort of harder than the regular version, because it doesn't relent - and you can't choose it as the last song to be safe, so keep that in mind! RATING: 90% MARIONETE Actual Difficulty: 84 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Other Notes: Licensed song (Japanese). GG: Very easy. It's still hard because of the kick patterns, but for an Extreme song, it's easy. Once you've learnt the basic hi-hat/snare/kick patterns, do this for practice - all it's really good for is practice or trying to get a high score (it's so easy to max combo this song!). No suprises here at all! RATING: 56% MIDNIGHT SPECIAL Actual Difficulty: ********?. Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: A cat with his butt on fire who sometimes meets aliens and things. Some of the aliens look like some of the creatures in Furi Furi '60... Other Notes: Sung by Thomas Howard. GG: Damn hard! Aaaargh! The start of this is hell enough. No tips here, except look at the notes on a site if you can find one first. Knowing them is helpful - use the right stick for the low toms, of course, and don't forget the kicks. The Ska Ska No 1 style beat (generic Ska beat I guess) is fairly simple, and the generic Expert Real beat is rather simple too. No tips until after the chorus - the kicks are off beat. Since there is a kick before the drums, it helps you align your kicks a bit. Treat it as if it was on the hihat and snares instead. Although there isn't much tips I can give, this song is very nasty due to its speed and complexity. Do Happy Man first - it's very similar, but not as hard (despite being given a higher rating by Konami, for reasons which completely escape me!). RATING: 92% MONKEY MAGIC Actual Difficulty: 55 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Actually does portray Monkey very well! Monkey even rides on clouds and stuff! But the show _was_ Japanese, so it was to be expected that the animations would be accurate. Other Notes: The theme from Monkey, the 80s TV show (obviously) GG: Fairly tricky, I guess - but only compared to Advanced. It's one of the easiest Extreme songs. Kicks are more frequent and there are often off- beat snares leading into them. Also, there are hi-hat/snare/kick patterns constantly, which if you're not good at, you will get your energy sapped. This is especially true because a lot of the kicks are off beat. It helps if you relax on these and just only half-press the kicks and drums on those bits - you'll probably get goods, but nothing less. Try to keep to the beat with the cymbal patterns and concentrate on the kicks and snares to avoid breaking up your combo - once again, relax a little. RATING: 57% MR.MACHINE Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: 78% New Difficulty: 80 Animations: IN GF: Shots of Guitarist with very tall hairdo. IN DM: Shots of some kind of head thing with headphones and dancing people scrolling up and down. IN BOTH: Shots of guy on some kind of bike going through a green tunnel. The words 'MR. MACHINE' zooming up and in to the screen. New Animations: 'MR. MACHINE' zooms in, but not up. Other Notes: In the GF animations, very small words sometimes scroll up the screen. Although these are at too low a resolution to be read properly, they are a list of the things the Guitar Freaks announcer used to say in the older versions of the game (not 5th MIX though). Clearly visible is "Are you ready?" and just below that is "You set a new record!" and "That was the best play so far!". These are also shown a bit in DM 4th MIX. GG: Looks hard as hell, simply because of all the kicks, but the fact is this and Body Operation are the best ways to learn the more complex kick patterns you'll find in songs because there's less other stuff going on - the kicks are very well placed so they're both hard, and easy...do it on Real first, make sure you're ready for Expert Real of course, and when you want to learn how to learn more tricky kick patterns, do this song. If not sooner. Looks hard, sure, but it's pretty hard to fail. RATING: 78% - EBE: I still haven't passed this. The kick patterns, etc aren't all that hard, it's just the speed. It's easy to panic on this song. RATING: 78% NOW I'M SURE Actual Difficulty: ****?..... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 4? Animations: Other Notes: GG: Very simple and repeditive. The main most pattern of this song involves the two toms with simple double hits and then a faster double strike on the low tom, followed by a hi-hat hit. That's it. There's kicks as well but they're simple. Similar to When I Dream Of You/Normal in that it uses tricky patterns, but it's so slow that it's not that hard. You can probably pass this if you're up to the suggested difficulty level for it. RATING: 47% P.P.R. Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 78 Animations: Looks like Butthead in a bunny suit (seriously). New Animations: None, but the animations differ slightly in colors and movement of sprites. Other Notes: Also a long version in DM 3rd MIX and later. GG: Not much different to the Real one. Hi-Hat/Snare/Kick patterns are more frequent but identical, sometimes there's odd double-strikes on snares, and wierd rolls, but overall it's not much harder. If you're up to Expert Real and have passed this on Real, you can do it here. No advice nessecary. RATING: 75% PRIMAL SOUL Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 85 Animations: South American/Aztec themed. Sometimes has athletic looking people on a trippy background. Other Notes: GG: Rolls rolls rolls! This is damn hard, make no mistake. Make sure you can pass it on Real first. This song features near constant rolls, so make sure you're good at them - the hardest part is keeping your speed. The only other hard part is the bongoesque tom patterns again - but they've changed, they now mostly involve the hi-tom and the snare, with a few kicks and lo-toms for good measure. My strategy is to concentrate on the snares and watch for which beats are NOT snares - this means focusing between the two toms, and assuming everything else is a snare. This is very hard, but there is little strategy to it. If you can do this and the rolls, you might just scrape by. RATING: 88% ROAD FOR THUNDER Actual Difficulty: *********. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 85 Animations: Guy on a motorcycle. Vaguely like L.A. Rider (Guitar Freaks) Other Notes: GG: Sort of like a cross between Double Orbit/Expert Real and the Real version of this. This uses the generic DM1stMIX Expert Real B-Type Pattern heavily. It's also mixed in with cymbal hits. Very similar to Double Orbit/Expert Real, really. Looks hard but if you can do the kicks, it's simple. RATING: 77% SEA ANEMONES Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 76 Animations: A dancing monkey and a dancing rabbit in top hats and suits with canes that do everything from the 20's but the charleston. Also displays the title of the song in neon lights at the beginning and end. Other Notes: Anemone is pronounced 'A-ne-mo-nee', not 'A-ne-moan'. GG: If you're up to this difficulty, this song should be possible but it will be a challenge. Essentially the song revolves around the cymbal - snares and kicks come up intermittantly. What you should do is spot the snares and kicks, remember where they are then look at the cymbals - the cymbal starts out simple enough, but soon deviates from the rhythm a bit and becomes a lot harder. If you just hit it regularly, you'll fail for sure. Watch the cymbals! RATING: 79% SPRING Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 65 Animations: Tells a story of a panda watering his/her flower garden, falling on a flower and crushing it, then he/she bawls their eyes out and the tears bloom more flowers. Then it is time to DANCE! Hehe... Other Notes: Did not appear in Guitar Freaks until PS2 version of GF3 and GF5 in arcade, therefore session play is not available in older versions. GG: Similar to Wanna Be Your Boy/Real, really. Starts with the (in)famous pattern - Lo Toms must be constantly beat with the right stick. Apart from that, the strategy to use is that kicks are every 2 beats, the snare beat is between them every 4 beats and hit the Hi Tom roughly when the nearby kick is hit. It should be easy to hit out into the other drums when the pattern breaks up. Also here you might be introduced to what could be two new patterns to you involving double kicks with the hi hat. This is used a lot in Expert Real/Extreme, sometimes with or without snares, sometimes at different speeds. This is one of the easiest places to learn it. Once the chorus of the song starts, remember to loosen up your grip on the drumsticks for the rolls and try not to force the bass pedal all the way down for kicks - only tap it. This pretty much covers the whole song...not easy, but it gets harder I'm afraid! RATING: 67% STAY AWAY Actual Difficulty: 78 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Other Notes: GG: Quite hard. Uses the basic Expert Real type hi-hat/kick/snare patterns, but the song is fast - so kick lightly. Used Cars is good practice for the start bit (any difficulty). Towards the ends it has very nasty patterns with toms and kicks and stuff. If you've done stuff like Wanna Be Your Boy/Real on your way up to here, you shouldn't have too many problems, it's just the speed that's the problem. The final bit is pretty hard, because it's almost like two patterns, one half a beat off. However, Crunchy Nuts is more or less identical - do that first if you can. The same technique applies here - concentrate on the left, hit the cymbal every beat, but half-beat off time. Doing this, you should get through both the last two patterns (the second one is the same, but with double kicks - like I said, Wanna Be Your Boy/Real should have helped you!) and you'll be laughing. If you can't or haven't done Crunchy Nuts, then you are doomed... RATING: 77% STOP SPINNING ME IN CIRCLES Actual Difficulty: *********. