Arcade Rhythm Games in Japan Part 2 -- GITADORA

  I believe when people hear about rhythm games, especially arcade rhythm games, the first game that comes to their minds is Guitar Hero, which is what I expected, because this is probably the only rhythm except DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) and neon FM (I've never seen one in person, honestly) that can be found at most arcades in the United States. But the blog is about Japanese arcade rhythm games, so I'll be introducing the ancestors of Guitar Hero and Rockband series -- GuitarFreaks & DrumMania made by KONAMI, and the two combined known as GITADORA.

  The first generation, the original GFDM (abbreviation of GuitarFreaks and DrumMania) series was released in 1999 (remywiki.com, GUITARFREAKS), and the original GFDM series spanned from 1999 to 2005 (remywiki.com, GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V). And, as you can see from the remywiki page of the first GF game, it didn't come out with DrumMania -- the first DM was released with GF2nd mix (remywiki.com, GUITARFREAKS 2nd MIX & drummania), and the result is the rest of the series are all known as GF3DM2, GF4DM3, etc. (since they're one version off) .

Figure 1, Poster of the first GF game (emuparadise.com)

Fortunately, there was a (only) U.S. release of the first GF game so I'm able to find an English poster (Figure 1). The GF cabinet looks very similar to the Guitar Hero arcade cabinets and in fact, there are rumors saying that the GH cabs are actually designed by KONAMI. It could be true because the KONAMI logo is actually printed on the GH cab (rawthrills.com), but it has never been confirmed.

The cab is presented from a lower angle that makes it look bigger and more stunning than what it actually looks, and it has two stage-style lights on the two sides of the marquee. It also has the gameplay screen on the poster that doesn't look so great in today's standard. As you may notice, the judgement line is at the top rather than bottom like GH or RB (Rockband series), same as the design of DDR. Reason for this is unknown but KONAMI decided to keep this design, and the default settings for today's GITADORA GF is still notes going up.

Gameplay is basically what you've seen on the GH and RB games -- hold the corresponding buttons and strum when notes hit the judgement line. But GF doesn't have the hammer-on/pull-off features in RB games, so you have to strum every note in hyperpicking sections where the guitarist actually did hammer-ons or pull-offs. A special feature in GF is the wailing system (the fourth bulletin from the top) -- "hold the guitar upright and play for 'wailing bonus'". The Hero Power system in GH is similar to this, but in my opinion, the wailing system creates a better sense of riffing and gives the player the feeling of playing the actual guitar. Some might argue that in GH the player can choose when to activate Hero Power, hence players have more freedom and, is better. But the power needs to be charged, and the player needs to think when to activate it for highest score which actually breaks the sense of "flow", while the wailing positions are pre-designed , and honestly, the chart designers did a job and the wailing doesn't break but enhance the "flow". The wailing system is also kept as a key element of the GF series till now.

The poster also mentioned a effector knob on the guitar that I can't find -- I doubt if that was a mistake, but I can't really tell because I've never seen this retro GF cabinet in person.

Figure 2, DrumMania 2nd MIX cabinet (Highway Entertainment)

On the right is a picture the original DM cabinet (Figure 2), the five percussion pads from left to right, are hi-hat, snare, high tom, mid tom and ride cymbal, and the pedal in the bottom is obviously the bass drum pedal. It's basically a very simple electronic drum kit without hi-hat control pedal. Since I can't find the poster for DM (which is expected since these posters are collectibles in the player communities, so scans are very hard to find), The DM cab also have the stage-style lights beside the marquee, plus two loudspeakers near the monitor that bring better sound quality (and inevitably, noise to the others). There is also a subwoofer with LED/neon light in the lower part of the cab.

Different from GF, the DM controller itself is close to a real drum kit so the charts can also be as real as possible, which makes the gameplay experience very close to playing real drums and, makes the game very appealing to those who want a authentic drumming experience while too lazy to learn drums (but learning drums do help in improving gaming/drumming technique, so some hardcore players end up learning real drums, which is also what I ended up with). However, the actual gameplay could be a little annoying to real-life drummers because the hi-hat is too low, making it awkward to cross-hand drumming. Plus, the hi-hat notes are displayed to the left of the snare notes so it makes more sense to do open-handed drumming (hitting hi-hat with left hand) in the game. But there are also charts that require the player to do cross-hand drumming...



Below is a gameplay video of DrumMania 2nd MIX (second release of the original DM). The UI is actually not too friendly to hardcore players because the combo text and the "perfect/ great/ good/ bad/ miss" text are too large, plus they hover over the notes, making the chart difficult to read (especially when it's a high difficulty chart with 16th notes or 16th triplets). They remained the same until the XG versions released in 2010 (GuitarFreaks XG & DrumMania XG, remywiki.com).                                                                         

Drummania[1st] - Across The Nightmare by To June, 2011

The GFDM series went into the V era in 2005 (remywiki.com, GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V), but the cabs remains basically the same except adding e-amusement card readers and a keypad for entering the passcode of the card (therefore gameplay has not changed at all and I'm not putting pictures of cabinets). The e-amusement card is used to store gameplay data (grades, unlocks, player name, etc.). There are 8 releases during the V era, the unlock system (remywiki.com, GuitarFreaks V3 & DrumMania V3), and skill system (remywiki.com, GFDM General Info) are all added to the game during this era, and these are the corner stones that keep the game alive in XG and GITADORA era because they provide incentives for players to keep playing the game -- "the new songs are good and look so fun, we need to unlock them" or "I want to build up my skill points" (like how you get higher tiers in Overwatch or League of Legends).

