1999
1999
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 very hitting Japanese charts, 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, and 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 ryhtm games - Warashi's Le Concert ff and Le Concert pp took it a step forward and has 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.
KONAMI itself was pretty busy, too. In addition to three new arcade beatmania titles, six new DanceDanceRevolution arcade titles, two and two new pop'n music arcade titles, KONAMI also introduced two brand-new games: GUITARFREAKS and drummania. Unlike their previous game series, though, these games originally featured music from almost entirely veteran KONAMI music composers. Originaly sound director Mutsuhiko Izumi's hard rock sound from over 20 years of previous music experience helped developed a very rich sound the series has to this day. Together with veteran Yoshihiko Koezuka's more mellow 80s sound, veteran Jimmy Weckl's jazz tracks, and newcomers Hideyuki Ono's ska inspired sound and Toshio Sakurai's more rock pop sound, GUITARFREAKS and drummania quickly became hits, the former receiving a PlayStation port by the end of the year.
But perhaps the biggest of the new games released that year was, ironically, a spin-off game; beatmania IIDX. beatmania IIDX added two new buttons to the overall game design, and also re-positioned the 1P to the left. But it also boast something the original beatmania never had; live-action video. For the first time, licensed tracks from the likes of m-flo and later artists down the line featured their original videos. This game also marked the debuts of the hugely popular BEMANI artists Takayuki Ishikawa (dj TAKA), and Takehiko Fujii (SLAKE). Fujii in-particular went on to sound director near every beatmania from 1999 onwards, while Ishikawa stayed on board with beatmania IIDX, inviting friends of his like 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.
beatmania wasn't the only game with a spin-off, though. DanceDanceRevolution had the DSolo BASS MIX and Solo 2000 games, which transformed the usual four-panel styling of DDR on its head. Now you had two extra arrows on the top left and right to work with, resulting in a far more difficult game overall. Both of these games contained almost completely brand-new songs never before in the series.
pop'n music itself had pop'n stage, which was a bit like Pump-It-Up, but keysounded. This game also had an almost completely original songlist, and near all of its songs would pop up in the main series of pop'n music titles. It even got an upgrade later that year known as pop'n stage ex, which added a new difficulty level, a few songs from the then current pop'n music 3, and two brand-new songs. One of the new songs, WE TWO ARE ONE, introduced Seiya Murai to BEMANI. Murai would be for years after one of the biggest names in pop'n music, and also a key staff member of KEYBOARDMANIA starting the following year.
The Sony PlayStation became the new home for most of these new BEMANI arcade releases. DanceDanceRevolution games became huge hits on the system, and the beatmania games continued to sell quite well. KONAMI even dabbled with the Game Boy with their beatmania, producing three games in all.
Lastly, 1999 also marked an extremely important milestone. KONAMI started adapting the BEMANI name for their games, the name itself taken from their first game series beatmania.
So overall 1999 was a very big year for KONAMI's BEMANI series. But 2000 would make 1999 look like nothing happened at all.