DJ Max Portable 2 for PSPWritten by Hypr If there is any reason why music game lovers should get a PSP, DJ Max Portable 2 easily makes the list as one of the top reasons. DJ Max Portable 2 is a music game developed by Pentavision that is pack-loaded with lots of rewarding content, making this game worth replaying over endlessly. As a music game, DJ Max Portable 2 couldn't have started off the game much more beautifully; as soon as the game publisher logos go away, players are presented with a superb animated musical introduction of Sound Miracle performing Ruby Tuesday's "Your Own Miracle", which gives a glimpse of style of many songs presented in the game. The intro of DJ Max Portable 2, where Elle is the singer in Sound Miracle Speaking of songs, all the composers have invented their own styles, such as Techno Pop, Urban Funk, and Synth Drum-and-Bass, bringing fresh new music that almost no average music listener has heard before. Each composer has certainly done an outstanding job with their work, and not to mention the vocals of JC, So Fly, and Miya compliment the musical performance perfectly. Check out Forte Escape's "Another Day" sung by Miya, and Bexter's "Syriana" with JC's rapping. Even though DJ Max Portable 2 is a music game that focuses on magnificent sound, it also focuses on superb graphics as well. Each song is accompanied with a fitting background animation movie. The high-energetic song "Syriana" is illustrated in a speedy gangster-style movie, and the blissful song "Another Day" is portrayed in a beautiful snow environment of a childhood memory. By combining beautiful animations with outstanding musical talents, DJ Max Portable successfully appeals to both eyes and ears of players. The gameplay mechanics are quite simple. After selecting the song you want to play, the notes scroll down and you must time your keypresses to the corresponding column as each note hits the target line. Each button triggers a key sound of that certain column, as if you are playing a musical instrument, which adds to the song itself. As you hit successive notes, you develop a combo which is displayed in the play area. Larger combos give you a better score, so maintaining your combo is imperative if you want to do well in this game. Should you miss a note however, your combo gets reset to zero, and you will take damage on your health bar. Miss too many notes, and it's game over for you! As notes fall down, you must time your keypresses once they reach the target line at the bottom to develop your combo.As you play the song, the background animation movie plays as well to fit the mood. Along with combos, another factor that affects your score is accuracy. Accuracy pertains to how well you time your keypresses, depending on whether you are timing them right, or you are pressing the buttons too early or too late. The MAX % indicator will tell you how accurate you are for each note you press; if you have the right timing, you will receive "MAX 100%" judgment, which gets you the most points for that note. Obtaining "MAX 100%" judgments is now more important in this game (compared to the prequel) due to a new feature introduced which changes the entire gameplay dynamics - Fever Mode. Each "MAX 100%" judgment helps you build up the Fever bar, and once that Fever bar is full, you can activate Fever Mode by pressing X, and your combo and score is then multiplied starting with a factor of 2. Fill up the Fever bar and activate it again, and you will activate an x3 multiplier. This goes all the way up to x5 which will help you rack your combo and score to ridiculous amounts, thus obtaining a 4000 combo in one song is even quite feasible. But you have to be aware of the limits of Fever Mode: Fever is active for certain duration of time (which can only be reset by activating Fever in succession within the time limit), missing too many notes will kill the Fever time fast, and reaching x4 and x5 Fever multipliers also increases the note-scrolling speed (which is the rate at which the notes fall to the target line.) Activate the power of Fever which multiplies your combo and score! DJ Max Portable 2 also features an equipment system, in which you can purchase (with gold) and equip a gear, avatar, and note to take advantage of their effects, such as more health, earning more gold at end of each session, and auto which converts a missed note into "MAX 1%" so you can still retain your combo. Unlike the prequel, there is no "absolute best" gear/avatar/note set; each equipment has their pros and cons, so your choice of what equipment set to use should depend on what strategy you have. For example, if you want to go for the highest score possible, rack up Fever bonuses so that you can get a head start on your first Fever, otherwise, if you just want to survive a hard song, select a high HP gear with high Tech rate (for HP recovery), and an Auto avatar. Strategizing your equipment set is especially crucial when you take on XTreme Challenge mode that requires you to undertake a marathon course of songs in which you have to obtain certain goal requirements to pass. The equipment menu screen where you can purchase equipment. Each equipment has their own unique