wtf is this thing and what is it doing in my ohio
So yeah, we have a IIDX machine in Ohio now. It's glorious. It's about a two and a half hour drive for me, but it's totally worth it.
I, of course, compared it to my DAO FP7. Because I'm lazy, here's the tweets I typed out copied and pasted for your reading pleasure:
Alright, let's compare my DAO FP7 with the IIDX machine I played on today!
Buttons feel lighter on AC, but that's most likely because they're way more broken in than mine. Mine are still infants by Omron standards.
TT felt a tiny bit stiff on the AC P1 side, a bit better on P2. The FP7 TT is a bit looser than both. Again, most likely due to age/use.
TT on AC is, of course, larger. I don't have a DAO RED to compare it to.
The AC TT felt very similar to the one on the KOC--pretty much hard plastic. The FP7's has a rubberized top, making scratching easier on it.
A rubber coating probably wouldn't last too long on an arcade machine, so I can see why they wouldn't do anything like that.
I had zero problems adjusting to spacing. I did have some difficulties due to the angle of my hands/wrists, as mentioned earlier.
I had some issues hitting the 7 key. My ring finger usually sits pretty high on the key on my FP7. Standing put it almost off the key.
Standing threw off my pinky scratching a bit, and the stiffer/smoother TT caused me to need a bit more force.
If I had to make a comparison, I'd say the P1 TT felt like a US KOC and the P2 TT felt like a JP KOC. Definitely could be a lot worse.
When I mention the angle of my hands/wrists, I'm referring to the difference between my home setup (controller on a TV tray table with me sitting on an office chair at its highest height) vs the realities of the arcade experience (standing in front of a machine with a fixed controller). I'm slightly above average height (~6'1"/~185cm) so the buttons were definitely lower on AC than they are on my home setup.
I managed to compensate by leaning a bit back from the machine and squatting slightly. I have no idea how ridiculous I looked, but hey, it worked out. I started out missing a lot of notes simply because I lost track of where the buttons were to being able to pass 10s, so yay for that. My scores were a bit meh, but I suspect that's partially because of the monitor differences (I had the same issue the first time I played Pop'n AC). I'm pretty much going from playing on a 25" CRT from a distance of about 4' or a 26" LCD at 3' to a ~37" TV at, like, 2'. It also took me a few rounds to find a green number that would work for me. Thankfully, since it's Tricoro, I was just able to use floating hi-speed and keep everything flowing at roughly the same effective speed.
Unfortunately, while I was able to adapt pretty easily on single play, doubles was out of the question. I had trouble with 4's (at home I can pass an easy 7--5.1.1. [7H]--on doubles very consistently). That said, I didn't put too much effort into it, so I'm sure I could have worked my way up if I had.
I also got to play jubeat copious for the first time. I've played around with the Jukebeat iOS game, but I never found it particularly fun. The arcade game, however, is both easier and more fun! I think a large part of the fun factor has to do with the fact that you get such a solid tactile response while playing it, not to mention that the display is large enough that you can see everything very clearly. On my iPad Air everything felt cramped and, naturally, there are no physical buttons involved.
Both my friend and I had the same experience with it: the game looks bloody impossible if you watch someone play it. However, the second you step in front of it and start a round it's a much different story. If you're able to put your brain on auto-pilot and don't put too much actual thought into it, you'll just kind of...do it. I didn't expect to be able to pass an 8 (not sure what the highest difficulty is on jubeat, but unless you're talking about Pop'n, 8 is usually a pretty high number!) on my second time playing the AC version. Bloody good fun.
Speaking of 8's, I played DJ MAX Technica while I was there, too. I tried the PS Vita version of it and ran into much the same problem that I did with jubeat: the game was there and intact, but everything was cramped. With the screen being nice and large, I was able to clear Blythe normal, which is an 8. Looking back, I have no idea why I only played one round of that. That game was really fun.
So yeah, I had a ton of fun. I might try to make a monthly pilgrimage out of that (weather permitting, of course).
