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 an 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.

KONAMI knew it couldn't keep their music games to just Japan and Korea at this point, so they started releasing some of their arcade games overseas in North America as well. Unfortunately, the American arcade market at the time wasn't as receptive as they would be just a couple of years later to rhythm games. There were two exceptions, though. The first was [[AC DS 1st|Dancing Stage]], an European arcade game loosely based on [[AC DDR 2nd|DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX]] that encouraged KONAMI to release a sequel the following year. The other was '''hiphopmania completeMIX''', a North American version of [[AC bm complete|beatmania completeMIX]] that also managed a year later to get a sequel. (Unfortunately the cabinet is quite hard to find, even back then.)

Lastly, 1999 also marked an extremely important milestone. KONAMI started adapting the current BEMANI name for their music games, the name itself taken from their first game series beatmania.

* February 26th: [[AC 1st style|beatmania IIDX]] is released to Japanese arcades. First appearance of [[Takayuki Ishikawa]], [[Takehiko Fujii]], and [[Keiichi Ueno]].

* March 26th: [[Yurica Nagasawa]]'s third and final album with KONAMI, [[1999~VOCE~]], is released.

* April 23rd: ''beatmania IIDX Original Soundtracks'' album is released, containing (near) all the KONAMI originals new and old from [[AC 1st style|beatmania IIDX]].

* April 26th: [[AC bm 4th|beatmania 4thMIX -the beat goes on-]] is released to Japanese arcades. Takehiko Fujii assumes the role of sound director. First appearance of [[Toshiyuki Kakuta]] and [[Kouichi Yamazaki]].

* April 28th: ''DanceDanceRevolution 2ndMIX LINK VERSION'' is released to Japanese arcades. This version added five new songs and allows you to play ''any'' song you wish for any stage, a first in the series.

* July 10th: [[AC GF2DM1|GUITARFREAKS 2nd]] and [[AC GF2DM1|drummania]] are released to Japanese arcades.

* July 27th: [[AC substream|beatmania IIDX substream]] is released to Japanese arcades. This enhanced version of the original beatmania IIDX adds 11 new songs and many more charts for older songs. [[Reo Nagumo]] hands over the role of sound director to at-the-time newcomer [[Takayuki Ishikawa]], a position he would maintain for nearly a decade. [[Goli Matsumoto]] also joins the staff team.

* September 30th: [[AC 2nd style|beatmania IIDX 2nd style]] is released to Japanese arcades. First appearance of [[Taku Sakakibara]] and [[Tatsuya Furukawa]].

* October 8th: ''beatmania ANI-SONGS MIX featuring Tatsunoko Pro'' album released. It contains remixes of various Tatsunoko Production anime series. Later pop'n music composer CO-PING appears on the album.