The Rhythm Keyboard Action Era (Golden)
When I heard from my friends who play this next generation rhythm game, I am immediately alarmed. This was considered to be one of the rhythm games that require to connect to the Internet to play. Basically, it is a semi-F2P online rhythm game.
O2Jam is a no-ordinary rhythm game after all. It has featured some capabilities in which it has matched my interest. It features some ‘avatar’ system in which you will customize your avatar by buying or purchasing some items in the shop. Somehow, it was similar to a 2D/3D online chat game in which I remember in the past.
I mentioned that it was a semi-F2P online rhythm game. It is because you need to purchase some locked songs with real money currency. About 50% of the songs in O2Jam are free-to-play, while the other half must be purchased using real money currency, or in-game real money currency, rather. Also, in order to play that song hosted by your opponent, in which you don’t even have it yet, you need to unlock that song by downloading it, assuming that you already purchased that song.
By that time, I started playing O2Jam around year 2005. I started playing on a lower difficulty setting just to test if I can really handle playing it. Only the PC keyboard can be used to play, and I can notice the difference by playing on a different play speed. To even further test myself, I play on an Easy difficulty with a very fast play speed. This can test my accuracy, as well as my timing with the beat. I can master and navigate some songs on an Easy difficulty with a higher play speed, and I sometimes challenge my friends by playing on that setting.
Furthermore, I can advance myself by playing the same songs, but this time on a higher difficulty setting (Normal and Hard). For every difficulty setting, there is a song level (i.e. Normal difficulty song level for that selected song is at Level 8, while Hard setting on that song is at Level 15). Song level varies on each difficulty on each song. Some songs at higher difficulty or song level are very easy to finish and to land a Full Combo, while some are very deadly and difficult that only few people can finish and land a Full Combo. I am one of the guys who can play up to Hard difficulty sentence, but never get to land a Full Combo very much. And also, I can play on Hard difficulty, but I can play and finish some songs with song level up to Level 15. Beyond 15, I can still finish a song, but sometimes can fail to finish it.
When I practice, I play a song that I should master until I get a Full Combo. When I already mastered it, that’s the time I can get to challenge some people or with my friends online. There are two ways to win at O2Jam: one, by landing a Full Combo and have a higher score than your opponents; two, your opponents have exhausted their stamina by failing to clear the song and you continue to win. I can lose to some opponents when they landed a Full Combo than I do (when I missed one lone note at the end, then it’s a GG), or even we both landed a Full Combo, but my opponent’s score is bit higher than my score due to the amount of Perfects(Cool) accumulated.
O2Jam was considered to be my best rhythm game to play if I am really into music. I lost my motivation to play since a lot of new songs have been released, as well as harder beat maps and notes formation. Also, in order to advance to a higher player level, you must complete a given Player Level mission. Otherwise, if you fail, you cannot advance or gain EXP to level up to next player level. But that doesn’t stop there. I just need to explore and study more about playing rhythm games.
O2Jam servers are closed down, meaning that I cannot play them online anymore (Only, in the present, mobile versions of this game are available to play). But then, the game was kept alive by players who make private servers or clones, or even making a custom O2Jam simulator wherein you can play the game without having an Internet connection; the only thing you need is to import some songs. Also, there is a software in which you can import your own song by editing or creating your own beat map, and then you import them to the offline O2Jam emulator/simulator.
