March 15th, 2022

I went to Round1 for the first time this year. It was more busier than usual, probably cause it was a Sunday. I was with my brother, who offered to buy a burger from there. I tried it and I can say the Round1 burger is bad. It tastes very sad. Then again, Round1 is probably the last place I think of when I want to eat.

I played mainly IIDX, with a few sessions of Drummania in between. Drummania wasn't anything special, I'm still struggling with level 5 songs. I want some tips to get better, but it might be how I'm having trouble making my hands do different things along with my feet. IIDX was the complete opposite, I got a whole set of AAs! I think I'm good enough where I can consistently get an extra stage too!

Element of SPADA is a song from IIDX 22 SPADA. There's not much I can say about it. The song is good, but I forgot how the chart played. It feels good seeing 67% of my play be PGREATS!

衰色小町メランコリア is a "NEO CLASSICAL DANCE" song from IIDX 19 Lincle. It's a very good song from a game I would usually overlook. The chart is pretty easy, which is probably how I got the AA. There's another song similar to it in IIDX 20 Tricoro.

Next song is from Elebits. The chart is extremely easy, easier than 衰色小町メランコリア even. Majority of the chart is playing along with the beat. Please ignore the dip in my graph, I swear it's easy.

This next song is a new song unlockable from the first part of the CastHour SPACE event from December. It's Harmonia from pop'n music Lapistoria, which then got implanted to IIDX Infinitas, which is now in IIDX 29 CastHour. I got a double AA in my first try!

Now when am I getting my first AAA?

I got a couple of other scores, but I forgot to save the screenshots from the e-amusement app in time, so they are now lost unless I pay for the basic course to see them again. That means my IIDX score page is a little out of date now, but I'll see what I can do to fix it.

New month, new pop'n music Lively rank! I'm now at the Black rank, which is the final rank. I unlock the last set of songs, most of which are songs I'm familar with such as PARTY A GO GO and Denpasar. This rank is worth it for PARTY A GO GO alone.

As usual, new month, new bonus songs. This month's free song is 雫 by Asaki, it's okay. This month's free quest song is クラゲータ, which is god awful. This month's paid bonus song is Soul on Fire, which was a free quest song a year ago. I dropped money for 2 tickets to buy it, my first.

You don't unlock it immediately, you have to play to unlock it as if it was a regular quest song. The amount of points needed to unlock it is half of what a regular quest song is though, so it's faster to unlock. I unlocked it the day I bought it and instantly tried the EX chart. It was pretty hard for a 41, but I passed! It was a pretty bad play but I passed!

The song is around 1,000 notes! That's a new record!!

I remember a year ago when I was obsessed with Soul on Fire. I bought the pop'n music request best album just to get the long version. I haven't listened to it that much since then, but I still love it.

A little off topic, but it's weird seeing my old posts back when I had a smaller CD collection.

I tried the normal chart so I could get an easier chart and I got my first PERFECT!! You get a perfect clear if you get no goods or bads! It's the best type of clear you could get! I didn't get an AAA or a S for the play, but a perfect is a perfect! I wish I could've recorded it, but Xbox Game Bar didn't record the last 10 minutes so I couldn't get it for YouTube. You'll have to take my word for it!

I also got my first AAA! I've been close to an AAA with this song, but now I got it! Even with a few goods! Maybe if I got 0 goods and more cools, I could've gotten an S... I wonder if I can get even more AAAs.

There's a new song pack with Sunny Park music! It's what I've always wanted! Then I realized it's full of songs I don't really like except for WORLD COLOR! I want to play WORLD COLOR but I don't want to pay for songs I don't really care for! Since my moaning for some irrelevant song in Lively has been granted, can I have Hideyuki Ono songs? There's nothing I want more...

Just an update on the Phoenixwan situation, Gamo2 has sent PS2 adapters to a few people to test out. Here's a tweet from one person. It's not on sale yet, but I hope it can come out soon. Honestly, once I get one, I might record handcams or even stream IIDX. Then again, I'm not good at IIDX to probably stream it. My playstyle is so messy!

I've actually been using my new MiniDisc component system a lot lately. I've already recorded 4 hours of music onto some of my discs. I haven't been listening to much music off my PC or my phone. If I like a song, into a disc it goes!

I got a portable player for this reason, a Panasonic SJ-MJ15. It's thin yellow playback only device. I didn't want a recorder since they are very pricey and usually have poor battery life, especially when recording. This device supports MDLP recordings, which lets you record more tracks at the cost of quality, kind of like SP/LP mode on a VHS tape. I cannot record any MDLP tracks as my MD11 system doesn't support it at all.

This device actually has a pretty good battery life. You can power it with a gumstick battery or a single AA battery. A single AA battery lasts for 63 hours, while a gumstick battery lasts for 40 hours. If you pair the both together, you can get up to 103 hours of battery life! Using a disc with MDLP compression can actually increase it too! A single AA battery could last up to 121 hours on a LP4 disc, while combining both the AA battery with a gumstick battery can last up to 193 hours!

The seller of the player said they would give a remote free of charge, but they cannot guarantee it will work, which mines didn't. It might be because the remote is too new for the player, as it's not the same one the unit is supposed to come with. Despite that, the audio forwards just fine from it though. Due to the fact I don't have a functioning remote, I cannot put the disc on repeat or shuffle, use equalizer presets, see any titles, or check battery level. You don't need a remote to use the device, but I still want one. When I looked on Yahoo Auctions, the prices for remotes were $10 and above. I don't think that's a good price.

