DJMAX Respect V

I was introduced to DJMAX what seems to be ages ago when a rhythm game player came to me and asked if I can try the game out. I was like 'sure, why not'. What I did not know was that he let me play the hardest song in the game and see how I'd do. I cleared the song to his astonishment. I asked what the game it was and that is how I discovered DJMAX. It became one of my most played games on PSP.

Wait, another vertical scrolling rhythm game?

DJMAX is a game that had a very big following and could have reached mainstream if it was released on more platforms earlier. That decision came rather late. Relatively recently DJMAX made it to PC, that is with DJMAX Respect V. DJMAX is a vertical scrolling rhythm game with several button modes. You can start with 4 button play, progress to 5 buttons, then 6 buttons and eventually end up playing 8 buttons. Apart pressing the regular buttons there might appear a slide note from time to time, there are two slide notes (mapped to Shift keys on PC) and they add little bit more complexity to the game. Since this is a game that was meant to be played with d-pad and buttons the song charts are made the way that it is possible to play them with these - players used to play rhythm games meant for keyboard play may wonder why there's just certain combinations used in the charts.

There are long notes in the game that you need to press as well, just hold them and release them on time. Each note be it a regular note or long note are being judged - you get judgment from 1% to 100% depending on how close to being on time you were. The timing windows are actually huge which makes it easier to hit a note (if you miss by a chance you can just press it again to still hit it).

The timing in the game is very lax (feels even more lax compared to the PSP games). It is the combo, as in many Korean games, that counts the most with you keeping max Fever going. There is a Fever bar that fills with each note confirmation, when it gets full you need to activate it to get a 2x multiplier. Then you continue to fill it again. When you fill it and activate it in time you get a higher multiplier for everything (3x). The maximum multiplier you can get is 5x which will stay for as long as you manage to fill the bar and activate Fever in time.

Each song has a difficulty shown in stars. It ranges from the easiest 1 to the hardest 15 for the 'playstation control' charts. There is another scale marked SC which is meant for keyboard play and starts around 3 and goes to 15 as well and will introduce a playstation player to more patterns and chord combinations making it even way harder - a PC VSRG player will find these SC difficulties more familiar. Note that a SC 3 charts is more like playstation 8 in terms of difficulty.

There are several modes in which you can play, there is Air that lets you play a randomly chosen song or just watch and comment on it. There's Freestyle mode where you can pick any song you want and get the best score. Then there's Online play where you play against other players either using a ladder system or just playing for fun. Lastly there is Mission mode in which you complete a set of songs with certain modifiers or conditions.

So much music
DJMAX offers a wide range of music styles. Many of the songs may be new to non-rhythm game players but there is a lot to choose from and the music is good. For rhythm game enjoyers there are DLCs from previous versions of the game including Technika but also from other rhythm games like Chunithm, Deemo, Muse Dash, Groove Coaster etc. The base game gives you over 150 tracks (there are free tracks added from time to time). All these songs have music videos that you can unlock and watch in the game as well.

DJMAX has style
Korean games tend to look great and DJMAX is not an exception. It looks simply great. It has a great style, and not just one. You can unlock more skins and also customize the look of in-game when you are actually trying to read the charts and pressing buttons. Not many games can rival the look of this game.

In order to unlock customizations including songs you need to fulfill certain criteria. There is a lot of achievements to get in the game and are neatly presented to you. Some may seem impossible to get but when you get them you will feel rewarded. There is no other game that motivated me enough to actually hunt the achievements!

Not everything is great...
DJMAX is a great game that offers a lot to the player but unfortunately there are few things to note. First the game uses anti-cheat Xigncode which requires an internet connection. There is no way to play the game offline or with a bad internet connection. Second thing to note is that the game is very expensive. To this date the total of the game including DLCs would total for me to 388EUR. It is for a lot of content though but there is even more content that is behind a paywall. Each season you can get 'free' stuff, even a skin if you finish all steps. That you can only get if you get a battle pass though. You can even pay for it to automatically unlock at the end of the season. Means throwing a lot of money at Neowiz.

The last thing I'm not fond of is the fact that Steam achievements expect you to have those expensive DLCs. Perfecting this game means a lot of money spent.

Verdict
You can clearly see that DJMAX was created with love. It has everything players could possibly hope for in a rhythm game. It is beautiful to look at, offers 150+ songs of various genres, has different button modes and game modes and gets many DLCs with more great music. So far it may be the only game coming from a different platform that runs without any issue on PC. Unfortunately the game needs constant internet connection and is rather expensive.

I can highly recommend this game to anyone who likes to press buttons at high speed.

Ren