What Could Have Been

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A game sometimes go through a lot of changes before it emerges as a finalized product. Layouts get changed around, songs get moved around to other places, and sometimes the whole interface is scrapped! This page is for listing various concepts, ideas, and BEMANI transplants that KONAMI left out in the process of finalized BEMANI games.

In contrast with the Scrapped Songs and Cancelled Games sections, this page is more for concepts and ideas that were removed from finalized BEMANI projects, as opposed to songs (save BEMANI transplants). Examples of data include:

  • BEMANI transplants that were planned for a game but either were delayed, shuffled around, or just plain never were put it at all (for an example of the latter, masquerade being planned for beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro). Note that to qualify for this page, the song must have already been in a released BEMANI game beforehand.
  • Delayed releases (such as Asaki's second album 天庭, which was delayed two years due to him being sick).
  • pop'n music games that had characters scrapped (i.e. the KING's removal from pop'n music 9).
  • Various contests that never came through.

This page is under HEAVY construction. If you're going to add any information here, please post proof on the Talk Page first.

beatmania

beatmania

  • According to Kiyoshi Mizuki on the beatmania press mix book, at the very beginning of the development of beatmania, the game had three buttons per player. There was only one turntable, which was shared between both players.
  • The January 1998 issue of the MyCom BASIC Magazine (マイコンBASICマガジン) includes a screenshot of an early version of beatmania:
    • beatmania is referred by its working title, DJ BEATS.
    • Most notably, the notes are rounded, and the notes on the black keys are gray instead of blue.
    • The judgment line is absent.
    • Only one GROOVE GAUGE (named GROOVE LEVEL) is used, even if two players are present.
    • An audio visualizer graphic is shown below the GROOVE LEVEL gauge.
  • beatmania was first unveiled to the public at the AM Show 1997 event. While it retained the GROOVE LEVEL gauge and audio visualizer from the above-mentioned screenshot, the notes were changed to the same shape as the final version's ones, although a bit thicker.

beatmania 2ndMIX

  • The April 1998 issue of the Famitsu magazine includes a screenshot of an early version of beatmania 2ndMIX, which also shows the audio visualizer graphic from DJ BEATS. It is currently unknown if this graphic was present during development of beatmania 2ndMIX, or if the screenshot is just an updated version of the aforementioned DJ BEATS' image.

beatmania APPEND 3rdMIX

beatmania 5thMIX -Time to get down-

beatmania ClubMIX

  • A hidden developer comment states "TRUE NAME IS MIRAI MIX", hinting that this may have been the game's original subtitle [3].

beatmania featuring DREAMS COME TRUE

  • A hidden developer comment states "LAST DJ MAIN BORD BEAT DCT", meaning this may have originally intended to have been the last beatmania game on the BEMANI DJ-MAIN hardware (or potentially the last beatmania game at all). The BEMANI DJ-MAIN board would not be discontinued until the release of beatmania THE FINAL two years later [4].

beatmania THE FINAL

  • According to composer Naoki Maeda, birdman was supposed to be a collaboration between him and SLAKE, which would've marked the first and only time in BEMANI the two worked together on a song. The demo version, which Naoki composed by himself in preparation for the collab, ended up used in the final game instead.

beatmania IIDX

beatmania IIDX

  • The March 15th, 1999 issue of Gamest shows a screenshot of an earlier build of beatmania IIDX where the scratch notes are thicker than keyboard notes, and the judgment line is absent.
    • Another screenshot shows a different song selection screen, with different fonts and without song titles.
    • The Mode Select screen shows Practice (練習), EASY, and NORMAL modes instead of 4KEYS, 5KEYS, and 7KEYS modes, respectively.

beatmania IIDX 2nd style

  • Shake was nearly cut from beatmania IIDX 2nd style, as sound director dj TAKA was upset by the death of double member Sachiko, who died months before 2nd style's release. He changed his mind when he thought the song matched too well with his vision of 2nd style to scrap it.