Look at this Sony Walkman WM-D6C. I got it from my brother. It has so many switches and buttons, something only an old Sony would have. It's missing the glass that's supposed to be on the front. It also has this case that has a hole cutout for the peak/battery indicator. Everything works fine. I think I'll use this instead of my old Sony TCM-59, which was an import Walkman I have that I fixed a few years ago.

Among other things my brother gave me: I got a cassette storage case, a few (bad looking) blank type I tapes, and some big bang compilation tapes. It rests in my closet. I recently learned a bit of cassette stuff, like the difference between cassette types and stuff, so I might start recording on cassette tapes now. My MiniDisc component system has a cassette deck accessory, so I can easily record stuff onto a tape and then play it back on my new Walkman. I like that idea.

I got a MIDI keyboard. I found out Konaste Nostalgia let's you play with a total of an astonishing six songs! I tried it out and it was pretty fun. The keyboard does have some keys that stick, but with how forgiving the game is, it's not that much of an issue.

Actually, the PS2 port of Keyboardmania supports MIDI keyboards. I tested it out and it doesn't work. I think you need a keyboard that uses the old 5-pin connector, which this keyboard lacks. Rather unfortunate, but I can always play the PC Keyboardmania! It's uses MIDI sequences instead of keysounded music. Charts are generated from each instrument in the sequence, which can spawn charts that can be practically impossible.

I played a rather innocent chart. Some charts can use the full keyboard, very scary.

I wonder how I can use this to learn piano. The most I ever done with a piano was smashing keys on my old Casio SA-35 keyboard. I have no idea where that keyboard is now, but I liked playing it when I was younger. I didn't learn anything from it, but I remember all the sample songs it had. I hope to find the time to find something that can help, if it exists.

Last month, Nintendo had announced that the Nintendo eShop for Wii U and 3DS systems are terminating purchases next year. The shops will not be closing, so you'll be able to redownload content, but you will no longer be able to purchase new content. They have also announced that they'll discontinue adding funds to accounts from August 29th of this year. I was expecting this day, but now that it has arrived, it's so weird.

While reminiscing about my time with the 3DS, my recorded playtime reached almost an entire year across both of my systems, I remembered about Daigassou! Band Brothers P, a rhythm game that I mentioned here once in the Other Rhythm Games page. I haven't put much information since there's not a lot of scores to put on the page, but I wished to talk about it in way more detail later.

Daigasso! Band Brothers is a rhythm game series by Nintendo that hasn't really left Japan. The first title was released in 2004. It was originally supposed to be a Game Boy Advance title named "Game Boy Music". The Iwata Asks article for the sequel has the developers mention that they were very far in development before cancelling the game in favor of the DS and the wireless capabilites it had. It later got an upgraded port in 2008 which also released in Europe on 2010, which is the only time the series would ever have an entry release outside of Japan. The upgraded version added online music sharing.

In 2013, Daigasso! Band Brothers P would be released in Japan. The game featured all the previous entries had and more. The P in the title was to show how the game was primarily focused on being a producer, having upgraded the music production tools. A new feature was a character creator, which uses Vocaloid technology to assign a voice to your character. There was also online multiplayer, which you could team up with other people and play each other's music together in an ensemble. I played a lot of online multiplayer and I had a lot of fun.

There was one change that was done to circumvent a restriction that DX had. In DX, you could only download up to 100 songs. There was no way to delete them or replace them with other songs. I believe it was a copyright issue. I think you couldn't do anything about it since your download history was tied to your specific cartridge. P would remove this restriction, but you would have to pay for the music using in-game tomatoes. 1 tomato would cost 62 yen and all songs would cost only 1 tomato. Tomatoes can also be used to purchase additional clothing accessories for your character. For whatever reason, tomatoes would expire 5 months after they were purchased. When rot, they would become useless.

If I remember right, Nintendo stopped accepting music submissions around 2017. You couldn't upload any music you had created. I speculate that it might have to do with JASRAC, but I don't work at Nintendo, so I wouldn't know. Despite this, Nintendo temporarily allowed submissions for a few contests, such as Splatoon 2, Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion, and Made in Wario Gorgeous.

Other online features such as multiplayer, music store, and radio would continue to function until 2020, when they were all shutdown. The store closing would effectively make the game useless to play if you bought a copy now, as you'd be stuck with the inital 5 songs and you couldn't get any new songs. The game was delisted from the eShop when tomatoe sales were discontinued. Unlike the previous game, you couldn't rely on a used copy to have songs already downloaded, as songs would only save as extra data for that specific system.

There was also an accompanying website that was related to the music store and radio. You could stream the radio station or music from the store. The site was shut down a few months after online services ended and the page now redirects you to a landing page by a site hoster. It was pretty cool hearing the MIDI renditions of music on the site using the soundfont the game uses.

The captures from the Wayback Machine are a little bit broken. I don't think any of the streamable music was saved. I have one song from there saved on my phone, which is a rendition of Love Machine by Morning Musume.

I wish they can make a new entry for Switch. Around the time the Switch launched, the official Twitter made a joke about making an entry for the Switch. I wonder if they're still working on it, I would pay money for it. I can only hope for it though. I'm not expecting any news, I don't think Band Brothers is that popular of a series for Nintendo to pay attention to.

Thank you for reading. It's now the middle of the college semester. It's going pretty well, though I've been kinda wrapped around my work. orz