2001: Difference between revisions

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* March 15th: '''ParaParaParadise''' is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.
* March 15th: '''ParaParaParadise''' is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.
* March 17th: [[AC GF5DM4|GUITARFREAKS 5thMIX & drummania 4thMIX]] is released to Japanese arcades.
* March 17th: [[AC GF5DM4|GUITARFREAKS 5thMIX & drummania 4thMIX]] is released to Japanese arcades.
* March 29th: [[CS bm DaDaDa|beatmania打打打!!]] is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.
* March 27th: [[AC 5th style|beatmania IIDX 5th style]] is released to Japanese arcades.
* March 27th: [[AC 5th style|beatmania IIDX 5th style]] is released to Japanese arcades.
* March 27th: [[AC DDR 5th|DanceDanceRevolution 5thMIX]] is released to Japanese arcades.
* March 27th: [[AC DDR 5th|DanceDanceRevolution 5thMIX]] is released to Japanese arcades.
* March 29th: [[CS bm DaDaDa|beatmania打打打!!]] is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.
* March 29th: [[CS bm THE SOUND OF TOKYO!|beatmania THE SOUND OF TOKYO!]] is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation.
* March 29th: [[CS bm THE SOUND OF TOKYO!|beatmania THE SOUND OF TOKYO!]] is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation.
* March 29th: [[CS 4th style|beatmania IIDX 4th style -new songs collection-]] is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.
* March 29th: [[CS 4th style|beatmania IIDX 4th style -new songs collection-]] is released in Japan for the Sony PlayStation 2.

Revision as of 23:25, 19 March 2016

This page is under HEAVY construction.

2001

Compared to the previous year, 2001 saw KONAMI step back a bit with their BEMANI titles. The aging PlayStation was already almost seeing the end of its run, as the PlayStation 2 became more and more the dominant BEMANI system. All three new BEMANI titles from the year before - Dance Maniax, KEYBOARDMANIA, and ParaParaParadise - ended their runs this year, and the older series that were still around at year's end went through large shake-ups.

KONAMI only introduced one new BEMANI series in 2001; the short-lived MAMBO A GO GO. It used three bongos, each one with several sensors. It was made to capitalize on the Latin music craze of the early 2000's, and consisted of licensed Latin dance music and KONAMI originals, the latter from regulars in the GUITARFREAKS & drummania franchise like TOMOSUKE, Hirofumi Sasaki, and Motoaki Furukawa. (Not too surprising, considering it ran on KONAMI BEMANI SYSTEM 573 DIGITAL, the same hardware as GUITARFREAKS & drummania.) MAMBO A GO GO's first game was also its last; most of the original songs eventually wound up in other BEMANI titles the following year.

beatmania went from having multiple games and spinoffs a year to just three games in the entirety of 2001. The final CS-only spinoff game - beatmania THE SOUND OF TOKYO! - premiered in spring 2001. It boasted a completely original set of 13 licenses, the music focused more on house and jazz than earlier games in the series. The PlayStation 2 saw the keyboard-based beatmania打打打!!, which contained old beatmania songs that were played on a keyboard. The only beatmania arcade game released in 2001 was beatmania 6thMIX -THE UK UNDERGROUND MUSIC-, which scrapped all previous songs from the franchise for 27 brand-new songs, 12 of them by commission artists from the United Kingdom (hence the game's subtitle). Many of the 6thMIX originals later appeared in DanceDanceRevolution even. beatmania III APPEND 6thMIX also came out this year. Unlike beatmania 6thMIX, it kept all other beatmania songs, though. It also included long versions of three of the game's new songs as an exclusive bonus.

pop'n music mostly stuck to the arcades in 2001, but not without a major visual upgrade with pop'n music 6. Lanes were separated by color for the first time ever, and it was the first non spin-off game in the series to include anime licenses, all of them brand-new to the series. shio, who was an early designer for the series who briefly worked on beatmania for a year, returned as head character designer, bringing larger, more animated characters to the series. The songlists only got bigger, and the gameplay expanded with more difficult songs on EX while still maintaining enough easy songs for beginners to adapt to. Stage number limits were mostly gone too, making the game far easier to access than before. On the home front, KONAMI stopped supporting the Sega Dreamcast, so pop'n music 5 CS was only on the Sony PlayStation for the first time ever. 5 CS didn't arrive until near the end of the year. To make up for it, though, KONAMI included a lot of poo'n music 6 songs as previews, and even introduced the higher speed mods 6's arcade version introduced.