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 83 Animations: Teeth themed. Teeth driving cars, teeth eating bagels, teeth in spray cans, teeth in slurpees. The text 'WHAT YOU WANT?' is seen from when the lyrics say "You've gotta tell me what you want". At least that answers the golden question, "did the animators listen to the music before they made that random nonsense stuff?" New Animations: 'WHAT YOU WANT?' has been removed entirely. Other Notes: A 'new version' of the song was made which is on the Soundtrack CD (I think). It's an extended version, except it sounds a bit err, retro...also the 'WHAT YOU WANT?' appears to be in 'Impact' font, a standard font in Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP etc. GG: Two main problems here: The kicks can be wierd is the first one. At the start, if you have problems with the kicks, try using your heel for a while, as it requires less movement to do so. When you get to the first chorus, don't think about the cymbal hits, just do them gently by reflex. With the rest of the kicks, practice Mr.Machine/Expert Real and similar songs and it simplifies this. A lot. The relaxed cymbal hits are almost essential for the second chorus. And that's the second problem, the second chorus, basically. The snares and kicks are identical to the real version, but the cymbal is every beat now instead. It's quite hard. The whole song becomes rather easy once you get good at off-beat kicks. This song is reasonably hard. RATING: 87% STONE COLD BUSH Actual Difficulty: 73 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Wrestling themed (wrestler getting thrown in the air, a wrestler who looks like he's from the original WWF Wrestlemania NES game bouncing around a ring with 'STONE COLD BUSH' written in it). A guy with a bad moustache punches at the screen a lot (you can tell it apart from Loud! because he's much bigger than the sprites in that). Other Notes: Original song by Red Hot Chilli Peppers and, as far as I know, has nothing to do with wrestling. I guess Konami's animators just didn't know what Stone Cold meant, but had seen the WWF! GG: First of all, do the Advanced version first. The kick pattern is pretty odd, and it's pretty good practice. This is more or less the same, but with heaps more hi-hats. Since they join everything up and are still on time, it makes it a little bit easier and a little bit harder. The crazy bit from Advanced becomes a lot like Stop Spinning Me In Circles/Expert Real, but odds are you haven't tried that so I guess it's also similar to it on Real, which you -should- have tried. Concentrate on the snares and kicks and toms, and it's easier. I use my left stick for all of these. Ultimately, it IS hard, but it's also pretty hard on Advanced mode. RATING: 71% SUNNY DAY SUNDAY Actual Difficulty: ******.... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 63 Animations: Baseball themed, with the emphasis that one team sucks (fielder dives for the ball and misses it, the score board having lots of 0's on the away team's side and someone accidentally writes up a 1 then crosses it out and puts in 0 again, and someone crying cos' they lost). Other Notes: For some reason, this song is also in Beatmania GB Gattchamix 2! It has to be unlocked using the password GREAT (or use MAXIMUM to unlock everything). It's identical, but hardish! GG: More or less identical except it has a big pile of kicks, plus it has a few more paired tom beats like the snares in the Real version. If you've done stuff like Heaven is a '57 Metallic Gray/Real, you should not have problems here...quite fun, though! RATING: 57% ULTIMATE POWER Actual Difficulty: ********.. Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 75 Animations: Potted cacti. Bonsai plant. Old guy and lady. Guy in business suit with tulip in pot. Guy on ground with fish and chips (or something). Guy looking over waterfront at sunset. Guy spazzing on the floor. Guy looking up in air like a bird will poop on his face. Guy spazzing up into the air. Shots of poorly drawn Earth. Overall, very epileptic. I am told that the animation actually matches the lyrics, which is suprising considering the randomness of them! Other Notes: GG: Overrated - For the first part, there is pretty much nonstop hi-hat/ snare/kick patterns, all fairly fast. You should be good at these by now so these shouldn't be too hard. You should be fine until you get to the 4 drum rolls. Your main priority is loosening up your grip, which will be very tense at the moment. Don't loosen up completely or you'll lose the drumsticks, though! By main priority, I mean if you can not do this AND the bass pedal, ignore the kicks. After the 4 rolls is a simple pattern (similar to Spring's), and another Lo Tom pattern (also similar to Spring's without the bass pedal and with faster movement from snare to Hi Toms). And that's pretty much everything. Fast. Furious. Sort of fun, I guess. RATING: 70% USED CARS Actual Difficulty: *******... Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 70 Animations: Used cars (obviously). The lines "YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR.", "YOU TAKE A DRIVE TO DREAM WORLD." and "NO. 1 PRETTY CAR!" are shown in parts. "USED CARS" shown at the end. Other Notes: GG: Identical to the Real version of the song, only near constant kicks. This isn't harder because every single one is on beat, but if you lose your timing, you're history! Ok, it's not identical. But like I said - beware of the timing. You'll either get a massive combo or a lousy one here. If you mess up constantly, pause and pick up from scratch (without failing, of course). RATING: 66% VITALIZE Actual Difficulty: ?? Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Cartoonish. Revolves mostly around a blonde/bubble haired guy in a red jacket who reminds most people of Johnny Bravo/The Fonz/ Duke Nukem or someone like that. Sometimes shows cartoon panels, sort of like Cutie Pie. Also note the guy sometimes has an earring in his left ear and at other times he does not, and that it is drawn in newspaper style (dithered dots of color to save ink but to still give the same effect), except Konami used black dots on solid colors instead, thus defeating the purpose. Duuuuuh. :P Other Notes: Originally a Keyboardmania 2nd MIX song. GG: This song's main problem is it's very left handed. The start is the one place that isn't. Basically, when there's a break, the cymbal hits will resume with two fast hits. Once the main tune starts, THAT is when the left handed trickiness sets in. When you have to do a pattern that suddenly strikes from something like a hi-hat/snare/kick pattern or a type of roll to a cymbal, beware! The left drumstick has to move over to something as well! This isn't terribly dangerous, just stressful. The chorus pattern is similar to Depend On Me (CD Ver). With the tom and snare rolls at the end, concentrate on the toms so you don't fail here - which would be a shame. Most rolls should be started with the left hand, so beware. RATING: 66% WANNA BE YOUR BOY Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 81 Animations: Commonly referred to as 'The Gorbachev Song' because the animations feature a guy that looks a bit like him in 'em. No birthmark though... New Animations: Gorby floats around a lot instead of doing the zoom in zoom out trick with the picture he's carrying of himself that it used to do. Other Notes: Written/Arranged by Mutsuhiko Izumi. GG: No doubt you've heard people saying this song is way overrated. Well, I looked at it and thought 'no way!', but the first time I played it, I almost had a full bar at the end and my energy never went near halfway. First, do it on Real. Do similar songs like Happy Man/Real if you can. Road For Thunder is also good. Then do this. The patterns are so backwards compared to the Real version, so no doubt that will throw you off - they move more left to right to left to right than ever before! There's also way more kicks, but they're very easy to get despite them being positioned in the midst of the action. You see, you tend to kick the same time you're hitting the drums, and that is _exactly_ what you should do. The sheer number of hits you _will_ get mean your energy will hardly go down, no matter what setting the machine is set to. If you're ready for Expert Real - maybe even if you're not! - then you should have a chance at this. If you want to be sure, though, wait a bit first. It honestly isn't hard! It's one of those songs that doesn't progress well from Real to Expert Real, like Used Cars...RATING: 79% WAZA Actual Difficulty: ********** Overall Difficulty: ??% New Difficulty: 93 Animations: Chess themed? Other Notes: The hardest rated song in the original Drummania. Waza means 'feat' or 'trick' in Japanese. GG: Also overrated. Not many kicks and most of the beats go well with the music. They all look a bit off beat, but ignore that. If you know where the drums are - and you should by now - this song is rather easy. It doesn't have anything which I would say makes it as hard as Konami makes it out to be. Rated the 4th hardest song as of Drummania 4th MIX, but it definately isn't. RATING: 75% WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Actual Difficulty: 59 Overall Difficulty: ??