jubeat (AC) (International)

Yes it is?

Bump: If anyone wants me to get any information from tomorrow, it's best to state it now. I will be leaving at around 9:30am BST, so best to state it in the next 10 hours.

Check for new licenses.

Ask about Doubles

...seriously

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So me, Alan, Airmarshal and Mercury all played UBeat at the UK test.
£1 for 2 songs. Tutorial will always be shown at the beginning (but it is skippable). You'll be guaranteed to play the 2 songs no matter if you failed your 1st. Same as the US test songwise. You can change the markers into 7(iirc) different settings. IMO it's the easiest Bemani game, as I already cleared a 9 in my 5th credit.

Oh, and on the sides, if you looked closely you can see the word 'jubeat'.

Pictures are up.

Snow's "Informer" is in there?!?!?! Holy ****!

Here's my quick review of the UK location test of Jubeat:

Songlist:

VERY solid set of licences I've ever seen in any Bemani game, and what's better: NO COVERS! Maybe it's a localised songlist? (since there is no J-pop songs etc which personally is a good thing)
Notable songs include Give Me Up, Venus, YMCA, Scatman, Barbie Girl, Take On Me, Sandstorm, Kiss Kiss (Chris Brown feat T-Pain :O), Set U Free, etc.
Also included are some Konami originals including the can-can song, Snow Goose, Polaris, etc. (Presumably the same KOs in the US and Jap releases?)
The cabinet doesn't have any unlocks, so Giga Break isn't accessible.

Menus:

Attract loop lets you view the songlist in the jukebox with previews
When starting, machine asks you to select Local or Online Mode - I suspect this is e-amuse related, despite there being no e-amuse card reader installed (blank faceplate in its place).
Afterwards it starts a tutorial which cannot be instantly skipped, though this tutorial is the only place in the game that shows your timing judgements (ie, Early, Good, Perfect, Late). The tutorial is completed when the player gets 8 perfects or uses the Skip button.
In the songlist pressing on the selected song will cycle the three difficulties, Basic (iirc), Advanced and Extreme.
Options menus include "Touch Marker" (can't remember exactly what it was called) which allows the user to select the 'noteskin' for the panels, of which the default one seemed very difficult to determine precisely when to touch. One of the alternative ones that fills in each block from the border towards the centre is the easiest one to read for me.
Other options include "Display Score" which is presumably for eamuse again which didn't appear to do anything, and "Display Tag" (?) which again is eamuse related.

Cabinet:

Panels are quite sensitive, display is very bright. I noticed it is one big widescreen display mounted sideways, presumably to keep cabinet cost down?

One thing I will mention is the panels don't take kindly to liquids being spilled on them. Drinks for example will get under the panels and the dried residue will stay underneath, which looks VERY noticeable. Also liquids will screw up the panels completely, rendering the game unplayable until they have dried.

Gameplay:

Similar to games like Fighting Mania, touch when it tells you to, along with "First Touch" indicators before the song starts to ready your initial hand position.
The notecharts follow logical patterns throughout each song. Often the same patterns repeat towards the end of each song which is a nice touch.
Progress bar along the bottom with block heights (resembling the density of notes) is useful. It shows the places players have missed, ie broke combo.
Generally it has a VERY easy learning curve, for instance I was passing level 6 songs on my first credit and level 9 sightreads on my fifth.
Grading system does not have a 100% grade, (ie, a pre-DDRSN2 AAA or "SS") would that hamper competitive play?

Competitive gameplay:

Two-player mode (since there was only 2 cabinets there) requires both players to play the same song on the same difficulty. First person to pick their song and difficulty decides. Personally the difficulty selection should be independent, like in DDR versus.
No highscore tables throughout the game. A per-song highscore table (similar to DDR SN1 or ITG) would be nice. It would also encourage competitivity which would strengthen the game's longevity etc.

Other:

There is some engrish on the cabinet, though not too much - pacemaker warning tells players: "Keep you at least 22cm away"
E-amuse card slot is blanked out so no e-amuse here.

UBeat is the "working title" of the game; will it still be called UBeat on release?

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By working title they meant the game is under construction. Location test report wise, it's pretty much the same as what Mercury said.

Other notes will include:

The version number was H44:E:A:A:20080908.
Two songs for £1. (~$1.8 / 200yen)

Song List

Barbie Girl / (cover) / 2 5 9
Crosswind / Mutsuhiko Izumi / 3 6 8 NEW!
GIVE ME UP / MICHAEL FORTUNATI / 1 5 7
Happy Happy / ki☆ki / 2 6 9
I'M IN THE MOOD FOR DANCING / (cover) / 2 5 7
informer / snow / 2 5 9
Jambalaya / (cover) / 2 4 7 NEW!
Jumping Boogie / Kozo Nakamura / 4 7 9
Kiss Kiss / Chris Brown featuring T-Pain / 2 3 6
Orpheus In The Underworld / Mutsuhiko Izumi / 3 7 9
Polaris / Mutsuhiko Izumi / 3 6 9
Rock Around the Clock / (cover)? / 3 6 8 NEW!
Sandstorm / (no artist named) / 3 8 9
Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop) / Scatman John / 3 4 6
Set You Free / (cover) / 3 6 9
Snow Goose / Mutsuhiko Izumi / 4 7 9
Special One / kors k / 3 6 7
take on me / a-ha / 2 6 7
Venus / (cover) / 2 6 8
Y.M.C.A. / VILLAGE PEOPLE / 3 6 7

Total: 20 songs.

NEW! means they weren't mentioned in the bemanistyle.com news post but are present in the UK location test.

You make it sound easy, yet Scatman looks tough and that's a 6.

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On another note, they localised the game for UK English, but the intro movie still has "favorite"...

Looks like they'll be lazy with Eu's version of Jubeat as well.

...*facepalm*

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I forgot to point out in my earlier post that the song selection menu is at reduced volume; hopefully Konami will fix this too

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If people didn't notice, I put the vids up here now.

Al, is the UBeat machine still testing in the U.K? I was wondering if you or someone else could kindly get a video footage of Kiss Kiss by Chris feat T-Pain.

If you guys can then that would be awesome, unless someone else has posted the song before...

I really want to try it so badly!

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If it's still there on the 24th, I'll get that for you.

registered just to let you know that the new location test songs are not new and they were present within the american location test

bms also got this wrong as well

i have a list of the songs that i posted the day of the first test which includes those songs and the post has yet to be unedited.

idk if it really matters but thought id let you know

Noted and changed, thanks for that.

So I played UBeat today, and i must say it is awesome! i had so much fun playing it that i was constantly hoping that Konami will release it in the end.
although, i still kind of sucked at it since the hardest song i could pass was Take on Me on advanced. and i had a bit of difficulty in seeing some other panels because my arm would be in the way of the bottom rows since I would've had to hit a panel at the top, and i messed up and etc. etc.

Still amazingly fun though. I gotta go back there to play again.

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i like the (j)Ubeat game myself...i hope i can still remember how to play all of the songs when i go back to japan...






thats what ¥1000 gets ya in some arcades in .co.jp...

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jubeat staff have announced in their blog that a soundtrack will be made for the game.