DanceDanceRevolution saw itself focusing more on the new, and less of the old. Along with going from 30 fps to 60, DanceDanceRevolution 5thMIX also saw the series remove all but 20 songs prior to 4thMIX, licenses and originals alike. KONAMI shook it up even further with DDRMAX -DanceDanceRevolution 6thMIX- later that year, which scrapped all previous songs altogether for 42 new songs, mostly consisting of new Dancemania licenses, CS songs, and only six new originals. KONAMI even scrapped the dancing characters for the first time in a mainline game. Videos consisted now of various background movies stitched together to form a video, though some songs received their own little original video bits. On the CS front, KONAMI released home ports of 4thMIX and 5thMIX. It also released DanceDanceRevolution EXTRA MIX, which brought the songs from DanceDanceRevolution Solo BASS MIX, DanceDanceRevolution Solo 2000, and all the new songs from DanceDanceRevolution 4thMIX PLUS in a single package.

Internationally, 2001 was a big year for non-Japanese DDR fans, as KONAMI started releasing DanceDanceRevolution titles internationally on the Sony PlayStation. DanceDanceRevolution CS (America) came out in the U.S., containing a decent mix of songs from DanceDanceRevolution through 3rdMIX CS, while Dancing Stage EuroMIX CS came out in Europe. Both North America and Europe received DanceDanceRevolution Disney MIX (Dancing Stage Disney MIX in Europe), a very loose port of Dancing Stage featuring Disney's RAVE that eliminated most of the non-Disney based licenses with 4thMIX KONAMI originals. The only major addition is MANIAC charts for all songs on Single, but you need to play all the songs on TRICK first to unlock them, which is a tad tedious.

DanceDanceRevolution also saw a big first in BEMANI; the first mobile BEMANI game. Years before jubeat plus or REFLEC BEAT plus, there was DanceDanceRevolution (i-αppli), which allowed one to play MIDI versions of DanceDanceRevolution songs on your mobile phone.

GUITARFREAKS & drummania found itself struggling with the KONAMI BEMANI SYSTEM 573 DIGITAL, too. The series was losing as many songs as it was introducing, many of which never returned to the series again, including KONAMI originals. Space limitations got so bad that by the time GUITARFREAKS 6thMIX & drummania 5thMIX came out, KONAMI had to remove near all the older songs' BASS charts just to have enough room for all of the songs. Both releases did get a boost with a certain add-on this year, which will be explained below. On the CS front, only one new home release for PlayStation 2 - ギタドラ! GUITARFREAKS 4thMIX & drummania 3rdMIX - came out this year, selling so poorly that KONAMI didn't bother to port any further games on PlayStation 2 for over four years.

beatmania IIDX got by far the best upgrades of any series this user. Not only did it receive two arcade games, but the interface was streamlined, added several new helpful options (more speed mods, song grades introduced, DVD video hardware replacing VCD), and the songlist and music variety only got better. Two new home versions came out relatively quickly as well, both having the subtitle "new songs collection", due to having new CS songs.

KEYBOARDMANIA received one final game this year with KEYBOARDMANIA 3rdMIX. For the final game KONAMI added a very interesting feature - Multisession GDK. This allows you to combine GUITARFREAKS, drummania, and KEYBOARDMANIA all at once to play songs on! While only a few songs were compatible, the result was the most complete band experience one could get in a music game an the time. Unfortunately, only the two new GF/DM releases this year - GF5th/dm4th and GF6th/dm4th - could be linked up to access this mode. There was talk of a 4th KEYBOARDMANIA title exclusive to PlayStation 2, but it never came to light.

Dance Maniax's final "new" game was an upgrade to last year's 2ndMIX, titled Dance Maniax 2ndMIX append J-PARADISE, using the same interface. It included 14 new songs, though except for the peculiar beatmania IIDX crossover sanctus, most of the licenses/crossovers had earlier appeared in DanceDanceRevolution 5thMIX.

ParaParaParadise got its one and only sequel, ParaParaParadise 2nd MIX, this year. Unlike the original game, it never received a soundtrack or console release. It did boast a couple of original remixes, most notably one for then recent pop'n music song ウルトラハイヒール〜I JUST WANNA TELL YOU. It was also the first BEMANI game to run on the then new BEMANI VIPER HARDWARE, which pop'n music would start using the following year to great effect. The same day 2ndMIX came out, ParaParaParadise received a PlayStation 2 home release based on 1st MIX Plus, though the home port received a bit of criticism for being a pain to set-up and implement.

2001 was definitely a year of KONAMI focusing more on quality over quantity with BEMANI, but 2002 saw another huge change in store for BEMANI.

February

March

April

  • April 19th: Dance Maniax 2ndMIX APPEND J☆PARADISE, an upgrade to 2ndMIX, is released to Japanese arcades.
  • April 28th: pop'n music 6 is released to Japanese arcades.

June

August

September

October

November

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