Well, the game’s being around for few days and people are really having fun to play this game. I wonder how popular this game will get.

Anyway more to the game play mechanics. You already know that you have to confirm the panels that light up with music but I guess everyone wondered when exactly the panels were supposed to be confirmed. People could think that it needs to be confirmed as fast as possible, but those playing BEMANI games were like “there has to be something like ‘just great’ window”. And there is actually one. The just perfect window is at the time when the panel is full lit.

Songlist:

KONAMI original

ki☆ki - Happy Happy
Mutsuhiko Izumi - Polaris
Mutsuhiko Izumi - Snow Goose
Mutsuhiko Izumi - 天国と地獄

License

AAA - BLOOD on FIRE
鈴木亜美 joins �*田ヤスタカ - FREE FREE
Mi - Good bye little girl
Chris Brown featuring T-Pain - Kiss Kiss
川嶋あい - My love
�*ードオブメジャー - PLAY THE GAME
ANNA inspi’ NANA(BLACK STONES) - rose
Scatman John - Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)
VILLAGE PEOPLE - Y.M.C.A.
THE BOOM - 風になりたい
mihimaru GT - 気分上々↑↑
RIKI - �*�！ミッドナイト
MINMI - シャナナ☆
FUNKY MONKEY BABYS - ちっぽけな勇気
Do As Infinity - 冒険者たち

Cover

BONNIE PINK - A Perfect Sky
Ai + BAND - BELIEVE IN LOVE
浜崎あゆみ - BLUE BIRD
UVERworld - endscape
POLYSICS - I My Me Mine
Nolans - I’M IN THE MOOD FOR DANCING
嵐 - love so sweet
大塚愛 - PEACH
平井�*� - POP STAR
絢香 - Real voice
Rip Slyme - SPEED KING
コブク�* - YELL ～エール～
THE BLUE HEARTS - �*スしてほしい
倖田來未 - �*ューティーハニー
レミオ�*メン - 粉雪
Crystal Kay - こんなに近くで…
ス�*マスイッチ - 全力少年
山下智久 - 抱いてセニョリータ
MISIA - 太陽の地図
BUMP OF CHICKEN - 天体観測
サンボマスター - 光の�*ック
NANA starring MIKA NAKASHIMA - 一色
YUKI - ふがいないや
ZARD - �*けないで

Hidden

Kozo Nakamura - Jumping Boogie
kors k - Special One
Jimmy Weckl - Icicles

Starting yesterday and ending on 23rd of July Japanese people have the chance to try the new DDR arcade game out. As you may know this mix is celebrating the 10 years of DDR’s existence and thus should be innovative or revolutionary.

The cabinet itself looks different. It has bigger and wider screen and more lights next to the speakers. Also the banner is bigger etc^_~. Anyway the platform has changed quite a lot. At least the looks of it (no pink/blue panels, red bar). KONAMI asks the player what they think of the panels (playing-wise) so I guess they changed more than just the look^_~ (hope it is better than the SN platform). In overall the cabinet is more western urban styled and I’m quite afraid of how the game will look like.

All songs have been rerated to 1-20 scale. So most boss songs have different difficulties now. (So max300 or TLOM are rated 15 and FELM and FAXX are 18s)

KONAMI also introduced a new type of note. It’s called a shock arrow. When you step on the arrow you will get a combo breaker, you will loose a bit energy from the lifebar and the scrolling arrows will vanish for a while.

After the first L.E.D.’s album released under the Beatnation Records we can now enjoy the first stand alone album of Sota Fujimori. The album is named Synthesized.

People enjoying PNM16 Party in the arcades can now purchase the PNM 16 Party Original Soundtrack.

If you are a registered user to KONAMISTYLE and you buy something from the shop you will earn KONAMI points. You can later exchange the points for some BEMANI related items like bags with BEMANI logo, cups, t-shirt or customized memory cards.

Starting tomorrow a location test will be held in Tokyo. Second location test will start the day after in Osaka. All the location tests will end on 1st of July. So wait for more information.

Obviously KONAMI wants the next game pink. I guess we can say that DJ Troopers was more aimed at male players and Empress might be aimed at gals. But anyway who knows what KONAMI is thinking?

HAZARD mode is available. If you get a regular poor on a note the game ends. (comes from GFDM)

Location test info (some might be fake but still you get the idea):

RECKLESS RAVE / B4U(BEMANI FOR YOU MIX) / DJ Yoshitaka feat. Michael a la mode / BPM 170 / 6-11-? ?-?-?
* HAPPY☆JIG / bridal festival!!! / S.S.D.FANTASICA feat. ななっち / BPM 160 / 4-7-? ?-?-?
* ? / dazzle / kobo feat. kr:ague / BPM ??? / ?-?-9 ?-?-?
* ? / Fly Above / Sota Fujimori / BPM 150 / 5-6-? ?-?-?
* ? / JEWELLERY STORM / L.E.D.-G / BPM ??? / 5-9-? ?-?-?
* TRANCE / MY FUTURE / PINK PONG / BPM 148 / 5-8-? ?-?-?
* ? / naughty girl@queens palace / DJ Mass MAD ism
* ? / PUNCH☆LOVE 仮面 / 上野圭一 feat. 星野かなこ / BPM 172 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* BIG BEAT / Queens Tragedy / 猫又Master+ / BPM 152 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* ? / secrets / good-cool feat. CHiCO / BPM 150 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* CANDY RAVE / smooooch･∀･ / kors k / BPM 177 / 4-8-? ?-?-?
* ? / THE SHINING POLARIS -kors k mix- / kors k / BPM 172 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* ELEMENTAL CHANT / Turill-PENTA RHEI- / Zektbach / BPM 148 / 4-9-? ?-?-?
* PROGRESSIVE / V2 / TAKA / BPM 150 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* J-DANCE POP / まほろば / HHH+H / BPM 149 / 5-7-? ?-?-?
* DRAGON’BASS / アタック No.3 / IDEA NOTE / BPM 170 / ?-?-? ?-?-?
* ? / 鉄甲乙女-under the steel- / Seiya Murai / BPM ??? / 4-7-? 5-9-?
* まほろば / ミッドナイト堕天使 / Dr.Honda / BPM ??? / 5-7-? ?-?-?

