pop'n music

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

pop'n music is a game series in Konami's Bemani lineup of Rhythm Games, developed as a Lighter and Softer version of Beatmania, another Bemani title.

Like beatmania, notes come down the screen and the object is to "hit" the notes by pressing their corresponding buttons. Hitting notes will play parts of the music, while missing notes will make the music sound not like what it's supposed to be. Instead of 5-7 rectangular keys and a turntable like beatmania, pop'n uses nine big colorful buttons, requiring you to use your whole hands instead of individual fingers.

pop'n uses a cute, colorful interface to appeal to younger players, but don't let that deceive you into thinking this is a kids' game; pop'n is just as hard as other Bemani series, with songs requiring you to hit as many as 1,000 notes in the span of two minutes.

Currently, the series is up to 20 main arcade installments, along with consoles releases and spin-off releases such as pop'n music Animelo, pop'n music Best Hits and Hello! Pop'n Music.

Like most other Bemani series, pop'n music suffers from serious No Export for You-itis. The only games in the series that were released outside of Japan are Beat'n Groovy, an XBLA release that many players regarded as being completely awful, and a Wii release that did not involve the series' iconic nine-button controller. A simplified four-button-per-player redemption version was location tested in America, but it was quietly shelved and repackaged for Japan as Hello! Pop'n Music.

As a result, the arcade version is very rare outside of Japan. If you want to play at home, you could buy the official controller for a more affordable experience, but the controller has much smaller buttons, so you might as well play Beatmania IIDX. The other way is to spend a few hundred bucks on an arcade-sized controller. New arcade-sized controllers sell for at least $200; one such controller is more expensive than an entire Rock Band set. And this is all without the game or means to play the game on a PS2.


Tropes used in Pop'n music include: