I dunno if there was one before, since after doing a search nothing turned out, so I figure what the hey.

Anyone here play Bemani games, such as DDR, Beatmania IIDX, Pop'n Music, Drummania, Guitar Freaks, and so on? I figure some of you have at least played DDR at home or once at the arcade/movie theater/bowling alley/other random spots. As for those that are fans or are familiar, how about some stories or giving us some of your best results/scores?

Oh and for the record, Pump It Up, In The Groove, that DJMAX game for the PSP, the Guitar Hero series, Rock Band, Amplitude, Samba de Amigo, and other types of music games not specifically carrying the Bemani label, even made by Konami, are NOT Bemani games, so please don't bring those up here.

EDIT: Discussions of ITG and Pump are fine here, I guess.

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Last edited by johnny rainbow on Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:08 am, edited 2 times in total.

Ive played and owned most of the ddr series, im missing supernova 1 and 2, and the horrible xbox ones ( including 360 since i actually owned the first one..oh god is all i have to say) My friend has drummania and i suck at it. I dont really play the games anymore sadly, but i do indeed like the music in most of the titles!

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If it wasn't that I care not for 98% of the music selection in those games, maybe I'd be enclined to actually try them out.

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I'll try after I have my job(s) done.

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You're better off making a topic about Konami Music games than you are with Bemani. Or even better, BOTH. because I'd rather talk about ITG AND DDR rather than just DDR. :P Because they both deserve mentions.

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Konami's music games mainly consist OF Bemani games. The only other music game I can think of that Konami made is the obscure "Dance Dance Dance", and that was pre-Bemani...and also a Bust-A-Groove knockoff.

I suppose discussions of ITG are fine here. Personally I hate the game myself, but if you want, then by all means..

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How can you hate ITG 'of the game', when it's essentially the exact same as DDR?

Just curious.

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I have been playing the Dance Dance Revolution series since it first came out in around 1998/1999 at that time.

One of my most favorite Bemani games. Im still trying to pratice playing Beatmania and DrumMania. (I kind of wish there was a USA PS2 home port... )

I've have played Andamiro's "PUMP IT UP" around the year of 2000, and I used to enjoy it a little bit (The 5 panel steps were a little tricky) but at 2004, I absolutely hated it.

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First off, ITG is NOT the same as DDR. The concept of stepping on four panels going up, down, left, and right to music is the same, yes, but that's where it stops. ITG has a different UI, a different method of saving scores for players(USB flash card, while DDR uses eAmuse and PS1 memory cards in past Mixes), more mods, and since ITG2 a different cabinet with more sensitive panels(for those stepcharts where you need to use your hands).

And well, to not sound TOO angry and full of it, I'll just point out some of my major gripes:

- The songlist. The songs themselves are fine and I do like a couple of them, but the songlist in general is part of what I hate about ITG. Very little diversity(mainly techno/trance/Happy Hardcore), compared to Pump It Up and even DDR. It's like some teenage raver kid took some songs from his iPod and decided to put together a dancing game.

- Some of the default mods in there, I honestly can NOT stand, especially Hands and Mines. I find them to be shitty gimmicks thrown in to make up for the crappy stepcharts(which I will get into next). I know you can opt to take those out during mods selection, but just the fact that they're there annoys me so much.

- The ridiculously hard stepcharts. I'm not complaining about the stepcharts because they're hard, I hate them because they're RIDICULOUS. It's like some 14 year old DDR nut decided that creating the most impossible stepcharts that make almost little to no sense at all when played to the song equals the biggest penis(sup BeMaNiRuler). Of course not ALL of the stepcharts in the game are retarded, some are actually pretty creative(that Banzai song is pretty fun). But those retarded stepcharts are what keep me from liking the game. Of course lately, DDR's been like that(Paranoia Hades Oni), but there are also stepcharts that are really fun even when they seem kinda easy(Blind Justice).

