Phase FAQ Ver. 1.0 by Don "DiabloNeonX" Cassedy diabloneonx@gmail.com v. 1.0 written 5/11/2008 Obligatory Disclaimer: This FAQ was written by me. It is only authorized to be hosted on any website I create, www.gamefaqs.com, or www.gamespot.com Any unauthorized publication or reproduction will result in legal penalties.If you wish to host it, you may do so by contacting me first and obtaining my permission, provided that I am credited for the work and this FAQ is not altered in any way, shape, or form. Table of Contents 1: Introduction 2: Installation 3: Gameplay 4: Songs 5: Unlockables 6: Contact Information 7: Legal Information 1: Introduction Phase was developed by the wonderfully skilled team at Harmonix, the people responsible for developing Rock Band, and Amplitude, for the Apple iPod. If you've played Amplitude, Guitar Hero, or Rock Band, you'll have the general idea on how the game is played. The notes come at you and you have to hit the corresponding buttons. There is one little twist. There are also what are known as "sweeps" that you can collect for bonus points. I'll explain more later on in the FAQ. You can play through the default songs (there are 7 songs), or you can add songs from your iPod to create your own in-game playlist (up to 1000 songs). This gives Phase more replayability than any other rhythm game out there. 2: Installation Phase can be purchased from the Apple iTunes store for $4.99. It is compatible with the 3rd generation iPod Nano (or later) or the 5th generation iPod (or later). It is NOT compatible with the iPhone or the iPod Touch. Keep that in mind when purchasing. Installation is easy. First, connect your iPod to your PC or Mac (with iTunes open), and when the Devices tab opens on the left hand side, click on your iPod to bring up the Summary screen. From there, click the far right tab that says Games, then check the box for Sync games, then you can either choose the button for all games or selected games. If you choose selected games, check the check box for Phase, then press the Sync button in the lower right hand corner, give it a moment, and voila. Phase is now installed on your iPod. Once Phase is installed, you'll see a playlist pop up for Phase Music. I'll get more into that later on. 3: Gameplay Phase is played in the same general idea as Rock Band or Amplitude. The notes scroll down towards you and you press the corresponding buttons to hit the notes. You use the rewind button for the left notes, the center button for center notes and the fast forward button for the right notes. As I mentioned earlier, there are also things called Sweeps that are used to score bonus points. They are a line of smallish notes (kind of like the HO/PO notes in Rock Band, but not really). To collect a Sweep, your note collectors turn in a little basket automatically (and reverts back when the Sweeps are over), and you scroll the basket back and forth with the iPod's scroll wheel. Hence, that is why the game can't be played with the iPhone or iPod Touch. At the start of the song and at the start of each checkpoint, you will be informed on how many stars you need to collect during each section of the song. Stars are earned by hitting notes and collecting Sweeps to earn points. Green stars are required stars to earn, and orange stars are bonus stars that will lead to extra points at the end of the song and replenish a heart if you are down one. You start with three hearts and the maximum number of hearts you can have is four. Depending on the duration of the song, there are a number of checkpoints throughout the song. I've personally seen as few as three checkpoints (on a really short song), and as many as nineteen (on a really long song). If you fail to collect enough green stars during a section, you lose a heart. Lose all of your hearts and the game is over. There are two modes of play, Quickplay and Marathon. There are five difficulties total: Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert (locked), and Insane (locked). Quickplay is just that. Pick a song, pick your difficulty, and play through it. Marathons are a series of five songs which will either play in sequence alphabetically based on what songs you installed, or random (which can be set in the options menu). I personally prefer the random option when playing marathons because you never know what songs you're going to get and it adds to the challenge. High scores are kept for every song you do, whether it be in quickplay or marathon. There is also a separate high score page for cumulative marathon scores. In marathon mode, your score is a cumulative score of all five songs. Also, the marathon gets harder as you go along. For example: if you are playing on medium, most sections of songs require two or three green stars for completion. In marathons, many sections of later songs will require four and sometimes (but rarely) five stars. Harder difficulties will often require five stars all the way through. 4: Songs As I mentioned earlier, Phase has seven songs in it's default playlist. Those songs are... Bang Camaro - Nightlife Commando Dealership - Dots and Dashes Freezepop - Pop Music Is Not A Crime Inter:sect - Midnight Gamma Kodomo - Spira Mirabilis Speck - The Theme of the Awesome Universal Hall Pass - Dragonfly Remix As I also mentioned, you can add up to 1000 songs into the Phase Music playlist and make your game as big or as small as you want. At the time of this writing, my playlist is at 336 songs. To add songs, just find the songs you want in your iPod's track list, then drag and drop them into the Phase Music playlist. Upon doing so, Phase will start to analyze the song so that it can produce the note chart. Depending on how many songs you add, this can take anywhere from 30 seconds (for one song) to several hours (a few hundred songs). You can add or remove songs from Phase any time you have your iPod hooked up to your PC or Mac. With that said, the song possibilities for Phase are virtually limitless (I say virtually because you are capped at 1000 songs, but you can add or remove songs whenever you want). 5: Unlockables There are only two unlockables in the game. Expert difficulty: complete a marathon on Hard Insane difficulty: complete a marathon on Expert 6: Contact Information If you wish to contact me to submit additional information or corrections, or if you would like to be a host for this FAQ, you can e-mail me at diabloneonx@gmail.com. I will not answer any e-mails about game questions. Any information or corrections submitted will be credited to you. Just let me know what name you want me to credit you as. 7: Legal Information Phase is developed and published by Harmonix for the Apple iPod. This FAQ is the intellectual property of me, Don "DiabloNeonX" Cassedy. As stated before, the only sites authorized to host this FAQ are any sites that I create, www.gamefaqs.com, and www.gamespot.com. I will grant license to other sites wishing to host this FAQ, provided that they contact me for permission first, credit me for the work, and leave this FAQ unaltered. Any unauthorized hosting or alterations is prohibited and will result in legal action. Copyright 2008 Don "DiabloNeonX" Cassedy