What is pop'n music: Difference between revisions

'''''pop'n music''''' (ポップンミュージック), commonly shortened to '''''pop'n''''' or '''''PoMu'''''), is a music video game in KONAMI's BEMANI series. The game is notable for its bright colors, upbeat songs, and cute character graphics. Although pop'n music appears to be targeted for younger children, its difficulty at higher levels has attracted many players of [[beatmania Information|beatmania]] and other BEMANI games. Originally released in 1998, the game has had several home releases in Japan as well as many arcade versions.

==Gameplay==

Unlike most of the BEMANI series, the pop'n music controller is not designed to represent any real musical instrument. Instead it is a pattern of nine buttons in two rows; four on top and five on the bottom. On the screen colored notes called "pop-kuns" fall from the top to the bottom in nine rows corresponding to the buttons. When the notes reach the bottom the player presses the button and the game emits a note of the song, along with a judgement ranging from Great (hit the note perfectly on beat) to Poor (missed the note completely).

Like ''beatmania'', there is a life bar with a long green section on the left and a short red section on the right. Getting Greats raises the lifebar, while getting Poors lowers it. When it is completely full, a higher rating called 'Fever' replaces 'Great' until the lifebar drops again. A song is passed if the life bar is in the red section at the end, which lets the player play another song. Your overall score in a song is based on a possible 100,000 points. If the song is failed, the game ends. A player may play a maximum of 3 songs before the game is over. Later entries guarantees three stages, regardless of whether the first two are cleared.

pop'n music is differentiated from ''beatmania'' by its lack of a turntable and by its hand-size buttons. Where ''beatmania'' is played by pressing buttons with your fingers, pop'n music is played by hitting buttons with your palms, fingers, and in some situations, your arms and elbows. Also, unlike in ''beatmania'' (or at least until[[AC pnm Usaneko|うさぎと猫と少年の夢]]), pop'n music does not give you letter grades upon completion of a song.

Before [[AC pnm SP|pop'n music Sunny Park]], players could choose from a 5-key mode (disabling the leftmost and rightmost buttons), or a 9-key mode. Older console versions also included 7-key mode, which made it easy to fully use a beatmania IIDX controller.

To make the gameplay more interesting, higher difficulty levels feature obstacles known as "Ojamas", large sprites which obscure the player's view of the descending pop-kuns.  

A mode that was featured in later versions of pop'n music is EXPERT MODE, where the player chooses from different song lists and plays through them in either Normal or Hyper mode. The lifebar is different in this mode. The life bar starts full, and then lowers every time you get a Poor. The life bar raises a bit between songs. This mode was removed in [[AC pnm 18|pop'n music 18 せんごく列伝]], and is not present in pop'n music portable 2.

pop'n music 9 through pop'n music 11 featured OSUSUME MODE, where the player was asked questions (In Japanese), and the game made a song list based on the answers. The life gauge required to clear a song in OSUSUME MODE is lowered to 50%. However, songs cleared with less than the normal GROOVE GAUGE requirement will not grant a clear medal.

==Design==

Compared to the rest of the BEMANI series, pop'n music has a very happy and upbeat feel to it. The graphics are brightly colored and primarily solid shapes, rather than the metallic and textured interfaces of other BEMANI. As in earlier DDR versions, players may choose a character to play as. The songs are separated by genres like Reggae, Disco Queen, Spy, or Anime Hero, in addition to the usual BEMANI genres of eurobeat and forms of electronica. In addition to the genres, there are also series of songs with similar elements, like the Classic series (which are medleys of classical music) and the Powerfolk series. Each song has a Normal mode, most songs have a Hyper mode (with harder notes), and some songs have an EX mode (with very hard notes). Unlike other BEMANI games, pop'n music has no other visuals except the character you chose, the character for the song you are playing, and the notes coming down to the bar at the bottom. Where beatmania and [[What is beatmania IIDX|beatmania IIDX]] have videos of some kind, pop'n music has no video at all.