- Finally, the overall presentation of ITG feels cheap and boring. I know that comparing it to DDR is unfair due to the latter being created by a huuuge videogame company while ITG is by some small American company in which the only other game they made is some crappy penguin racing game, but even all the DDR knockoffs made by Korean companies besides Andamiro look more aesthetically pleasing. ITG just feels like Stepmania that you have to pay for and can't customize(...without hacks, I guess).

Some of my reasons may seem unreasonable, even stupid, but I have my standards when it comes to these types of music games. ITG fans can go on enjoying ITG, I don't mind diversity. Just don't expect me to enjoy it any time soon.

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That's my biggest complaint for the games. I really quite like playing them (except Guitar Freaks, with Harmonix outdoes) because of their gameplay, but Rock Band's atmosphere and song selection more than makes up for three pads (two of them never being used ever anyways) missing from the drums. In beatmania's case, every song is boring techno. Sure I'm enjoying it and I'm not disappointed in the expensive purchase of its controller for my PC, but... Eh.

When it comes to Japanese peripheral-inputted rhythm games, the only one I really truly like on the same level of Rock Band is Taiko: Drum Master. It has super style points, usually gets some pretty interesting things in its soundtrack that tend to be 'wtf'y, and for the most part flows just right (despite how you're basically just smashing on a taiko drum stuck into just about any song ever where it doesn't fit).

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That's actually how I feel about Guitar Hero. The gameplay completely outclasses Guitar Freaks...but I'm not a big fan of most of the songs(especially GH2, I despise American classic rock). Of course, it didn't stop me from buying the game/guitar controller set for $70. Rock Band hasn't been released here yet(if it ever will be), but it looks pretty neat and I wanna try it once if I ever go back to the States.

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Really? I find I don't like ITG's songlist as much as DDR's either, but that's the type of music I listen to. Ha ha. But there's probably, hm, one Supernova machine around here and the rest are ITG, so I make do. There are some songs I like. (July <3) 'Course, I have a tendency to play the same songs a lot, because I don't want to keep people waiting while I look through everything. Mines I don't mind, I just haaaaate it when people make their own horribly crappy simfiles with mines everywhere you're not stepping. >_<
I really don't like Pump though. There's one at an amusement park I was at the other day, and it's...urgh. I had a lot of trouble finding a good song, the interface was bad - you had to wait to see the BPM, and I tend to avoid slower songs - then it would be the same difficulty as the last song I did, but way too hard for me to do. Not to mention it's nearly impossible to read the arrows, for me anyway. There's also the fact that there were some really creepy people of questionable gender hanging around watching everyone play, but let's not get into that.
DDR is love. I own Extreme 2 and Supernova 2, and have a couple BNS DX Fusion pads with USB plugs, so I use Stepmania with a DDR Extreme arcade skin & songs. I'm not the best, but I can do most 8 footers and a few 9s, at home (again, no DDR machines around here) - I'm assuming Sakura heavy counts as a nine now. I unfortunately have never gotten an opportunity to play any other Bemani games, like pop'n or IIDX or anything, but I'd like to.

Guitar Hero III is released in Japan for the first time...

Was there any good reception?

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It received good reviews from an issue of Famitsu I read, though I dunno about opinions from Japanese players.

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oh, Bemani games. back when people looked at you with contempt when you played them at the university arcades...
and then GH and Rock Band show up and suddenly it's cool to do so D:

anyway, I used to play quite a bit of bemani before. I played DDR but only got so far as to do songs at about 7-8. then I kinda got turned off by the "Max run" jerks.

I was also a big fan of Drummania, playing songs around 55. The Asaki songs rocked. And yes, I am so sick of hearing dragon blade.

Ugh, god I hate Guitar Hero III. It's like a bunch of retarded teenagers took over the franchise and tried to cool it up.

Also I now own two Rock Band drum sets- if I set them up just right I can finally emulate Drummania the way it was meant to be played, without setting anything to Auto.

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