Then in 2010, the game enters the XG/GITADORA era with revolutionary cabs -- GF got 5 fret buttons (yes, I know GH and RB also have 5 fret buttons, and they had those before 2010), effector unit with 4 pedals (like the ones guitarists use on stage) and an effector knob on the guitar; DM got left pedal (acts as both hi-hat control and double bass pedal), a crash cymbal on the left side above the hi-hat, and a floor tom, making the controller now identical to a simple electronic drum kit (for example, the Yamaha DTX400 drum kit), and allowing the charts to be more realistic or, well, simply real. There are also other upgrades with the cabinets, shown in the pictures below. The pictures are taken by me at the Round1 in Middletown, NY, two hours away from RPI.

Figure 3, GuitarFreaks XG cab in Middletown, NY, 2018

This is the GuitarFreaks XG cab (Figure 3), you don't see the "XG" on the cab because it's running the latest version of the game, which is now called GITADORA EXCHAIN, but this is the cab that the XG version came with. To be honest, the XG cabs (along with the DrumMania XG cab) are the best cabs of the GFDM series, and the GF XG cab is definitely the most visually appealing cab I've ever seen. It comes with two large speakers and the sound quality is really good. The color of the LEDs also change as the theme color changes. Not to mention the effector units (might be too hard see without looking at the full size picture, they're on the floor, below the LEDs under the guitars, you should also be able to see the effector knob on the guitar) that bring more sense of being on stage.

Figure 4, DrumMania XG cab in Middletown, NY, 2018

This is the DrumMania XG cab (Figure 4), also, you don't see the letters "XG" on the cab as I explained, and the DM cab doesn't have so many LEDs as GF cab does... at least it seems so. Actually all the percussion pads come with LEDs: the snare has yellow LED, high tom has green LED, mid tom has red LED, etc. But the LEDs only light up when being hit during the game... who would ever look at that when playing? But the platform and the cage together also bring a sense of being on stage.

Figure 5, DrumMania XG cab in Middletown, NY, 2018

Gameplay is also greatly improved since the XG series -- at least the combo text no longer hovers over the lanes. The game also supports multiplayer, and DM can do a session with GF (it's not new in XG, and I believe it's available in the V series as well, but I don't know when was it added to the game either). There are also session-only songs, encouraging players to play with friends (and spend more money) or even with other players at the arcade. Below is a video of one of the session-only songs, FIFTH GIG TYPE II.

【GFXG2】FIFTH GIG TYPEII / Mutsuhiko Izumi with Takashi Yasuda by regret816, 2011

Figure 6, GITADORA cabinet (Highway Entertainment)

In 2013, the GITADORA version was released (since calling the game "GuitarFreaks & DrumMania" is kind of awkward), with simplified cabinets (Figure 6, Highway Entertainment). Not saying the cabs are bad, but at least no as good as the XG cabs. But I understand that it would cost way more to produce the XG cabinets, plus if there's only one person playing guitar on the XG cab, the other one can't be used by another player and that's a loss of income for the owner of the arcade, so it totally makes sense to make the cabs simple. But honestly, I would definitely miss the XG cabs when they have to retire.



Below are videos of session play, and drum gameplay.

[XG3 / GFDM] TЁЯRA - Sacred Oath / Session Play by Rheza Aji Paramarta, 2016

【GITADORA Matixx/DrumMania】星座が恋した瞬間を。 EXCELLENT!! by まーたんとゆっきー, 2018

The performance was amazing, but you can also see that the drum chart is basically real except that the game doesn't differentiate between open hi-hat and closed hi-hat -- that would be too hardcore and the game would need two left foot pedals, and the only ones who would can play this game are probably real drummers... but why play the game if you can do real drumming?

You may also see there's a skill point of 162 on the result screen, the maximum score available in a song is 20 * (chart difficulty), the difficulty of the chart in the video is 8.10 so the maximum score is 162. Difficulties range from 1.00 to 9.99, anything above 9.90 is considered the boss songs (one of the hardest songs) of the game and there are only a few of them. Generally speaking, difficulties increase by 0.05 under 9.90, that is, you don't see difficulties like 8.53 or 7.66. But difficulties increase by 0.01 above 9.90 because 9.90 is a threshold that separates the hardest charts from others, and the last digit is to present a more detailed difficulty representation. Below are the videos of 9.9x songs in both guitar and drum side. (I don't remember seeing anything 9.99 in the game so I put the videos of the highest difficulties I can remember here)