beatmania IIDX 4th style/5th style

  • According to dj TAKA, ABSOLUTE was originally titled Special Thanks, but both VJ GYO and GOLI thought it was "lame", and rejected it. [5]
  • According to Ryu☆, he submitted sakura storm for a second Musicianship Trial, similar to how his song starmine won the first contest. The second contest was cancelled, and the beatmania IIDX staff wouldn't announce winners for a second one for two more years in beatmania IIDX 9th style, when vocalist flare and musician Sho Maruyama won. (Coinidentally, Ryu☆ and fellow first Musicianship Trial winner kors k returned to IIDX in 9th style as well.)

beatmania IIDX 8th style

beatmania IIDX 16 EMPRESS + PREMIUM BEST

beatmania IIDX 18 Resort Anthem

  • Daily result screens for each day of the week were planned to be included in the game, each containing a female DJ or two. In order from Sunday through Saturday, the seven would have been Celica (though labeled as "Sanday") & Erika, Sakura, Nyah, Tsugaru, Xiatian, Ameto & Hihumi, and Iroha & Lilith. Sunday also contains an alternate background from EMPRESS + PREMIUM BEST with Celica as well under "Sunday". These pictures can be seen here.

beatmania IIDX 19 Lincle

  • Complete data for Vienna, including an audio preview, can be found unused in the Lincle HDD, suggesting it was intended to be revived in Lincle Kingdom.

beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro

  • Tricoro EXPERT.jpg
  • Although tricoro was the first beatmania IIDX game to not have EXPERT MODE, graphical data for this mode on the MODE SELECT screen can be found unused in tricoro's HDD.
  • Keysounds and preview audio for the pop'n music song Masquerade exist in tricoro, with its own ID number of 20026 and the SIRIUS HOUSE generic video assigned to it. But it has no notecharts and was never made playable, being the only unused song with sound data that didn't appear in any of the following IIDX games. This might be attributed to its composers, NAOKI and jun, both leaving KONAMI in early 2013.
  • The beatmania IIDX 20 tricoro ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK Vol.2 album was never released; the remaining tricoro originals were instead moved to the second disc of the beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK album.
  • Placeholder overlays for POINT ZERO can be found in the tricoro HDD. As the dummy images used as placeholders only show numbers, it is currently unknown if POINT ZERO's jacket in jubeat saucer was based on the scrapped overlays for the song.
  • MARIA (I believe... )'s unique DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME2 video can be found unused in the tricoro HDD.
    • However, unlike fellow beatmania IIDX song Make A Difference in the same game, which got an extension to its video for its original beatmania IIDX length, MARIA (I believe... )'s video was the same cut as its DanceDanceRevolution counterpart, suggesting that plans fell through to extend it.

beatmania IIDX 21 SPADA

Spada†leggendaria was supposed to have an eighth song. A result banner showing the Spada†leggendaria chamber alongside all seven swords (including the usual "Spada†leggendaria - SECRET MUSIC UNLOCKED" text) was left unused in the data. It is assumed that the unused artist alias would refer to the legendary sword Excalibur, which is noticeably absent among the sword name theming of SPADA. It was likely to be the ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE, as unused image text for one can be found in the SPADA HDD.

beatmania IIDX 22 PENDUAL

Chrono Chaser

Chrono Chaser was going to have a more regular cycle, as Say YEEEAHH and Reflux, made available late in June 2015, could be found in the HDD as early as November 2014. Negative reception of Chrono Chaser's extremely vague unlock system likely put the event on a long hiatus. After PENDUAL, beatmania IIDX went back to having secret extra stage events like LIMIT BURST and Spada†leggendaria.

