Your memories of iM@S2! (Not the game stat)

[Virgofall]

As most of us probably know by now, One For All is coming out soon. Not to say this'll be a last hurrah for any one of us - I know I'll still be playing iM@S2 myself even after I get OFA - but with that, I wanted to ask you all what your favorite, least favorite, rage-inducing, etc. moments were for you when playing iM@S2 itself, if you have of course. (Speaking about in-game specifically. I'm sure for many of us actually getting the game itself was a fond memory, so...)

I'm a PS3 player.
I have to say that, for me, my favorite moments were when I managed to pull a Super-Break on fifth song (Me Ga au Toki) in my first Hyper run (talk about beginner's luck there, eh?) and when I managed to hit Lv10 Producer Rank (the gold card).
The most rage-inducing one? Losing a festival by a difference of only three points. (I think it was an Utahime-Utaouji, I don't remember - I just remember "thank god for retries". Doesn't make it any less annoying.)

Slightly less rage-inducing, but still annoying, was the vending machine, not because it was difficult (I knew this to begin with from reading other posts, at least) but because I realized that Cross and Circle gotten mixed up (Hey, the instructions said Circle, Circle wouldn't respond! I did figure out why though at least - somewhat, anyway) so I initially failed at cleaning the coffee spill. (And then realized why I failed the first Visual lesson in the process by extension - learned my lesson from that.)
I don't like Iori so much to repeat that stupid tutorial on every single playthrough, especially since I do not need to...

[DeviantProtagonist]

My first experience with iM@S 2? Rough, I would say.

When I first got the game, I've browsed through guides for orientation. Having some forethought, I began producing Miki, Hibiki and Takane at most three times, each of them as leaders -- that Beyond the Stars costume is such a beaut so I figured I might as well get that going first, before producing the likes of Chihaya, Makoto and Yukiho.

For starters, Miki was the first leader. When I said it was rough, it was verily so at first. Being my first play, I didn't really know better, whether it was spreading attention across all my idols or responding to their "afternoon activities" properly. I didn't think much of it at the time... up until they all started fighting. Miki would get at Hibiki, and vice versa; Takane was just straight up uncomfortable. So, I had to call it a day for them to cool off, and things went better from there; I wised up, we made fans, we finished concerts... yet in the end it was all for naught.

Yeah, turns out I got the Bad End. I never made 300,000 fans for the last festival, and it didn't occur to me that I could've only went for the Normal End upon completing one of those "boss festivals". I was absolutely gutted. It genuinely felt like I failed them, and I immediately saw myself as a horrible person... so I vowed to never get this ending again. For what it's worth, I kicked Jupiter's ass and got our song number 1. At the very least, I then took my experience and made amends when I produced Hibiki and Takane as leaders.

Hell, I even produced Miki a second time and made her happy, since I needed the first-completion achievement on my Japanese account for some items to carry over. Despite all the ups and downs I had with this unit, it felt real. Real in a sense that I went into a completely different world and had no real bearing on proper tasks as I would on subsequent playthroughs. What's more to this is that outside of the story, my subsequent tasks felt more and more autonomous since I pretty much know of the meta at this point. Quite a personal experience, I'd say.

I didn't suffer much with the vending machine, either, since I was running off a guide to help me make my way somewhat. Admittedly, I'd do the tutorial scene even on subsequent playthroughs since I find Iori's reaction adorable. That, and the gentlemen in me just had to appeal to her request. :3

[animagic4u]

I remember trying to play my first play through as if it were boxm@s (using my standard schedule and play style)...oh how foolish I was. I didn't understand the fests at all.
My best memory was finally figuring it out and taking my unit up to #2 in Do-Top for the first time. Although in that play through they never made first, it was such a relief to see I'd done something right for once.

[Haruka24]

I remember I got IM@S 2 for my 15th birthday from my mom and sister along with a ps3. I spend all day playing it and eating thanksgiving dinner, since they were on the same day. It was one of the best birthdays I ever had. My most rage inducing moment I had was the first time I was at the last fes against jupitar they keep on beating me by a couple of points so I changed the song to Ai LIKE Hamburger and I got them in a couple more tries. I remember I freaked out the most when I got a perfect promotion for the first time without a guide. I felt so proud of myself so I yelled "WOOHOO!" and my mom was in the room so I kind of felt like like a dork.  But it felt good. And I shall keep on playing it and hopefully get One for all one day.

