AC pnm 3

pop'n music arcade releases
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 いろは - 13 カーニバル - 14 FEVER!
15 ADVENTURE - 16 PARTY♪ - 17 THE MOVIE - 18 せんごく列伝
19 TUNE STREET - 20 fantasia - Sunny Park - ラピストリア - éclale
うさぎと猫と少年の夢 - peace - 解明リドルズ - UniLab - Jam&Fizz
アニメロ - アニメロ2号 - MICKEY TUNES - HELLO! (North America)

General Information

  • Released: September 1999
  • New announcer replaces the one from the first two games. This announcer would be used until pop'n music 9.
  • First appearance of Hyper charts in the arcade. None of the new AC songs have them, though.
  • First pop'n game to keep track of your note combo.
  • First music game with courses. Unlike later games, there's only three songs a course.
  • Tsugumi Kataoka (Parquets, Butapunch), Atsushi Shindo, and Yuki Kume (Q-Mex) make their debut in the series.
  • Last arcade version to run on BEMANI DJ-MAIN HARDWARE arcade system.
  • The soundtrack in this game is the last one to combine both the arcade and the later CS songs from its PlayStation / Dreamcast counterpart on the same CD.
  • The songs Bit of Love, Let me feel so high, and ENDLESS SUMMER NUDE were not released on the pop'n music 3 OST due to licensing issues.
  • Total number of songs: 48

Staff Information

  • Producer: Koji Okamoto
  • Co-producer: Yoshihito Kato
  • Director: Ryo Komastu
  • Sound Director: Hiroshi Takeyasu
  • Music Director: Nazo^2 Suzuki
  • Sound Data Analyzers: Jun Wakita, Osamu Migitera, Tomoyuki Uchida
  • Character Designer: INUCHIYO
  • Programmer: Hideaki Kawashima
  • CG Designer: P-CAT, INUCHIYO
  • Graphic Designer Shima-Q
  • Mechanical Engineer: Kaoru Watanabe
  • Hardware Engineer: Keisuke Nozaki
  • Special Thanks: Sugimoto Kiyotaka, Homrrine, shio

Song List

Pop'n Music 3 AC Full Song List

Game Modes

  • Beginner
  • Normal
  • Excite
  • Party
  • Hyper (new mode)

Non-Rival Playable Characters

These characters don't belong to any specific song and are all playable from the get-go.

  • Nyami [3]
  • Mimi [3]
  • Mary [3]
  • the KING [3]
  • SHOLLKEE [3]

New Songs

Genre (English) Genre (Japanese) Song Name Artist Character 9L Diff. H Diff.
First Stage
MAGICAL GIRL マジカルガール 恋のシャレード パーキッツ Megumi 9 -
G-POP ギターポップ Take Me To... Sana RIE♥chan [3] 10 -
KANGONTG カントン 和称一起走 Cathy Lau LingLing 12 -
EURODANCE ユーロダンス Bit of Love Super Wink "fut" Ryo Arche Asakawa Dia 13 -
Second Stage
SUMMER ? ENDLESS SUMMER NUDE 真心ブラザーズ JUDY [3] 9 -
CELT ケルト 水中家族のテーマ パーキッツ Poet [3-NEW CHAR.] 11 -
MONDO モンド Little Robin's Drawer Uncle Motchee Cyber [3-NEW CHAR.] 13 -
HEARTFUL ハートフル peppermint ASAI PROJECT (Vo:M.Fujino) Candy 14 -
PUNK パンク Let me feel so high Little Bitch.K2 Donna [3-NEW CHAR.] 16 -
Final Stage
J-R&B2 J-リズム&ブルース2 愛を探そう Ma-You tourmaline [3] 13 -
DANCEPOP ダンスポップ Till the end of time Jullianne & Edison Rave girl [3] 16 -
NEW-COMMER ? un-Balance 佐藤千晶 Kate 18 -
SOUNDTRACK サウンドトラック 宇宙船Q-Mex Q-Mex P-1&P-2 [3-NEW CHAR.] 21 -
POWERFOLK パワーフォーク なんか変だ 新堂敦士 Ash [3-NEW CHAR.] 23 -
Hidden Songs
LOVELY ラブリー 8月のサヨナラ Sana SANAE♥chan [3] 15 -
JUNGLE ジャングル LA LA LA edison Bamboo? 23 -
pop'n music 2 PS/DC transplants
CUTE キュート 取り返してやる!~Again,My Lovely Day~ Akko's AYA [3-NEW CHAR.] 5 H
NEW WAVE ニューウェーブ Don't Disturb Color Essence AYA [3] 7 -
URBAN POP アーバンポップ Prism Heart Sana AYA [3] 8 H
LIVE ライブ Theme of staff roll ~special mix~ きまぐれポッパーズ AYA [3] 11 -
AKIBA アキバ E.C.M. PAPEHINA meets Haya-P SHOLLKEE [3] 12 -
CANDY POP キャンディポップ Give me your pain Haya-P & Maru AYA [3] 13 -
FUNNY ファニー PULSE 319 AYA [3] 14 -
NEW FOLK ニューフォーク 走れブン!ブン! わがまま7 AYA [3] 15 -
CARIBBEAN カリブ 麗しのカーディガン Akko's AYA [3] 16 -
CLASSIC 2 クラシック2 R.C. Waldeus von Dovjak AYA [3] 18 H
J-GARAGE POP J-ガラージポップ Miracle Moon(お月様が中継局) Togo Project feat. Sana AYA [3] 21 -
SEXY GIRLS セクシーガールズ 淋しくてLoneliness ワンダース AYA [3] 21 H
AVANTGARDE アバンギャルド Bee's Eye Waldeus von Dovjak AYA [3] 23 H

