Ez2on Song List

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Anita Damelio

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Aug 3, 2024, 4:59:24 PM8/3/24

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R U READY 2 GO INSIDA DJ BOX?EZ2DJ is a South Korean Rhythm Game franchise that is pretty much to beatmania what Pump It Up is to DanceDance Revolution. It is very much like the original 5-key Beatmania series (or, more specifically, beatmania III), in terms of overall gameplay and controls, with five piano keys, a turntable (positioned on the outside ends of the decks a la IIDX rather than always being to the right of each player's keys), and a foot pedal. However, there is also a row of four effector buttons at the top center of the control deck: a 7-key mode adds a pair of these buttons to each player's keys. Its hardest songs easily rival those of beatmania IIDX in terms of sheer difficulty. The games are also known for their "Radio Mix" course modes, where the player plays through a set of four songs with charts unique to these courses.

After its eventual staff tested the waters with a Game Mod of 7th Trax known as Azure Expression, a studio known as Square Pixels would subsequently develop new arcade releases under the title EZ2AC - maintaining the existing EZ2DJ cabinets, but refreshing the engine with a more polished user experience and quality of life enhancements, relatively newer PC hardware to replace the Microsoft Windows 98 powered systems used on previous versions, and new songs.

In the meantime, a studio known as Retro Games developed a now-defunct, online-multiplayer PC port akin to DJMax Online known as EZ2ON. Rather than port the game mechanics from the arcade games wholesale, the EZ2ON series features original charts with 4-, 5-, 6-, and 8-key modes, along with original songs in addition to songs ported from the arcade games. The first edition of EZ2ON, RETRO EZ2ON, was released in 2008 and service was terminated less than a year later in 2009. EZ2ON REBOOT was released in 2013 in an attempt to reboot the game, but service was terminated within the same year. In August 2019, Neonovice acquired the rights to ez2on, and launched a remake known as EZ2ON REBOOT : R on Steam as an Early Access game in March 2021 worldwide, making it the first time an EZ2DJ game was released outside of South Korea. It largely draws from the previous EZ2ON games, some of the new songs from FINAL EX, and licenses from BMS musicians. The first DLC expansion was released in September 2021, based on EZ2AC: Time Traveler, featuring songs from it and its graphical skins. The game exited Early Access on April 14, 2022 for an official release, with day-1 DLC packs released alongside it.

A related game, Sabin Sound Star, features similar gameplay and shares many of the same songs with the EZ2DJ series, with the key difference being that instead of turntables, there are large circular buttons to the side of and above the five main keys. It had two versions, the first one in 2010 and another one, Sabin Sound Star: Renasence Burst in 2012.