[Naryoril]

Well, the most important memory about Im@s 2 for me is, that after about 7 playthroughs i really wanted to understand what was going on in the story. This was the cause that i seriously picked up my japanese studies again, after a break of about 13 years (with several attempts of self studying which i didn't keep up for long). That was about 2 and a half years ago. And this attempt was a great success, i'm able to play RPGs and Visual Novels in japanese now, as well as hold conversations about not so trivial topics (for example a year ago when i was diving in the moldives i talked to a japanese woman about diving). Yay!

Not to mention im@s 2 was basically the main reason i bought a PS3.

[BadBoy25]

My best memory was reaching the Do-top n1 position during my first run (thank you Break XD), totally unexpected. The worst was getting the bad end in the second run, I don't wanna see the girls cry like that again. Never. Later i did a new run with the same girls (Haruka, Yukiho and Chihaya) just to amend and make 'em happy with a good end.

[Cael K.]

Okay, so like... I haven't played this game in ages, ever since the XBox360 version, and I picked up the PS3 version last year when I was in Japan. It's been sitting around for a while, and yeah, I know... I'm a horrible fan. But I can make up for it!

Apparently, it's possible to Perfect IA on your very first playthrough (on Normal, at least), hit Top 1, and max out your image level, even if you really mess up and don't Top 20 until your third song, or if you mess up which lessons you do and end up wasting lessons on stats you'll never appeal to... all with minimal reloading (for journalists, perfect combos, Festival losses, and maybe a Break), no actual retries, and no DLC (except for the mail DLC, which may have helped a few times).

It was something I was wondering if I could do after I beat the game for the first time in the XBox360 version, and dang... I really can. Even after not playing the game for probably a few years.

And uh... while I'm at it, I'll do this myself.

[mariokirby]

Sorry, for necro-posting.  Just wanted to share some thoughts.

I decided to replay Idolm@ster 2 after beating it a little over 3 years ago for recording purposes (initially I said I wasn’t going to do that………but I lied).

The major thing I disliked about Im@s 2 was that it wasn’t straight forward unlike OFA.  Even after beating the game a long time ago, I was desperate to review the online guide again since I don’t remember almost anything.  And, the fact that time was limited in the game made it really important to know what you should be doing at the very beginning of the game.  Plus, the limited time (and random evening communications) made me paranoid enough to make sure I perfect everything from lessons to concerts (getting full combos).   I know it’s not necessary to perfect everything to get the true ending, but you get the point.

In One for All it’s more straight forward, and you don’t have to worry about messing up the entire game.  Of course, the repetitiveness and grinding could make you go crazy.

The rhythm mechanic, at least I felt, is stricter than in OFA.  In Im@s 2, you really have to focus and concentrate very well to score full combo or else you can easily slip up and ruin your score.  While in OFA you can do the general appeals while half concentrating.  Of course, it’s good they extend the frame window in OFA since festivals/concerts are more complex in OFA.

I also didn’t like the fact that in Im@s 2 I had to do a partial playthrough to gather some essential amulets before starting a new game with those amulets equipped at the beginning.  Luckily, I bought some DLC outfits long time ago, so I didn’t have to spend more time trying to buy better outfits.  I know the game is designed for multiple playthroughs, but I don’t like repeating the same stuff over and over again (which made OFA difficult to play).  Obviously, you can’t view scenes again once you been through them unless you start a new playthrough.

I read that some of the lessons in Im@s 2 were very similar to the past games.  The visual and dance lessons were okay.  But, the vocal lessons were tedious and required really quick, continuous reflexes with little room for error if you want a perfect bonus.  Yes, there were times where I had to repeat the entire week since it’s so easy to mess up the vocal lessons.  So, I was kind of glad they change the vocal lessons in OFA.

Even though Im@s 2 had fewer scenes than OFA, the scenes in Im@s 2 were much longer.  Maybe 2-3 times longer.

I recorded scenes in OFA, so I decided to do the same in Im@s 2 since I played it long time ago.  Of course, if I had a JP Xbox 360 or a PSP then I would have recorded scenes from Im@s 1 and SP (not sure if my recording device would work for a PSP) (Just realized that SP reuse some Im@s 1 routes but SP toned down/censored those reused routes.  So, I'm not interested in playing SP).  I don’t think L4U had much of a story mode according to the wiki.  Not sure if youtube has full playthroughs for those previous games.

My take home point is to try to play as many main games as possible (I know it’s not within everyone’s limit).  I don’t know Japanese, but I still enjoyed playing the main games.  (The biggest motivator for me obviously is because of Chihaya.  See signature for details)

EDIT: added more stuff