Misc.

Due to limited space in the early pop'n music games, similar to pop'n music, none of the original backgrounds or sprites from that game or pop'n music 2 are re-used in this game, although some of songs from the original game (and all from 2) are in this one. Character from pop'n music with no match-ups to pop'n 3 characters are replaced by SHOLLKEE, and characters who don't have match-ups with pop'n music 2 characters are replaced by ice, who made his debut in this game. Additionally, all pop'n music 1 PS/DC and pop'n music 2 PS/DC (except AKIBA) are represented exclusively by AYA, who comes in various colors for each song.

Rejected designs

The Pop'n Music series has a long history of rejected characters. Some never saw the light of day, and some would later be used many years or mixes later. Character descriptions are taken from the official pop'n music 3 Botsu page. For the third game, these include

  • Palette, a squirrel girl in the same clothing LingLing wears. Replaced by her.
  • Maron, a quirky schoolgirl.
  • Johne, a dog(?) wearing a purple jacket, green shorts, and grey shoes. Possibly the inspiration of Kobe for pop'n music 4 CS.
  • Miki, a little, green-haired girl with two plushies to the left and right of her; the former looking like PRETTY, and the other a blue cat. Drawn up by p-cat for MAGICAL GIRL, but was replaced by Megumi. According to staff comments on the Botsu page, she's much more active than her.
  • Yuka, who looks much like Megumi from pop'n music 3 but taller and has her hair in two long ponytails. She was created at roughly the same time as Megumi, but was dumped at the end for her.
  • Kaede, a tall, fashionable-looking girl.
  • Tina, a girl with brown hair originally designed for the song NEWCOMER. She was replaced by Kate, though the staff seemed to favor her over Kate.
  • Tom, a spaceman, or possibly a robot. Originally made for the song MONDO under request of Hiroshi Takeyasu for a "space man" character, but was replaced by CYBER.
  • Jhony, a cowboy with a hat that covers his eyes and a clover in his teeth. Originally made for SOUNDTRACK oddly enough, but was replaced by P1&P2.
  • Bikky, a Native American-looking girl. Originally to be used as a non-rival character, but was scrapped.
  • Ariel, a nun in purple robes. Possibly an early model for Jessica in pop'n music 6. Scrapped when they couldn't find a song to use her for.
  • Tomoko, an average-looking girl in a hoodie, jeans, and a hat. Scrapped for being "too normal".
  • Kevin (spelled "Kebin"), who was later put in pop'n music 5. Originally he was intended to be a girl; he was replaced by AYA.
  • The Kaiser, a lion with a purple mane. The staff liked the character but never put him in any game.
  • Dinos, a giant purple dinosaur who was said to be a relative of DiNO's. Never seen it any game.
  • Koon, a punk chicken with human arms rejected for being "too tedious".
  • Lucky, a punk mouse with no shirt.
  • Yumi, a green-haired girl in a pink dress. Was the prototype for Donna and replaced by her because the staff liked Donna more.
  • Ben, a fat, biker-looking guy with a hedgehog on a chain.
  • Donna in an alternate costume consisting of a blue, sleeveless vest, yellow shorts, long, white socks, and black shoes. Originally designed as a ko-gal craze, a fashion fad in the late 90's in Japan among teenage girls.

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