Unfinished overlays

  • Despair of ELFERIA's boss overlays data contained unused sprites for a second form; they look identical to the last form of 煉獄のエルフェリア's boss, except colored differently.
  • 共鳴遊戯の華's LIMIT BREAK boss attack sequence was going to feature every joker villain, as images showing their names were found in the overlays data. The data also contained an unfinished sketch image of Lopica (共鳴遊戯の華's main boss character).

beatmania IIDX 23 copula

Mystery Line

Mystery Line's medal list in the files contains additional, unobtainable medal entries that had the same unlock requirements (unlock three Mystery Line charts) for up to nine more songs, suggesting the event was supposed to be longer.

beatmania IIDX 27 HEROIC VERSE

Double BEGINNER

  • Text related to Double BEGINNER can be found in the game data. However, this difficulty has never been available in an arcade title, and only a handful of songs have had Double BEGINNER charts in CS titles.

Fire Beat

  • Full data for Fire Beat exists inside the game, including charts, keysounds, a generic video assigned to it, and a listing inside the game's music ID database. It is speculated that the song was intended to be added alongside an event challenging players to beat top-ranker DOLCE.'s scores on the song; the event was held using beatmania IIDX ULTIMATE MOBILE instead. The song was later available for play on beatmania IIDX 28 BISTROVER.

SHADOW REBELLION.VI and VII

SHADOW REBELLION.VII's unused result screen, which depicts Shizuku Yamashina (イリィガル・ベイス・メディスン's character) in place of the sixth SHADOW REBELLION.
  • SHADOW REBELLION is the EXTRA STAGE system of beatmania IIDX 27 HEROIC VERSE. It was originally planned to have eight parts, but it was later modified to have seven instead. After resuming the event in June with STOIC HYPOTHESIS, the next part was originally set to be イリィガル・ベイス・メディスン. This song was mistakenly revealed on the game's official website for a short period of time in July 2020, which was when it was scrapped and replaced instead by the seventh SHADOW REBELLION song, 魅惑のYUMMYスイーツ. The reason for this change is unknown.
    • This is evidenced by the unused results screen for SHADOW REBELLION.VII, which shows the Pastel-kun Q-pro from 魅惑のYUMMYスイーツ in front and the six other SHADOW REBELLION Q-pros behind it, including Shizuku Yamashina (who was the character for イリィガル・ベイス・メディスン).
    • The modification date for the results screen of SHADOW REBELLION.VII is much earlier (July 2020) than those of VI (August 2020) and FINAL (October 2020), implying that the plans were changed around July 2020.
    • Dummied out data for イリィガル・ベイス・メディスン's Shizuku Yamashina Q-pro parts can be found in the game.

beatmania IIDX 28 BISTROVER

beatmania IIDX 30 RESIDENT

  • According to Yuta Imai, ONE AND ONLY's original name was IIDX, hence the soundbites of "IIDX" throughout the song. [6] He had to change the name of the song as it was already used for a song.

BeatStream

BeatStream

An early BeatStream song selection screen.

BeatStream アニムトライヴ

  • 恋する☆宇宙戦争っ!! / Prim
    • 恋する☆宇宙戦争っ!! received a NIGHTMARE chart during the location test of BeatStream アニムトライヴ, when it was still known as BeatStream2. This chart never appeared in the final release of BeatStream アニムトライヴ.

DanceDanceRevolution

Due to the sheer size of this section, it has been moved to its own page.

Dance Maniax

Dance Maniax

  • Files found in the game's database reveal early concept art of the game's songwheel interface with the song titles displayed in a circular wheel and different artwork appeared for each of the songs.

Dance Maniax 2ndMIX

  • VIRTUAL MIND's original title was The Matrix, after one of the first lines in the song. KONAMI forced Thomas Howard to choose a different name for the song, since the 1999 movie The Matrix was being advertised by the time he wrote the lyrics to said song [9]. He wrote down a long list of alternative titles; VIRTUAL MIND ended up being chosen.

DANCERUSH STARDOM

  • EZ DO DANCE / TRF
    • Data for the original version of EZ DO DANCE can be found in DANCERUSH STARDOM.

