When you think of the word "Bemani," chances are the first thing to pop into your head is Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution game series, and for good reason. With its multiple game releases, for both arcade and home console platforms, it’s hard not to have heard of DDR no matter where you live on the globe. Interestingly enough, however, you’ve probably not heard of or played beatmania before unless you’ve been lucky and just so happened to have stumbled across it in the arcades. Apart from being the reason behind the word Bemani, beatmania is the foundation for the many peripheral-based rhythm games that followed suit, spreading across arcades in Japan with a variety of different versions and sequels. Unfortunately, for those of us who aren’t too fond of the import scene, Konami has you covered this time, since after all these years, beatmania for the PS2 is the first game in the series to reach American shores. beatmania offers a plethora of tunes and options, along with being packed with the unique DJ-based controller, but the problem is that not many people are going to be suddenly attracted to the series when they never even heard much about it in the first place.
"beatmania offers a plethora of tunes and options..."
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The focal point of beatmania is the unique controller included with the game. The controller consists of seven keys (four white and three black) that are laid out somewhat similar to a piano’s, with the keys on one end, and a miniature turntable on the other. The keypad is also detachable, allowing the player to accommodate themselves comfortably, should they be left or right-handed. As with most rhythm games, the object of beatmania is to watch the screen as various notes scroll down from top to bottom; you must hit the corresponding key when it reaches the bar at the bottom at the right moment. Bars are color coded to help prepare the next key to be pressed, along with using the turntable, which is done with a quick flick of the wrist. Should you do all of this successfully, the track being played goes along with the beat, playing out a smooth melody, but slip up once or twice and you’ll find that the music loses rhythm and sounds like a mess.
Also incorporated into the game are Free Scratching Zones, which are simply a quick way to get some points by using the turntable rapidly, throwing bonus points your way for doing neat tricks, but you’re better off just scratching endlessly. Depending on how accurate the notes are hit, various ratings will flash on screen, ranging from "Perfect" all the way to "Bad." At the end of the song, these are all tallied together to assign you a letter grade based on your performance, allowing you to try and achieve a higher grade in the future. In order to actually pass a song however, you must have your Groove Gauge filled up to the brim so that it’s in the red area. The Groove Gauge increases based on how well you hit those notes, and decreases if you slip up. The major problem with this is that if you happen to be on a streak and suddenly slip up at the very end, your gauge might fall just below the limit, granting you a failing run, or you can simply sit there and wait until the very end to increase your Groove Gauge and pass the stage with ease, making for an odd, if not broken rating system. There is also an internet ranking system to see how you fare against players from all over.
beatmania for the PS2 is a mixture of both its original version, which uses only five of the seven keys, along with its sequel, Beatmania IIDX, which uses all seven keys. The game features plenty of customization options to fool around with, allowing players to adjust difficulty, speed, hidden notes, mirror mode, in addition to others.
"The game is very unforgiving to newcomers..."
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The game is very unforgiving to newcomers, which most people who are playing this game probably are, spiking up the difficulty rather quickly, even on the easiest setting. While you may pass a song at the beginning of the songlist, not even two songs later, you’ll be finding yourself overwhelmed with the amount of notes required to hit, and it only gets higher from there, reaching combos of upwards to 200-300 if possible. However off-putting this may be, it makes one understand just how much skill, time, and dedication are involved to get better and improve.
The track-list for beatmania consists of a decent variety of music, with shortened two-minute long songs from various genres including R&B, Techno, House, and other types of dance tunes. Also included are remixes of licensed songs such as Funkytown, Toxic (you know, from Britney Spears), or even the theme from Metal Gear Solid, along with tunes found in other beatmania games. When you start a game, you’re only allowed to access a select batch of songs, but as you pass them, more are eventually unlocked for you to play with. Should you pass a song successfully, that song will then be available in the game’s Free Mode, so you can play it to your heart’s content. Question is, will you want to? Most of the songs are pretty forgettable, and even though the point of the game is to be in rhythm, most of the time it doesn’t really feel like you’re in anything at all. One minor nitpick I have is that you couldn’t pause the game during a song, if only to exit back to the main menu, forcing me to sit through the song. Menus are somewhat confusing to navigate as well, with a clunky setup to navigate through, but once you get a feel for the cluttered interface, it won’t be much of a problem.
"Most of the songs are pretty forgettable..."
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As one of the pioneers of the rhythm craze, beatmania shows its age with its standard gameplay, but while the product says it’s a DJ simulator, there’s not really anything that places you in the shoes of a DJ, unlike other titles that achieve this effect (Guitar Hero coming to mind). This is not to say that beatmania is a terrible game, because it’s an accurate representation of the arcade hit over in Japan, but it seems that Konami brought over the wrong representation, with a lackluster tracklist to play along to. Newcomers may be turned off by the spike in difficulty, but should there be anyone out there that finds this title enjoyable and takes the time to improve might want to consider learning about imports and grabbing all the available releases from Japan, as the PS2 DJ controller is compatible with them.
