0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Beatmania Append 3rd Mix



 
Beatmania Append 3rd Mix is the first of many append discs that were released for long running Beatmania music/rhythm franchise. This add on for the game like the original release was developed and published by Konami. The 3rd append mix was released exclusively in Japan on 23rd of December 1998, the game required the first releases key disc in order to function.

Notable people who worked on this title, Kiyoshi Mizuki who worked as a Design Planner and CG Designer for the game would go on to Pokemon Stadium 2 as a Mini Game Designer in 2000, the same year he is credited as being a Graphic Designer for Paper Mario.

In 2001 he was one of the Assistant Production Directors on Luigi’s Mansion, 2005 saw him working as the Design Director on Nintendogs before holding the role of Co Producer for Wii Sports and Wii Play both of which released in 2006.

This section won’t have much new information, below you will find the previously posted gameplay information, with Beatmania Append 3rd Mix a DLC style add for the base Beatmania game that was released back in 1998.

This 3rd Append Mix features over 20 new songs for you to DJ your way through, these songs are largely taken from the Arcade release of the game as well as a few Playstation exclusive tracks as well. In order to play this Append Mix the original Beatmania is required for the Key disc


This append disc includes the following tracks and maybe a few other ones as well. Included are, Life Goes On, Find Out, Do you love me?, Believe Again,  HYPER MEGA MIX, s.d.z, Stop Violence!, Wild I/O, La Bossanova, de Fabienne, Queen's Jamaica, LOVE SO GROOVY, METAL GEAR SOLID  Main Theme, BROTHERS, 20.november  (Single Mix), 20.november (Radio Edit), Deep Clear Eyes, Nine Seconds, Tribe Groove, LUV TO ME,  THIRD-MIX, Attack the Music, Super Highway and Area Code.

Gameplay wise it is identical as the original Beatmania release. The game came with its own custom controller, modelled after the Arcade version of the game, you have five keys that resemble those of a piano, these key are positioned vertically, the keys are also colour coded the same way as well with three of the keys being white while two are black.


Alongside the keys on the controller is the turntable, the player is able to turn or scratch the turntable, the game also supports standard controllers as well. With turntable movement and scratching keyed to the circle and triangle buttons, piano key are controlled using the D-Pad Left, Square Button, X button as well as the shoulder buttons the game has a key config menu.

Each of the keys or buttons have a corresponding vertical bar on the screen, as does the turntable, each of the bars indicate the path in which rectangular icons cascade downwards towards a horizontal line near the botton. The aim for the player is to hit the corresponding key or rotate the turntable when the icon reaches and matches with this horizontal line.


When hitting the corresponding key or button you will be graded on how well you have done with Great, Good, Bad and Poor appearing on screen, the better you do the more audience satisfaction you will receive, miss time your button or key presses and turntable scratches will result in your audience satisfaction decreasing.

The Audience satisfaction is displayed by a red and green bar, the audience satisfaction bar does not go from red to green as you would expect, the green part of the bar is the lower audience satisfaction with the player needing to get into the small red section at the end of the bar in order to pass the song and move on to the next one.


Upon completion of the song/level, the player is awarded a score which is money, also shown is the players final grade, this is from A to a G grade, this is not related to the amount of money you have earned, instead this is based on how accurate you were over the course of the track in addition to being a single player game up to 2 players can play.

With this being a Japanese only release, critic reviews for this game are very thin in number, with just the one available. This single review however rated the game pretty well, coming from intensepsx.com who rated the game at a good 85 score.

The reviewer recommending this add on for those who own the original and want to jam their way through an additional 20+ tracks. With the reviewer saying that Beat Mania Append 3rd Mix should be perfect for you, The reviewer concluded by saying. It is low-priced, it has tons of cool new songs, and it rocks just as hard as Beat Mania 2nd Mix did. Hopefully, it is only the first in a long line of Append Discs for this fun, addictive, and extremely challenging game.


In addition to the single critic review we have a user review from GameFAQs, this review comes from BHigginbotham who rated the game at a solid 3.5/5 this converts to a 70 rating for the game. BHigginbotham praised the games gameplay calling it very deep and challenging, the user reviewer recommending you opt for a game specific controller, giving examples of the DJ MAN or a DJ Station Pro.

The reviewer continued by saying using a conventional controller is very difficult, the user even finding the first Beatmania controller being not much better. The reviewer praised the song selection but found the selection on offer to be better in the BeatMania GottaMix release.

Continuing the user said Beatmania Append 3rd Mix is worth a purchase, especially considering the price tag this game carries. The music in later Beatmania games really is better sounding, but if you don’t have 3rd mix you should not overlook this because it is old. Concluding the reviewer said, I would recommend you get BeatMania Append Gotta Mix before you get this game though.
  

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.


So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release. So we quickly head over to Retrogames.co.uk where we do find the game listed, with a single copy of this append disc available, priced at £9. The copy on offer is a new copy of the game and is still factory sealed, be aware this is a Japanese only game so required a Japanese console to be played, as well as requiring the first game in the series to be functional.


Moving on to eStarland.com we find the game listed but at the time of writing is currently out of stock. This Japanese import when in stock has a usual price range of between $3.98 and $7.95, eStarland also offer a trade in for the game with up to $2 being paid for a complete copy.
 
Lastly we have Amazon.com where we find a good supply of this Append disc available, with the first copy on offer a complete copy in good condition, this copy can be picked up for just $5.78 and comes with free shipping.

Plenty of copies in good or better condition available for $10 or less with a few more beyond this point but most fall into this price range. A good supply of new copies are available for this Append disc, with prices starting not too high at $17.42 and $17.43, both of these copies come with free shipping as well.

New copy prices steadily rise from here, with the majority in the $17 to $34 price range, with a majority of these new copies coming with free shipping. A couple do go beyond this price range at $36.56 and a current high price for a new copy coming in at $48.94.



Written by


P J Gibbon

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