GuitarFreaks & DrumMania / GITADORA

GUITARFREAKS

  • The background animations of LUCKY? STAFF contain the screenshots of the title and result screens of RIFF & GIG, which was the prototype of GUITARFREAKS. The GUITARFREAKS 6thMIX & drummania 5thMIX website also features a page with a gameplay screenshot of said prototype.
  • Based on unused graphics and audio data found in the game, it seems the EXTREME difficulty was going to debut in this game. It was later added to GUITARFREAKS 2ndMIX.

drummania

  • Prerelease material for the game show that the cabinet had some minor differences, most notably that the hi-hat and cymbal were colored red instead of blue, while the right tom was blue instead of red [10].

GUITARFREAKS 3rdMIX

  • DOUBLE ORBIT / 泉 陸奥彦
    • BGM data for this song can be found in GUITARFREAKS 3rdMIX. While the song never appeared in the GuitarFreaks series, it is playable in both Riff Riff medleys, which contain the song.

GUITARFREAKS 7thMIX & drummania 6thMIX

GUITARFREAKS 8thMIX & drummania 7thMIX

GuitarFreaks & DrumMania MASTERPIECE SILVER

  • Graphical data for the licensed song ボーイフレンド can be found within the game's files, suggesting it was going to make its CS debut in the game.
    • Graphics and code for a scrapped course, labeled as 00s', can also be found in the game data, which would have used this song.

GuitarFreaks V8 & DrumMania V8

  • Lepton / TIME CAPSULE Lab.
    • Lepton, a song from GuitarFreaksXG2 & DrumManiaXG2 Groove to Live, has complete charts that are made for the classic series of GuitarFreaks & DrumMania. This may have indicated a potential appearance in GuitarFreaks V8 & DrumMania V8 with all new songs with CLASSIC MODE charts being playable there. However, Lepton's classic series charts remain in the XG2 data yet are not found in the GuitarFreaks V8 & DrumMania V8 data.

GuitarFreaksXG3 & DrumManiaXG3

GITADORA EXCHAIN

jubeat

jubeat prop

KEYBOARDMANIA

MÚSECA

MÚSECA 1+1/2

ParaParaParadise

ParaParaParadise 1st MIX Plus

pop'n music

pop'n music

UNCLE Jam's sketch.
  • pop'n music was first unveiled at the AM Show 1998, where it showed some differences compared with the final release of the game:
    • pop-kuns were rectangle-shaped.
    • The red judgment line at the bottom of the screen was absent.
    • UNCLE Jam's name was capitalized as UNCLE JAM.
  • The pop'n music character illustration book includes early sketches for the characters of the first game, alongside their respective genres. The genre for UNCLE Jam's song appears as HIP HOP instead of RAP.

pop'n music 3

  • すれちがう二人 / aprésmidi
    • Graphics for this song can be found within the game's data, suggesting it was not planned to be removed. Considering that in this game, all songs from the original pop'n music are only playable in HYPER mode, there's a possibility すれちがう二人 would have gotten a HYPER chart as well.

pop'n music 5 CS

pop'n music 5 1/3's logo as it appears on the trademark filing.
  • Trademark filings indicate that the game was originally going to be titled pop'n music 5 1/3, the "1/3" coming from the fact that a third of pop'n music 6's songlist appears as preview songs [11].

pop'n music 6

pop'n music 8

pop'n music 8 CS

  • Licensed songs THUNDER BIRDS and みなしごハッチ were planned to be included in this game, as graphical data for their respective rival characters can be found in the data.

pop'n music 9

  • Various scrapped cafe designs for characters can be found in one of the pop'n music 9 Peace Pages. Most notable among them are BAMBOO and the KING, neither character whom made it to the final version of the game.

pop'n music 10 CS

pop'n music 11

Line Times' EX chart

Line Times, a pop'n music 8 CS song, first appeared in arcades in pop'n music 11. However, its EX chart from the console releases was not playable in arcades, despite its data existing in the hard drive for every arcade game since its debut. No official reason for its absence was given by the staff, save for a vague "In the world, there are lots of mysterious things" [12].

