World 1-9 PNM Spotlight #3

Before we get to today's spotlight, let me give a tutorial on the game's interface. Please look at the the screen below:

Elements on the interface:

• Score - Speaks for itself. The maximum is 100,000.

• Combo - The maximum combo you've attained. 

• Character on the left: The character that represents you. Your character will react according to how well you do, whether you're doing well/missing or passed/failed the stage.

• Character on the right: The rival character. They react the opposite way compared to your character. So if you're missing, your rival character will react positively.

• Groove Gauge: A meter that fills when you hit the markers and decreases when you miss. You need to be in the red zone in order to pass the stage.

• Total Bad/Good/Great/Cool Count (below the Groove Gauge): Tells you how many notes have been judged Bad/Good/Great/Cool. Cools are only available when you're playing Cho-Challenge Mode. 

• Song Title (at the top): Speaks for itself.

Now the bottom right part of the interface is very important: 

The BPM states the tempo of the song. Some songs change their BPM mid song, and the speed the falling markers change accordingly.

The Hi-Speed (Blue) changes the speed of the falling markers in intervals of 0.5. This is extremely important, as it can make the difference between passing and failing the song. The higher the HS, the faster the markers fall, and makes the notes easier to read (but don't make it too fast!) For pros, I multiply the BPM with the HS to judge whether the markers are falling at the correct speed.

Hidden/Sudden (Yellow) changes how the markers appear and disappear. The markers disappear before the red line in Hidden, and the markers appear very close to the red line in Sudden. Hidden-Sudden is a combination of the two, giving you very little time to read the markers.

Pop (Green) changes what the falling markers look like. Beat-Pop turns markers into notes from the game Beatmania and Character Pop turns markers into an icon of the rival character.

Random/S-Random (White) changes the position of the falling markers. Random keeps the pattern of the markers but puts them in a different place, where S-Random changes the position of all the markers (which is useful to break up staircases.)

To the left of the coloured icons is the difficulty icon of the song (Normal, Hyper or EX). These icons are one of my favorite things of the game because they change from game to game.

Now with that out of the way, let's get on with today's spotlight!

Today's Spotlight:

From pop'n music 16 PARTY

Artist, Composition, Arrangement: ELEKTEL

BPM: 128 

Difficulty: Normal (21), Hyper (32), EX (38)

Rival Character: Izumi-san

Comment: A very lively song with very catchy vocals. I can just imagine myself in the café with some hot chocolate in my hands, listening to this song from a portable jukebox shape radio. By the way, I don't like coffee.

I've passed all the difficulties of this song, and I think the EX version was the first 38 I've passed. It's full of simultaneous pressing of 2-4 buttons, which is my strength. 

Since the tutorial was pretty taxing on my writing power, that's pretty much all I want to say about it, so let me share you that picture and let's call it a night.

And with that, see you in the next stage!