Rock to Infinity (Master) フルコンボ【GITADORA DrumMania by SHNCHOBI, 2018

【ギタドラ】ゴーイング マイ ウェイ！ (MAS-G9.96)フルコン動画【もりくん】by もりくんチャンネル, 2018

As for the music, there's only very few electronic music in the game since it's a rock-band themed game -- most of the songs are rock, but the game also has jazz and funky music and songs I don't even know what genre they belong to. KONAMI also has its own artists for this game, and some of the artists has been working with the game since the very first GF in 1999, and are still making songs for the game today. One of the signature artists is known as 96, pronounced "ku-lo", which means "black" in Japanese. It's a reference to the artist's real name, Daisuke Kurosawa (黒沢大佑). However he left KONAMI in 2017, and started his own studio/band, called INSPION. Below is the theme song of INSPION, which is absolutely amazing.

サウンド制作スタジオ「INSPION」テーマ曲（フルバンド ロングバージョン）by INSPION STUDIO, 2017

Another signature artist of the game is Mutsuhiko Izumi (泉陸奥彦). He's been making songs for the GFDM series since 1999, and also for other KONAMI games including... METAL GEAR 2 (VGMdb.com). Did not expect that, right? But METAL GEAR is also a KONAMI game (though it's more likely to be known as a Hideo Kojima game) so it's not really a surprise. Mutsuhiko's songs are more hard-rocking and rougher, example is his MODEL DD series. Below is a video of his MODEL DD ULTIMATES, which is a medley of his first 10 MODEL DD songs (there are 11 excluding the medley), and DD is the abbreviation of Day Dream (the first song in the MODEL DD series is called DAY DREAM).

GITADORA MODEL DD ULTIMATES uploaded by Neko Mata, 2015

Oh, and, speaking of Hideo Kojima, he also used to be producer of KONAMI's home releases for arcade rhythm games except DDR. You can find the games he took part in if you search his name in remywiki.com. I didn't expect that either, I knew he's an old employee of KONAMI, but I never knew he worked on rhythm games as well.

Reference

emuparadise.com. Poster of the first GF game[internet image]. retrieved   from:https://www.emuparadise.me/M.A.M.E._-      _Multiple_Arcade_Machine_Emulator_ROMs/Guitar_Freaks_(GQ886_VER._AAC)/13406

Highway Entertainment. DrumMania 2nd MIX cabinet[internet image]. retrieved from: https://www.arcade-game-sales.com/arcade-machines/arcade-music-machines/drum-mania-2nd-mix-arcade-machine/9475-5.html

Highway Entertainment. GITADORA cabinet[internet image]. retrieved from: https://www.arcade-game-sales.com/arcade-machines/arcade-music-machines/gitadora-music-arcade-machine-set-guitar-drum/17388-1.html

INSPION STUDIO. (2017). サウンド制作スタジオ「INSPION」テーマ曲（フルバンド ロング バージョン）[youtube video]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19UDvu9P4Y8

Neko Mata. (2015). GITADORA MODEL DD ULTIMATES[youtube video]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LLKnGtVooc

rawthrills.com. Guitar Hero™ Arcade. retrieved   from: http://rawthrills.com/games/gamesarchive/gha/

regret816. (2011). 【GFXG2】FIFTH GIG TYPEII / Mutsuhiko Izumi with Takashi Yasuda[Youtube   Video]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=graR7DyyL64

remywiki.com. (2018). GFDM General Info. retrieved from:   https://remywiki.com/GFDM_General_Info

remywiki.com. (2018). GUITARFREAKS. retrieved from: https://remywiki.com/AC_GF1

remywiki.com. (2018). GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V. retrieved from:       https://remywiki.com/AC_GFDM_V 

remywiki.com. (2018). GuitarFreaks V3 & DrumMania V3. retrieved from:   https://remywiki.com/AC_GFDM_V3

remywiki.com. (2018). GuitarFreaks XG & DrumMania XG. retrieved   from: https://remywiki.com/AC_GFDM_XG

remywiki.com. (2018). GUITARFREAKS 2nd MIX & drummania. retrieved from:   https://remywiki.com/AC_GF2DM1

Rheza Aji Paramarta. (2016). [XG3 / GFDM] TЁЯRA - Sacred Oath / Session Play [youtube video].   retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diEL8ccN71c

SHNCHOBI. (2018). Rock to Infinity (Master) フルコンボ【GITADORA DrumMania[youtube   video]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X4fDXl7jyg

To June. (2011). Drummania[1st] - Across The Nightmare[youtube video]. retrieved   from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTb7gdLUARk

VGMdb.com. Mutsuhiko Izumu - VGMdb. retrieved: https://vgmdb.net/artist/1796

まーたんとゆっきー. (2018). 【GITADORA Matixx/DrumMania】星座が恋した瞬間を。 EXCELLENT!![youtube video]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xrfid4qFJk

もりくんチャンネル. (2018). 【ギタドラ】ゴーイング マイ ウェイ！ (MAS-G9.96)フルコン動画【もりくん】[youtube video]. retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEwYP_A3fFk