Line Times' EX chart would finally appear in pop'n music peace as an unlockable chart.

Planned URA charts

References to 3P palettes for CHARLY, risette, SANAE♥chan, and S・8・TARO can be found in the pop'n music data, named with the same suffix for the 3P palettes used in URA charts. Of these characters, the latter two have, besides their respective portraits, proper colored sprites as well. Those can be seen in this video.

pop'n music 14 FEVER! CS

  • 晴香-HARUKA- was originally to have a unique rival character, Karoline&Yangels, as opposed to recycling an older pop'n music character in the final game. The duo were later repurposed for UNBOUND MIND the following year in pop'n music 16 PARTY♪.
    • According to pop'n music 16 PARTY♪ sound director Seiya Murai, Karoline&Yangels were scrapped as the characters of 晴香-HARUKA- because they didn't fit the tone of the song. [13]

pop'n music 15 ADVENTURE

  • Aqua's song comments from wac note that it was nearly cut from the game, due to complications involving Toshihiro Mizuno and his wife Akino Mizuno: the former having a dying friend in the hospital, and the latter about to give birth to two daughters. The song was also originally written as a scat song before being reworked into a vocal song as well. [14]
  • crimm notes in the song comments for みずうみの記憶 here that she was supposed to sing in a new song in pop'n music 15 ADVENTURE, but "bad news" came up and she couldn't appear. It's unknown if みずうみの記憶 was supposed to be in pop'n music 15 ADVENTURE, though.

pop'n music 16 PARTY♪

  • According to sound director wac, there was supposed to be a new "party track" song for Sana to sing in pop'n music 16 PARTY♪. He decided to transplant タンバリンビーツ from the Sana-molle Collection album instead. The original song concept was scrapped for clashing too much with fellow PARTY♪ song LOVE☆BA☆ZOOKA！, not fitting the concept of an anniversary track.[15]

Beat'n Groovy

  • References to downloadable content can be found within the game's data, though the game never had any DLC.
  • While the maximum difficulty for any of the game's charts is 3, there are unused graphics for difficulties from 4 to 8.
  • A banner for Votum stellarum can be found within the game's files; complete data for the song can also be found within a prototype of the game dated May 13th, 2008.
  • Text references to Hell? or Heaven?, HypArcSin(x) and Raspberry ♥ Heart can be found within the game's executable.

pop'n music (Wii)

pop'n music 18 せんごく列伝

  • Graphical data for EXPERT can be found on the HDD, revealing that the original theme for pop'n music 18 was city/town based, not unlike TUNE STREET. This suggests that EXPERT was dropped early on the game's development, making pop'n music 18 the first game since the debut of courses in pop'n music 6 to not have the mode.
    • There is placeholder data for EXPERT MODE courses, which uses THE MOVIE's courses, further suggesting that the mode was dropped before the final theme was decided.
  • smooooch・∀・ was supposed to appear in the game. Sound director wac scrapped the idea because he felt the song clashed too much with the game's sengoku period theme. It eventually found its way into the next pop'n music game, TUNE STREET.

pop'n music 19 TUNE STREET

  • jubeat ripples APPEND transplant 少年リップルズ's original genre was going to be J-POP NOW! according to wac. He decided against it and went with its final genre EMOCTRO instead.
  • MVA was supposed to be 540 BPM originally, but sound director PON silently declined L.E.D. doing so. The song remained at 270 BPM in the final release.
    • Note chart maker/sound director wac also thought of keeping the song at 540 BPM, and even thought of making it 1080 BPM. He didn't go through after worry that "no one would play it".
      • He also thought of adding a middle slowdown to 135/67.5 BPM, but decided against it after worry people would complain.

