Beatmania IIDX 16: Empress

Beatmania IIDX 16: Empress is the 16th game in the Beatmania IIDX series of music video games. It was released in arcades by Konami on November 19, 2008 (11 months since the arcade release of Beatmania IIDX 15: DJ Troopers). The game features over 50 new songs, some of which are unlocked over Konami's e-Amusement platform. The design of Empress's interface is based on a pink color scheme, dominated by sparkles, butterfly wings, and motifs of royalty and jewellery. A PlayStation 2 port for the game was released on October 15, 2009, simultaneously in Japan and South Korea.^[1][2]

Gameplay

Core gameplay remains the same on Empress. A new hidden modifier called "ALL-SCRATCH" changes most of the notes to scratches. More tutorials have been added to the Tutorial mode from DJ Troopers. Many sound effects in the user interface have also been changed. A new mode that is introduced before DJ Troopers CS, "Hazard Mode", instantly fails the player if a combo is broken many times (effectively requiring a full combo in order to pass the stage). To access this mode, All the black buttons must be pushed (When highlighting Free mode in mode selection) to activate the Hazard mode.

The upgrade to Empress also comes with a new turntable design, which has been built to be easier to trigger, and also features a more textured surface.

e-Amusement

More advanced statistics can be accessed through e-Amusement's online components. Jewels can be collected for the Empress Place system using e-Amusement.

Empress Place

Empress Place is the extra stage system used by Empress. During regular play, players randomly accumulate colored jewels (the algorithm has not been disclosed). These jewels are used to unlock the 3 songs, each song representing a famous empress. The 3 songs are Kung-fu Empire by 飛燕流舞 (Consort Yang Yuhuan), Arabian Rave Night by dj MAX STEROID (Cleopatra), and Marie Antoinette by Marguerite du Pre {Marie Antoinette}. When all songs have been cleared with AAA rating using HARD option and the player is playing on ANOTHER, then the player will have opportunity to play the One More Extra Stage, 卑弥呼 by 朱雀 VS 玄武 {Himiko}.

Music

New songs

*1 NΦ CRIME had 2 versions in Empress.
*2 was originally only playable in Beginner mode. A patch over e-Amusement unlocked it for regular play.

Sources:^[3][4]

Home Version

The home version was released on October 15, 2009. Unlike previous home version, the home version of Beatmania IIDX 16: Empress contain two discs. The first one is the EMPRESS disc, which contains songs from the arcade version, home version-originals, and some revivals. The second, called PREMIUM BEST disc, contains the rest of the revivals which selected from the whole Beatmania IIDX games. Each disc contains 99 songs, adding the total to 198 songs. It is speculated to be the final release of home version of Beatmania IIDX, because no home version was released after this game.

CS exclusive songs

Removals and Revivals

35 songs were removed in total on Empress. Major removals include the remaining songs by Reo Nagumo, BeForU, and BeForU's members. Nagumo had left Konami in 2006, and BeForU had also recently signed onto a new recording contract with Avex Group in the same year, officially severing their ties with Konami. However, their first single under Avex, Red Rocket Rising - which was also removed, appeared on Gold. Other removals include the DJ Yoshitaka remix of I'm In Love Again, which also will not appear on the console version of DJ Troopers. No reasons have been given for the removals.

On the contrary, many songs by Takehiko "Slake" Fujii have been revived. Make A Difference from Beatmania IIDX 9th Style has also been revived, and it has also received new Hyper and Another charts. SOLITON BEAM have also received new charts.

References

External links

• Official Beatmania IIDX 16: Empress website (Japanese)