Embedded Precursor: 6thTRAX features a gameplay mode called "Remember 1st?", which loads up The 1st TRACKS. As in, the game hardware exits to Windows to launch a separate executable.
Enemy Mine: In "Kings", the chainsaw-wielding human starts off fighting the demonic humanoid in what seems to be an effort to rescue a Distressed Damsel. However, while they're fighting, a giant monster takes the girl captive, causing the human and the demon to team up to fight it...only to get knocked out instantly. However the girl suddenly activates some sort of latent power and destroys the monster with a machinegun, saving both of them.
Fake Difficulty: The arcade versions' timing windows are actually pixel-based rather than time-based, meaning that faster songs have more difficult timing windows. REBOOT : R uses millisecond-based timing instead, but the arcade version judgement is used for some higher-difficulty courses, called "X" judgement.
Gaiden Game: EZ2ON features a lot of the same trademarks and songs of the arcade games, but features different control schemes that use the home position keysnote on a QWERTY keyboard, these are A, S, D, F, J, K, L, and ; rather than trying to replicate the arcade controls, and different charts as a result.
Gimmick Level:
The Codename Violet modes in EZ2AC games feature charts with non-standard design, such as one with only scratch notes, far more chords than should be acceptable in a rhythm game chart, and EZ2Catch charts where the player has to AVOID the objects instead of catching them (in a manner reminiscent of a Bullet Hell game or Endless Running Game). Or, did you think 14K mode wasn't horrific enough? Here's 16K mode, which uses all 10 primary keys, both turntables, all 4 effects, and both pedals!
In EZ2ON REBOOT and REBOOT : R, "Sudden Death" has extremely simple charts on all difficulties...but with absurdly strict timing windows. On Easy, the window for a Kool is 10 milliseconds, and on Super Hard, it's 2 milliseconds.
Harder Than Hard: The game may have "EZ" in its title, but much like its Japanese counterpart, it is nowhere near easy at its hardest levels. If a song's SHD difficulty is simply a skull and crossbones, you know you're in for a good time.
Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The EZ2DJ era was full of these, such as "Ruby Mix" (easy), "Street Mix", "Radio Mix", "Club Mix", etc. EZ2AC cleaned up most of these in favor of more typical style names (i.e. 5K, 7K, 5K Only, 10K, 14K).
Minigame Credits:
"An Old Story" (7th Trax), "White Out" (Evolve), "The Moments" (NT), and "#BEYOND" (TT) contain the credits rolls for their respective versions as their BGAs. Oddly, the last two were not even added to the game during their respective lifecycles, but in surprise 2020 patches to NT and TT released shortly before Final EX.
"An Old Story" had its BGA replaced with a generic video on later versions of 7th, but got a new video when revived on Final, which similarly featured a medley of generic videos, and an ending featuring a "then and now" mix of photos of an EZ2DJ 7th Trax cabinet, and one refurbished with EZ2AC artwork.
Mood Dissonance: In the background animation of Common Story in EZ2ON, people are having a club dance party underwater using Artificial Gill gear, right after their airplane crashes into the sea. Some dead bodies of unlucky passengers floating on the sea are shown at the end, making it more dissonant.
Mythology Gag:
The "get/ready/start" sounder is taken from the intro of the 1st Tracks song "The Rhythm"
The circle note option uses sprites originating from ez2Dancer, particularly from the hand sensor notes.
Codename Violet modes have been present as a secret mode since Night Traveler ("2.0", becoming "2.5" on Time Traveler and Final), housing hidden charts, and even using the old gameplay interface and results screens from said version.
Nintendo Hard:
The 7-key modes are naturally trickier due to the design of the deck, the effector keys are diagonally above the main piano keys (much like IIDX cabinets, the turntables are on opposing sides). This is without getting into Double Play modes that require the use of all 10 main keys, all 4 effector keys, and both turntables! (Though the 14-key mode takes the foot pedal out of the equation entirely, at least.) Beyond that, scoring is no joke, as to get a Kool (the best possible judgement), you have to be within 1/32 of a measure, which translates to about a 10-18 millisecond window, with that window getting smaller at higher speeds.
EZ2ON may not have the complex controls of its arcade counterpart, but it still has very complex charts at its highest levels, and it still has relatively strict timing windows when playing in Standard mode, but at least they're no longer BPM-based (23 milliseconds for a Kool, to be exact; for reference, in most rhythm games, the window for the highest possible note rating is about 33-35 milliseconds).
No Fair Cheating:
In REBOOT : R, pausing and resuming a song in Standard mode will break your combo and you won't be able to save replays. If you still clear the song without missing any notes, you won't get All Combo status, but instead No Miss. This is to prevent players from Pause Scumming their way to an All Combo.
One of the chart modification settings is Anti-Roll Random, a variant of Super Random (which changes the column of each note) that tries to minimize "jackhammer" (multiple notes in the same column in succession). As stated in the descrption for the mod, any scores achieved with it won't count.
Nostalgia Level: In REBOOT : R's O2Jam Collaboration, every 7-key chart from the two collab courses is lifted straight from O2Jam itself.
Retraux:
Various gameplay UI themes from older versions are accessible as options on current iterations.
REBOOT : R also has UI themes based on Codename Violet, Time Traveler, and Final EX ("Quantum Complex"), although this mainly effects the main menu, sound effects, and menu music
Scoring Points: The series has had multiple scoring systems over the years:
Most of the earlier games use a scoring system in which KOOL is worth 170 points, COOL is worth 100 points, and GOOD is worth 40 points. There's also a combo multiplier that's...

This page lists all the artists that have composed for Arcaea, along with their nationalities, groups, and social media accounts. Please note that they are listed by in-game name; in other words, if someone uses two different aliases (like siromaru and INNOCENT NOIZE) their songs will only be listed under the appropriate name. (up to date as of mobile v5.7.0 / Switch v2.0).