pop'n music Sunny Park

  • Sunny park rokete.jpg
  • Sunny park rokete 2.jpg
  • In the Sunny Park location tests, none of the songs had banners. This was eventually reverted in the final release of the game due to players complaining about being used to finding songs through their banners.
  • Graphics for 組曲『 』 by →Pia-no-jaC← were present when pop'n music Sunny Park was released, including its banner, background, and a unique portrait for SMOKE. However, its charts and sound data were never available. With the exception of the unique portrait for SMOKE, all references for 組曲『 』 were removed from later builds of the game.
  • Dummy data for a song involving DJ Mass MAD Izm* and DJ Yoshitaka could briefly be found in the pop'n music Sunny Park data before it was replaced by Zirkfied. Due to a bug, this dummy song could briefly be played in the Korean release of Sunny Park [16].

pop'n music うさぎと猫と少年の夢

  • According to the second page of this うさぎと猫と少年の夢 article, the game was originally going to have a diner theme, not unlike pop'n music 9's café one, before the staff went with a steampunk layout.
    • A diner theme would finally be used in the series eight years later with the release of pop'n music Jam&Fizz.
  • A placeholder image for a new portrait for SHOKO can be found among the pop'n music うさぎと猫と少年の夢 characters. However, given that there are no placeholders for her new animations in the data, it would likely recycle either her fragments or リメンバーリメンバー animations.

pop'n music 解明リドルズ

  • Wish could be seen in a promotional screenshot [17]. It never appeared in the final game, although its data still remains in the game.
  • Rival character JOMANDA has a placeholder portrait for a 解明リドルズ song. No new song featuring that character appears in the final game.
  • A Ranking (ランキング) section was present in the game website since launch date, which was planned to be used for when Score Challenge (スコアチャレンジ) would resume from pop'n music peace. However, as Score challenge was never added back to 解明リドルズ, the Ranking section was removed from the website on October 12th, 2022.
    • Furthermore, unused graphical data for Score Challenge can be found in the pop'n music 解明リドルズ data as well.

REFLEC BEAT

REFLEC BEAT groovin'!! Upper

  • Real / Aya
    • Sound data for this beatmania IIDX song can be found in the game's files. Its internal ID is the same one used for 男々道, indicating it was supposed to appear as part of the 8th Set (PHQUASE's SELECTION) of the BEMANI MUSIC FOCUS unlocking system, but was replaced.
  • According to TAG's mond account [18], before he decided on his final set of songs for BEMANI MUSIC FOCUS, seven more were up for candidacy: B4U, DYNAMITE RAVE, the original version of 華爛漫 -Flowers-, Sweet Rain, Fly Above, Abyss -The Heavens Remix-, and White tornado.
    • He also debated choosing some of his own songs for the event, but decided not to, saying he would pick others' songs than his own (though he did note how "unfair" it was other artists in the event after him did get to put their own songs in the event, most infamously Des-ROW).

REFLEC BEAT VOLZZA

  • Graphical data can be found for two additional minigames that were to be playable during matching: a sequel to REFTIS titled REFTIS II パステリアンのざいほう, and a pizza delivery-themed minigame called VOLZZA DE PIZZA.

SOUND VOLTEX

SOUND VOLTEX BOOTH

  • Graphics for an early gameplay interface can be found in the game's files. What is interesting to notice is a graphic featuring a controller layout that is completely different from the final, with one effect and three volume knobs, one fader and one button on each side, and a turntable on the middle, can also be found.

SOUND VOLTEX III GRAVITY WARS

DJ YOSHITAKA Song Remix Contest

On October 19th, 2016, it was announced that a remix contest involving songs composed by Yoshitaka Nishimura was planned to be held. [19] The event never ended up happening in SOUND VOLTEX IV HEAVENLY HAVEN.

ミライダガッキ FutureTomTom

Planned songs

Albums / Contests / Etc.

BEMANI×東方Project Ultimate MasterPieces

cyber beatnation 2 -Hi Speed conclusion-

SYNTHESIZED

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