% Animations: Peewee herman clone holding up a board with the song title on it. A face. and that's about it. It's still more detailed than Virtual Insanity! Other Notes: GG: The speed changes slightly. At the start, open with a hi-hat roll and do the kicks when they come up. The bulk of the song uses the generic Expert Real pattern, but it's slow and easy to do. In fact, the whole song is - it's a good test for you to try out Extreme on, because it's similar to songs like Sunny Day Sunday/Expert Real. Plus, everyone knows the song and it's popular in session. Why not try it? It's almost too easy. RATING: 57% 6 . 0 G a m e M y t h s , L e g e n d s a n d T r i v i a ___________________________________________________________________ * A Normal version of Depend On Me existed in the test version which was similar, but the verse pattern went kick, hi-hat+snare, repeat instead, as well as the verse tom rolls being much simpler. There were no kicks in the chorus. * An Advanced (Real) version of Centaur was in early Drummania 4th MIX test versions but was removed from the final version. * Long versions of Newspaper, Don't Hide Your Mind, Jet World, Heaven Is A '57 Metallic Gray, Stop Spinning Me In Circles and Welcome To The Jungle _may_ have been in Drummania test versions at several points. * Jimmy Weckl is credited for the 'shout's in Na-Na-Na! * In Break Out, before the first "Break the boundaries, my philosophy" line, a distorted speech sample is played alongside the guitar. When isolated from the guitars and drums, the voice says clearly "You are all under my command" (it sounds a bit like 'on', but it definately says under). To me, this sample sounds like it is from an 80s computer, probably something with a Yamaha SPU in it. It could be MSX, Arcade or even X6800 - it's a mystery! As one composer of the song, Toshio Sakurai (not Thomas Howard - he just sings it) as far as anyone in the world knows outside of Konami itself never composed any music for older games, and the other person who is probably responsible - Kazuhiro Senoo/Seno - has almost no mention anywhere on the internet or in places that usually record 'members' of the Konami Kukeiha Club. The only person who made music for Konami on MSX was Mutsuhiko Izumi (and even then it was limited to Hideo Kojima's own projects - Snatcher, SD Snatcher and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake). Indeed, Konami supported the MSX very strongly and even made a custom soundchip for it - the SCC. Any information on this would be appreciated! * Riff Riff Paradise is made up of so many songs, it has to be listed here instead! Here's the list (in order with the time the riff begins): - The Adventures (00:00) - The Adventures/Go Go Again (00:17) - Happy Man (00:29) - Happy Man/Wanna Be Your Boy (00:41) (bassline merges into Wanna Be Your Boy) - Wanna Be Your Boy (00:49) - Lucky?Staff (00:58) (changes pitch halfway and this makes it sounds a little like The Adventures. Also, the bassline is nothing like the original - much simpler!) - Note that these last 3 songs put together make up 'Happy Lucky Boy'. - Fire (01:15) - Magic Music Magic (01:33) (bassline and guitar volume changed) - L.A.Rider (01:54) (at a higher pitch; sounds like Silly Girl) - Shake It Up (02:11) - Mr.Machine (02:29) - Escape (02:46) (slightly remixed; the bassline is constant, unlike in the original version - plus the tom rolls are in different places) - Double Orbit (03:04) (Double Orbit is a remix of 'Prelude' from the game 'Castlevania: Symphony of the Night'. The bassline once again is from the wrong part of the song) - Cool Joe/King G (03:20) (pitch matches Cool Joe, and the notes are near identical) - King G (03:32) (drums weren't in this section originally) Songs that are completely absent from Riff Riff Paradise include Jet World, Primal Soul and The Endless Summer. Eclipse isn't in it either, but it's not made by Mutsuhiko Izumi (all the above songs are). Also, most of the songs are played a higher than original pitch. A few of the riffs loop where they originally did not. Songs with vocals (Wanna Be Your Boy, Happy Man, Shake It Up, King G) have no vocals in this medley. Also Go Go Again, Lucky?Staff, Magic Music Magic, Escape, Cool Joe and King G are Guitar Freaks only songs. Double Orbit is a Drummania only song. 7 . 