Beatmania 5thMIX: Time to get down

Beatmania 5thMIX:time to get down The fifth in Konami's beatmania series of rhythm games. With it, came Dancemania licenses, along with crossovers from beatmania APPEND GOTTAMIX and beatmania IIDX.

Sub-Page#

Notes

Unused Entries#

Starting from offset 0x261E0 in the main CPU is a title/artist masterlist of some sorts, whereas song titles are shifted 23 letters forward in an alphabet which also includes numbers from 0 to 9 and spacebar. However, some slots don't seem to be used; forcing those to appear in the song selection screen will load their genre as "TECHNO", save for SKIN, which loads as "R&B". Slots are in decimal numbers.

Additionally, force loading entries 53 and 54 (CAN OF ASS KICKS and REBEL ENFORCER, the How to Play songs) into the song selection screen will load placeholder artist tags (DUMMY SECTOR #50 and DUMMY SECTOR #51, respectively) and genre (TECHNO).

Development-Related Text#

Game ID#

At the beginning of the game's uncompressed HDD data, the following string is found:

 GQ981  beatmania 5th MIX  ver1.00[EOF]

Codename#

At offset 0x22F9A of the game's main CPU is some sort of codename for the game:

BGM_981_JA - GRAND MASTER HOUSE 

Regional Differences#

When beatmania 5thMIX was released in Korea, under the title of beatstage 5thMIX, several changes were made:

Gameplay#

• A new DIP switch setting was added, in which the gauge type in the Normal and Hard modes can be changed. It is set to "On Stage Middle" by default, which acts more or less like the Expert gauge, but with a few differences:
  • GREATs recover the gauge.
  • If the gauge is emptied out, the words "!DANGER DANGER!" flash on top of it, and if the player makes any more mistakes, the game ends. This is similar to the EXPERT+ gauge in beatmania 6thMIX, 7thMIX, and THE FINAL.
  • This setting would later be available in hiphopmania completeMIX 2, the American release of beatmania completeMIX 2.
• The Perfect Play setting was added to Expert mode, accessible by selecting the mode while holding the Effect button. It is essentially a "sudden death" modifier, in which getting anything lower than a Great results in an instant game over. This would also be available in hiphopmania completeMIX 2.
• The HI-SPEED modifier was changed so that there are three settings, like in beatmania completeMIX 2.

Songlist#

• The songs TOTAL RECALL and KAKATTEKONKAI are absent.
• The genre of the song LINN 1999 was changed to TECHNO POP.

References#