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Number 1. Beatmania (Series) PDF Print E-mail
Written by Kikineko & Deekman   
Friday, 20 March 2009 10:27

konamiweek_header

Over the past week we've explored Ninjas, espionage, horror stories and vampires, but finally we present OLR's number 1 Konami game series - Beatmania!

Released in 1997 for the arcades in Japan, Beatmania is a music game where you play as a DJ mixing tracks and tapping the keyboard. There are five keys and a turntable to control with, and you have to hit (or scratch) the notes as the fall down the screen. As you tap it adds beats to the song, and playing extra notes serves no penatly, but allows the player to add their own twist on things.

1097278893Beatmania gained popularity quickly and helped pioneer the popularity of music/rhythm games that started in the late 90s. The next year it made it's way to home consoles and has had 13 arcade releases in Japan and 16 console releases, including 3 on the Game Boy Color (the remainder were on the PS1).

In 2002 Konami released Beatmania THE FINAL, which marked the end of the original Beatmania series. Although some fans were disappointed, the second Beatmania series "Beatmania IIDX" with featured an extra 2 keys which made for a much greater difficutly level had been released in 1999 on arcades and both home and arcade mixes are still in production today.

Although Beatmania is very popular in Japan, and most North Americans have seen/played it in an arcade one time or another, there has only been one home edition released. Simply titled "Beatmania" this PS2 game came with the Beatmania keys and perifrial for IIDX and allowed you to play on both 5 and 7 key modes. It feautres some popular Konami music including tunes from past Japanese Beatmania games and even the Metal Gear Solid theme. Although fans agreed that this game was on par with the others in the series, it's now scarcely found in stores. For many it was a cheap turntable to allow for the importing of Japanese Beatmania titles.

With incredible music, fun gameplay and an intuitive control scheme like no other (DJ Hero's knockoff aside) it's no wonder Beatmania scores the top of our favourites. Next time you play a Bemani game be reminded that the subdivision was actually named after Beatmania, and if you haven't checked out this game series you don't know what you're missing.

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Last Updated on Friday, 20 March 2009 10:40
 

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