0 C o d e s a n d C h e a t s _______________________________________ KEY H - Hi-Hat S - Snare K - Bass Pedal (Kick) T - Hi Tom L - Lo Tom R - Ride Cymbal Drummania/Percussion Freaks (Arc,PS2): Regular Codes: On the Mode Select screen: Speed Up: H S H H S H K (speeds up the scroll speed to 2.0x) Hidden: T L T L T K (lines disappear from 1/3 up the screen) Mirror: S S T L T K (reverses hi-hat and cymbal?) Expert Real: H H S S T L T L K K (selects hardest difficulty. Note this code is a variation of the famous 'Konami code', which is U U D D L R L R (B A) (also used in Make A Jam! in Dance Dance Revolution). Move right of Real to select this) Drummania 2nd MIX/Percussion Freaks 2nd MIX (Arc): Regular Codes: On the Title screen (after inserting money, before pushing start) (note all of these are disabled when the machine's power is turned off): Enable Hidden/Sudden: T L T L T K (enables these options in the menu - lines disappear/appear from 1/3 up the screen respectively) Enable Tight: (hold K) H S T L (release K) H S T L (K and S simulataneously) (adds Tight mode to the options menu, which penalises you for hitting the drum when you are not supposed to a-la Guitar Freaks) Enable Small/Silent: (T+L) S S (H+T) S S (H+L) (adds Small and Silent modes to the options menu, which makes the background music quiet or mute respectively. The drums may still be heard) Options Menu: Hold left+right selection buttons and push Start (allows you to access the above options, plus change game speed, 'background type' which changes the background look during a song, and where the combo is displayed on the screen (left is default - right is preferable as it does not block your view) On the Mode Select screen: Expert Real: (highlight Real) L L L L L (selects hardest difficulty setting) On the Song Select screen: Change Speed: K K (increases the scroll speed 0.5x, from 1.0x to 7.0x maximum. Will loop around if done past 7.0x. Must be done in about 1 second or the game ignores the command) Change Difficulty (SESSION ONLY): H H (changes the game to and from Session/Extreme Session mode) In the game: Change Speed: Start+Selection Arrow (slows down or speeds up the scroll speed 0.5x like the code above) Guitar Freaks 3rd MIX & DrumMania 2nd MIX (PS2) * Note these are DrumMania codes only - see my GF FAQ for the Guitar Freaks codes! Regular Codes: On the Mode Select screen: Hidden: T L T L T K (lines disappear from 1/3 up the screen) Sudden: L T L T L K (lines appear from 1/3 up the screen) On the Mode Select screen: Expert Real: (highlight Real) L L L L L (selects hardest difficulty setting) On the Song Select screen: Change Speed: K K (increases the scroll speed 0.5x, from 1.0x to 7.0x maximum. Will loop around if done past 7.0x. Must be done in about 1 second or the game ignores the command) Change Difficulty (SESSION ONLY): H H (changes the game to and from Session/Extreme Session mode) Endless Mode: Endless Mode: Complete every song in Solo and Session mode? (enables 'Endless' mode?) Drummania 4th MIX (Arc): Regular Codes: On the Title screen (after inserting money, before pushing start): Options Menu: Hold left+right selection buttons and push Start (allows you to change game speed, enable hidden or sudden mode, enable tight mode, enable small or silent mode and where the combo is displayed on the screen (left is default - right is preferable as it does not block your view) On the Song Select screen: Change Speed: K K (increases the scroll speed 0.5x, from 1.0x to 7.0x maximum. Will loop around if done past 7.0x. Must be done in about 1 second or the game ignores the command) Change Difficulty: H H (difficulty increases to the next level up. Will wrap around if done past the highest available) Auto Bass Mode: T H T T (Bass pedal (kick) is automatically done, thus you do not need to press it during the song) In the game: Change Speed: Start+Selection Arrow (slows down or speeds up the scroll speed 0.5x like the code above) 8 . 0 O u t r o d u c t i o n _______________________________ 8.2 Credits ----------- No Contributions yet... 8.3 Disclaimer -------------- This FAQ is copyright 2001 by Ranking Task Force. Nor this document or any part of it may be printed in magazines or sold for profit either by itself or on a form of media bundled with other things (ie CD-ROMs) without my written permission. You may, however, put this FAQ on websites, give it to friends, or use it for your own personal use. This FAQ may only be distributed if it is un-edited - nothing may be replaced or removed. And you don't need my permission to put this on websites. And feel free to print it out if you don't mind carrying several hundred pages to the arcade with you. I suggest you edit out the bits you don't want. Anyway, SPREAD THIS FAQ! But not for commercial purposes - you may not sell this FAQ, give it free with something you sell, or otherwise trade it for goods or services! This FAQ is free. If someone is breaching this rule, tell us! We also cannot inform FAQ site operators of new versions, so we apologise. DrumMania/Percussion Freaks is a trademark of Konami Computer Entertainment Japan inc. Konami is a registered trademark of Konami of some country. At this stage we cannot help with specific problems and songs, however in the future this is likely to change... 8.4 Future Versions ------------------- Coming soon: * Expanded song info * New song info * New techniques * Drummania 5th MIX info * Play strategies 8.5 Requests ------------ Nothing for now! I guess that wraps it up! Thanks for reading the FAQ!