* ALL I NEED YOUR LOVE / guhroovy fw. M-PROJECT
* B4U (BEMANI FOR YOU MIX) / よしたかマイケル (joke?)
* Turill-PENTA RHEI- / Zektbach (*looking forward to this one^_~*)

アタックno.3 / IDEA NOTE ポラリスこーすけりみ

Removed songs:
* IS THIS LOVE?
* never let you down
* Sense
* Nasty!
* JIVE INTO THE NIGHT
* Time is money
* Free Style
* Secret Tale
* 2002
* Spooky
* あと1曲（Burning Heat)

In two weeks time KDE will release the European version of DDR Supernova.

The game missions are even easier than in the American version (which actually had quite equivalent missions to the Japanese ones).

The songs are different as well. DS SN songs are for example Baile! Baile!, La Bamba (slow version), some songs from SySF (quite a lot), Goldfrapp and some other random songs.

The thing which surprised me was that I could buy FELM from the shop after clearing it on light, reverse in maybe area E? Not to mention that the song cost me just 10 000 points.

Starting yesterday a Pop’n Music mouse is available at KONAMI store. The mouse is green and white and it looks more like ladybug (mechanically). Under the transparent wings you can see 9 Pop’n music buttons on the mouse. Wonder why they are there? It’s not just a Pop’n Music related mouse, it is also a controller for Pop’n Music game.

This game can run on PentiumIII 800Mhz, 512MB RAM. It has 500MB and needs DirectX 8 or higher. There are 12 songs by default but you can also download more songs for this PNM game from KONAMI official website.

Game modes available are - 3 button, 5 button, 9 button normal mode, 9 button hyper mode.

You can get the set (mouse and the game) for about 5000 Yen VAT excluded at konamistyle.

Yay! It’s finally released today! : D

Everyone in Japan is playing it atm so I’m collecting pics and vids which I will be posting here today.

Anyways, some early presents for you guys!

the new site is also fully launched which is here:
http://www.konami.jp/bemani/bm2dx/bm2dx15/

A video of a guy playing OMES on DJ Troopers brought to you by www.bemanitube.com, o gosh they really do anything to make the songs harder eh…
http://www.bemanitube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1e61cb8dd3612f26d5ec

More news and updates later this day so stay tuned!

Today (okay, nobody’s really sure about what day the game was released, so we’ll pretend it’s today), about 10 years ago, Konami released a game called beatmania. Nobody would have known that the game would not only be a huge hit in Japan, but start a whole division of music simulation games that still continue to this very day.

So, how about some personal anecdotes? I’ll talk about the first time I remember playing this wonderful game. With footnotes! After the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Once again, Konami has announced that they are collecting scores from IIDX Gold machines across the world, and by the world, I mean Japan. They will also collect scores from the upcoming DJ Troopers once it makes its release in Japan. While they did not explicitly state the reason, judging by the other times they have collected scores, it’s probably for the next home version of IIDX: IIDX GOLD CS.

The score collecting will include every song under the GOLD category, with the exception of Inori and Regret (or リグレット, if you prefer). Since they were both already on RED CS’s tracklist, it’s no real loss. What is most important is that, so far, Ghostbusters has not been ruled out. They also state that songs in the other categories will be included, but they did not elaborate on that detail as of yet.

So far, they held a survey about collaborations, and now they’re collecting scores. All they have to do now is announce it.

The CD cover for the “BEMANI BEST for the 10th anniversary” has been revealed. It’s black with a bunch of logos. Also, they updated the tracklist to include Butterfly by SMiLE.dk (Disc 2, Track 40) and Sunshine Dance by Togo Project feat. Megu and Scotty D. (Disc 5, Track 34). The CD will be released on December 14th.

The soundtrack for Guitar Freaks and Drummania V4 has been revealed. It will be a two-disc set featuring over 60 songs, including Konami Originals and “arrange songs”. It will be released on February 22nd, 2008.

Also to be released on the same day is a concert DVD of the Gitado Live event, featuring songs from the event and backstage interviews with the artists. The concert does feature Izumi, who made such great songs as the Model DD series and Midnight Sun. Whether he played any of those live is beyond me, though. The event also features Tomosuke (Hopefully with Orange Lounge), Brad Holmes (I want to see Used To Rock ‘n’ Roll live, too), and Kozo Nakamura (mostly known for Dragon Blade and songs that sound like Dragon Blade).

Finally, according to USPTO, the main source for unannounced news and rumors about video games, among other things, in the US, Konami of America (odd, considering most Konami trademarks that aren’t slot machine names are filed by their Japanese division) has filed a trademark for “Beat’n Groovy”. The only thing the trademark gives any detail to is that it’s for a home video game. Take this part of the article with a grain of salt, as it’s about trademark drama, and it may not even be a music game, but, seriously, “Beat’n Groovy”?