effects and bonuses. In Xtreme Challenge, each course has their assigned goal(s) for you to meet in order to pass the challenge, such as obtaining a certain combo or score, or obtaining x amount of Fevers in succession. Passing each Xtreme Challenge course yields an award, which is usually an equipment item unlocked available for purchase, or a new song available in stage mode (which can then be unlocked in Freeplay mode). While many of these courses are tough (especially "Just 1%" in which you have to obtain Fever 3 times while not getting MAX 1%), the rewards earned from completing Xtreme Challenge courses make it all worthwhile, not to mention that Xtreme Challenge helps you improve as a DJ Max player! Take on Xtreme Challege courses to unlock more rewards! Besides equipment and more songs, other neat stuff like wallpapers can also be unlocked within the game as well. Wallpapers can be downloaded off the game to your memory stick, in which you can apply to your PSP screen, or use for your own graphic creations! The requirement to unlock wallpaper of a certain song is simple: just 'Max-Combo' the song in any button and difficulty mode. The others can be unlocked through random challenges that appear on Stage Mode, in which you will be asked to full-combo the assigned song. Wallpaper collection. You can decorate your PSP homescreen with these! Other extra features worthy of mentioning are the OST Mode and the MV Edition. The OST mode is practically a jukebox feature in which you can listen to all the tunes within the game itself, just like listening to your songs on your iPod or Zune. MV Edition allows you to view and watch background animations of any songs without having to play the song's notechart at the same time. These two features give a great way for players to take a break from mashing notes and just relax to the nice music and visuals. OST Mode. Whenever you need to take a break from this game, why not listen and enjoy the game's tunes? However, despite all the superb qualities, there were a few things that kept DJ Max from becoming a perfect game. One of them is the lack of tutorial mode. As hard as Pentavision tried to make this game easier for beginners, the 4-button mode alone just doesn't cut it as beginners will find the game, even on 4-button mode (which is the easiest mode offered), quite frustrating since they will have trouble coordinating with the buttons to columns, as well as timing. As beginners struggle with this game, they will play terribly, which makes the song sound awful (due to mistimed keynotes), which effectively discourages beginners to continue on. Another quality that could hurt native-english speaking players is that some of the songs have Korean lyrics. DJ Max Portable 2 was solely made for Korea, so songs with Korean lyrics should be expected from a Korean game-publishing company. Thankfully, most of the songs are in English (though not grammatically perfect) which shouldn't alienate English-speaking players too much. If players can get passed the Korean lyrics and just enjoy the music, then putting up with Korean songs should be little to no problem at all. Summary: The Good: Superb graphics and sound, very responsive controls, top-notch kinetic gameplay, and outstanding replayability, which makes this a very fun music game to play on your PSP. On top of that, lots of rewards are offered within this game, and the music is very enjoyable to jam and listen to. The Bad: Not beginner-friendly, which means there is a huge learning curve for beginning players to overcome. Also, some songs have Korean lyrics in it, but the music (thankfully) is still magnificent and enjoyable to jam to for those songs! Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars. (40/50 if you want to use the terrible rubric system)
Very good review Hypr. Well written, good visuals. I've played DJ Max before and while I thought it was fun and I loved the music, it's just when I got anywhere after 5 buttons, I lost, I eventually deleted it off the PSP because the game schooled me too many times to count so I gave in. If it's not accepted through the rating system I'll be disappointed. [me=Natewlie]points at my reviews[/me]
Great review, Hypr! You get straight to the point on the details of the game, and it's coupled with nice visual representation. I have a question though, how are you level 99 with no wins or losses? This is another excellent example of a game review that doesn't really need the full extent of a rating system.
I never liked 5-button mode myself since the middle-key is controlled by two buttons, which either one can trigger the middle column. In fact, I find the 6-button mode much more painless and straightforward compared to the 5-button mode, not to mention that the charts for 6-button mode are more fun and well-designed compared to 5-button mode charts. Network battles are not needed to level-up. Speaking of which, you can level-up much faster by taking on high-level Xtreme Challenge courses. And thank you two for your feedback.
Looks like my review is accepted. To the person that accepted this (you know who you are), you have my utmost thanks. I'll go ahead and get started on another review.
