1999: Difference between revisions

1999 was a very big year for music games in general. Following the success of beatmania, DanceDanceRevolution, and pop'n music, several video game developers started releasing their own music games. ANDAMIRO's ''Pump It Up'' and Amuse World's ''EZ2DJ'' were hitting Korean arcades, and even established game series made before beatmania became big got sequels: NanaOn-Sha's ''UmJammer Lammy'' was a huge hit, combining the engine of its predecessor ''PaRappa the Rapper'' with more freeform guitar licks, and Enix's ''Bust-A-Move 2'' was hitting shelves in early 1999. NAMCO's cult hit ''Pacapaca Passion'' received a PlayStation port, as well as an upgraded version (Special) and a sequel. The PlayStation also received several of its own rhythm games - Warashi's ''Le Concert ff'' and ''Le Concert pp'' took it a step forward and had you controlling an entire orchestra. NanaOn-Sha also released the cult classic ''vib-ribbon'', which used a unique, scribbled black and white aesthetic and had your character literally changing as you moved around. The end of 1999 also saw SEGA step into the music game genre with Compile's ''Puyo Puyo DA!'' and Sonic Team's ''Samba de Amigo''. It would be far from the last rhythm games from the company.

But perhaps the biggest of the new games released that year was, ironically, a spin-off game; [[AC 1st style|beatmania IIDX]]. beatmania IIDX added two new buttons to the overall game design, and also re-positioned the 1P turntable to the left. But it also boasts something the original beatmania never had; full-motion video. For the first time, licensed tracks from the likes of [[m-flo]] and other artists featured their original videos. This game also marked the debuts of the hugely popular BEMANI artists [[Takayuki Ishikawa]] (dj TAKA) and [[Takehiko Fujii]] (SLAKE). Meanwhile, the original series continued on with [[AC bm 4th|beatmania 4thMIX -the beat goes on-]], which would introduce another staple BEMANI artist, [[Toshiyuki Kakuta]] (L.E.D.). Fujii in-particular went on to sound direct near every beatmania game from 1999 onward, while Ishikawa stayed on board with beatmania IIDX, inviting friends of his like [[Taku Sakakibara]] (TaQ) and [[Osamu Kubota]] to help make a rich, more electronic counterpart to the more hip-hop/dance/techno tone that the original beatmania kept with Fujii. An append release, [[AC substream|substream]], would also introduce [[Goli Matsumoto]], who would go on to decorate almost every single style of beatmania IIDX with his artwork. All of these men would play a major role in the future of beatmania.

== February ==

** BEMANI debuts of in-house composers [[Mutsuhiko Izumi]], [[Toshio Sakurai]], and [[Harumi Ueko|Jimmy Weckl]].

* February 25th: [[CS pnm|pop'n music CS]] is released in Japan for both the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Dreamcast.

== July ==

* July 27th: [[AC substream|beatmania IIDX substream]], an enhanced version of beatmania IIDX is released to Japanese arcades.

** dj nagureo steps sound as sound director of beatmania IIDX, and his position goes to dj TAKA, who would serve as head sound director of the series for the next six years.

* [[AC DS 1st|Dancing Stage]] is released to European arcades.

* ''' Dancing Stage INTERNET R@NKING Version''', an enhanced port of Dancing Stage, is released.

* '''hiphopmania completeMIX''', a North American version of beatmania completeMIX with a few songs removed, is released to North American arcades.

* [[AC pnm|pop'n music]] is released to North American arcades. Several songs are removed, and a few character names were changed.