Gamemodes

Table of Contents

• Intro
• Normal
• Friend
• Battles
  • Single battle
  • Arena battle
  • Megamix battle
• Premium Time
• Blaster Start
• Skill Analyzer

Intro

There are a couple different gamemodes other than just normal play. In this section, we will go over each one and what they are and what the difference between them all are.

Normal

Normal, or a normal play is the default play for Sound Voltex. Usually, this is the cheapest option. There exist 2 types of normal play, light and standard play. Light can be cheaper, but has some downsides.

• Light start doesn’t have S-Crits, or ARS along with some other options
• There is a max of 3 songs per credit, the ex-track bar does not go up
• If you fail a song, your credit will end
• There are level restrictions depending on what dan you are. The lower the dan, the higher the level of restrictions. Only on the last song will you be able to play any chart regardless of the level

If you are in the US, most likely light and standard are the same amount of credits. There is no point in ever choosing light in that case.

After selecting a song, you will go into matching. Here you can wait for someone to join you or just skip by pressing both FX buttons.

Friend

Friend is how you can play with another person at your arcade. Friend is only local meaning that both you and your friend have to be at the same arcade on two machines. This game mode works similarly to Normal play.

Once in, you both will see a song selection and can select a song. You will be able to see everything you both have unlocked, so for example if Person A doesn’t have 666 but Person B does, Person A will be able to see and select 666. Once someone selects something, it will show up on the other screen for them to choose what difficulty they want to play at. After selecting, you both will go into matching together.

You can play a max of 3 credits together regardless of whether you both get an ex-track or not. If you get an ex-track, it will act as if you are just doing a normal credit.

Battles

Battles is how you can play with other people from anywhere. There are 3 different types of battles, Arena battle, Single battle, and Megamix battle. For all of these there is a choice of Online or Local. Local means only people in your arcade while online means anyone from anywhere can match. When choosing online, you will be forced to put in a 6-digit code, and everyone who wants to join the room also has to put in this 6-digit code.

Single battle

Match with one other person. Each person selects the chart they want to play. After selected, it is randomly decided whos chart goes first. Whoever scores higher wins and gets a star. The final chart is randomly selected, but usually is around the difficulty that was played.

Arena battle

Match with up to 4 people. Each person selects the chart they want to play. After everyone selects, it then chooses a random chart from the ones selected. You can choose what difficulty you want to play at and then start.

At the end of the chart, whoever was 1st will get 2 stars and whoever was second will get 1 star. Whoever has the most stars by the end of the 4 charts wins.

If you don’t have enough people to fill the lobby, it will be filled with CPUs. The CPUs will pick a random chart that is typically around the level you were playing.

Megamix battle

Megamix battles are a completely different kind of battle. Megamix battles are 1v1 battles in which each person selects 5 charts that they want to play. Unlike the other battles, the chart difficulty you select will be the one played by both players. In total, 10 charts will be selected. Depending on who you are, you will choose the intro or outro chart.

Once in, the intro chart selected will play. After the round, player 2 will get to choose a chart from the 5 charts that he selected on the touchscreen. You can also select mirror from here as well. Besides the intro and outro chart, you can only select a chart once.

There are 12 rounds, with each round consisting of about 30 seconds of a portion of the chart selected. Whoever scores better on that portion wins a point. If you tie, you both get a point.

There is a exceed gear meter that will build up and can be seen on the right side of the screen. The gauge is built up as you play. Before any chart starts, pressing “EXCEED” on the touchscreen will activate the “EXCEED” mode. “EXCEED” mode does a couple of things.

• Scoring is now based on ex-score instead of normal scoring. Meaning, that you can PUC a chart, but if your exscore is worse then you will still lose.
• Since scoring is based on ex-score, the ex-score is converted into a normal score. So, while it still shows up as a normal score, even if you PUC, you won’t get a 10,000,000 unless you S-PUC.
• If you win while in your exceed mode, you will gain bonus points depending on what level your exceed was. The higher the level the exceed, the more points.
• If you lose, your exceed will be shut down and you will gain no points. Your opponent will only gain 1 point.
• There is a built in comeback mechanic with exceed where if you are behind, you will gain more gauge for your exceed. The farther behind you are, the faster it builds up.
• Exceed mode will always activate on the last round no matter if you pressed it or not. Both players will use what is left of their exceed gauge.

There are a lot of things that go into this mode that are much better explained by just watching gameplay of it. If you are confused, I would highly recommend watching some gameplay. Here are some really good players playing Megamix.

• Neardayo vs DDX 
• Potesatsu playing megamix update for the first time 
• YU11 vs STR and whole megamix playlist 
• Neardayo vs EmoCosine 

Some other small things to note about Megamix

• Not all charts are available for Megamix. Noteably recent charts are usually not in megamix. Konami does sometimes add all the new charts to Megamix.
• Gimmicks from boss charts like 666 lane split, Lachyrma lane disappear, and other gimmicks do not show up.
• There are no lane speed changes. So charts that normally have soflan are just played at whatever lane speed you are set to.

Premium Time

Premium time is usually the more expensive option. This comes with some perks with the main one being that you can play all you want for 10 minutes.

Pros

• 10-minute timer instead of a set amount of tracks
• All the features of standard start
• Can exit a chart at any time by pressing both fx and start
• Can instantly retry a chart by holding both fx and start
• Can set a challenge where you will automatically crash out if you can no longer achieve the challenge (For example, if I set it to PUC challenge and then got a near, It would crash me out)
• Pressing all BT buttons on Song Select can end your credit early

Cons

• No blaster gate
• Because of no blaster gate, can’t unlock any songs that make use of the blaster gauge
• More expensive

Premium time is nice for when you are grinding for a score or clear on a chart and want to be able to play and repeat the chart multiple times.

Blaster start

Blaster start is usually the same price as a premium time. Blaster Start is mainly used to unlock stuff. Blaster start acts as a normal start, meaning 3-4 charts, no resetting, etc. The main difference is that your blaster gauge is always full for all 3-4 charts. So, you can unlock multiple Blaster Gate/Omega Dimension/Hexadiver charts in one credit.

It is recommend to do blaster starts only when you have or are about to get a ex-track since ex-track is not gurenteed in blaster start.

Note for Hexadivers, on the Akasha and Don't you dare play GOD Hexadivers, you can only go in them one time per credit. So if you used your first track on unlocking something in one of those Hexadivers, you will not be able to access either of them for the rest of the credit. This only applies to those two Hexadivers.

You can learn more about Hexadivers here

Skill Analyzer

If you are familiar with other rhythm games, Skill Analyzer is essentially the dan of this game. It is a gauntlet of 3 songs that you have to beat in a row while keeping your gauge. Once you hit 0% gauge you fail the course.

When selecting the skill analyzer, you can choose what dan you would like to challenge. This is shown at the top. In the dan, you can choose from different courses you would like to try. You can see the 3 songs that will be in the course and what your current best score and completion is. Note that if you don’t have the songs unlocked, you won’t be able to play the course.

To gain access to the 神 dan, or the final dan, you first have to beat any course from the 11th dan skill analyzer.

Pressing all four BT buttons at the same time will activate DIVINE RATE, which is a much harder version of the normal gauge. This gauge will only restore on S-CRITS and nears will penalize the gauge.

There are different styles of frames you can obtain.

• Silver wings: Clear the latest course to come out.
• Gold wings: Clear all courses
• Halo: Clear all courses with a specified achievement rate or higher as shown in the table below

Having a higher dan will increase your restriction level in normal light start.