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Want to take your gaming to the next level? Are you a fan of electronica, dance, hip hop, trip hop, trace, pop, and other synthetic genres of music? Then you absolutely MUST get this game. Beatmania has been around for awhile in Japan, way back on the PlayStation. Back then it had 5 buttons (versus 7 ) and a DJ turntable. About 7 years later, Beatmania hits shelves in USA, not doing to well in sales due to it not being exposed to the public. The game has had several releases in Japan, however. Last year, Empress (the 17th game in the series) was released to the arcades, and should be coming to PlayStation 2 systems later this year. A quick history of games in this arcade style genre would show that the USA is remodeling Japanese games with a more "American" interface. In Japan, they had Guitar Freaks, which was a Guitar Hero-esque game with the same General User Interface (GUI aka screen display) as Beatmania (for the most part). Notes fall from the top of the screen into a bar in which the user hits the notes. It was divided into 3 columns so the guitar had 3 "fret" buttons of various colors depending on what guitar you used. Now we see "Guitar Hero" with "American" sons and a more graphical type interface (notes scroll towards you in a 3d motion versus falling straight down in 2d). With that said, DJ Hero is releasing later this year with 3 buttons on the turn table and movable turntable. If you want to play the game this evolved from, try out Beatmania. Trust me. It's A LOT harder than DJ Hero will be, but also a lot more fun. Instead of mixing Lady Ga Ga and Eminem (them together? ew?), you'll be playing trace songs that are a minute or so long, but will keep your fingers begging for more. It's certainly more accomplishing than what can come out of mixing two songs you might not like together. As I said, highly suggest this game. If you import games, by all means, import Empress. I've played the arcade version, and it's phenomenal. It includes songs found on the new DDR (beatmania is owned / published by Konami, the leader in arcade style games [DDR, Beatmania, Karaoke Revolution, Drummania, Guitar Freaks, ect] as well as world renown game icons such as Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid which is produced by Kojima Productions, a company that specifically publishes with Konami) and more. Also, as for all you people thinking "Rock Band" being cool for being the "first" to set up instraments working together in music, you should check out the linking that Guitar Freaks and Drummania had. They were able to have both guitars from Guitar Freaks to play the same music with Drummania as a "band" type game. Konami knows what they're doing when they publish games, and this game is no exception.Read full review
This is a direct port of the very successful Beatmania arcade cab rhythm action games but with added American-friendly tracks to DJ to... Much like Taiko No Tatsujin (drums) or Pop N Music (notes) or Guitar Freaks (like Rock Band / Guitar Hero etc), this game is ever-popular in arcades across Japan and being more difficult to master, there is more Kudos to playing the faster tracks on this than on the other Bemani (rhythm-action) games. There have been many Beatmania games on PS1 (that only work using a PS1 Beatmania controller) and a few on PS2 in the Japan NTSC region, but this is the first release tailored for the west. This controller will work on any PS2, whereas the game only works on a US NTSC PS2, however if you have access to a Japanese PS2 then I'd highly recommend getting some of the other Beatmania II DX PS2 games to play on this as they have some amazing tracks not featured here. Also, this is great in 2-player if you can get hold of a second controller. My first review (!) hope its helpful :)Read full review
I think Beatmania is actually a pretty good game. It takes a VERY long time to get decent at, but once you do, it is really fun. I was a little disapointed with the song list; most of the songs were songs that I have never heard of and some were just really awful. Also, each song was pretty short, causing you to have to keep playing them over and over again. I do find myself playing it a lot, but you do need time to get decent at it, it will be very FRUSTRATING in the beginning. So overall, I like Beatmania, and I wish Konami would make another game for the U.S. so I have more use for the controller!
Considering how many times I have played the beatmania games in my local arcade, getting BeatMania at home sounded like a great idea. it was, but not as great as it could have been. the controller's dimensions are spot on, but the turntable is considerably stiff, making it hard to use extended fingers ( say, your pinky ); along with that, the songlist isn't entertaining: some songs could have easily be replaced with something better in its own genre. I like the game for what it is, but I personally feel it could have had a few tweaks here and there, including the interface. The purple hues and hints look garish and unappealing, totally different from the arcade revision.. but I suppose they want to try something different. And for that, I can't truly bash them, but I could just wish they made something a little more fine-tuned.Read full review
Pros -Amazingly low price for the controller and game bundle -Beatmania controller is solid, too bad it uses the PS2 controller port and not USB -Classic rhythm gameplay still shines -Many modes of play, tons of options Cons -Many gameplay modes, such as original "Beatmania" mode are far too difficult -Despite over a dozen Japanese PS2 Beatmania games, music selection could have been better BUY IIDX 16 EMPRESS!
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