Variation-XBA
10-11-2008, 03:42 PM
I bought this arcade title cause I loved Pop N Music, which this clearly is wanting to try and be (though it's the same company).
This game is so terrible I had to do a review for you guys to see to avoid anyone else wasting 800 points on it.
Intro:
In 1998 Konami released a rhythm game called Pop N Music. This was almost a children’s take on the popular Beatmania series which was a DJ simulator rhythm game also from Konami. There were two rows of large hand sized colored buttons that you would hit to time with the corresponding notes that drop to the bottom of the screen accompanied by colorful characters and a vast selection of music.
This is where Beat’n Groovy looses all other similarities with its superior predecessor.
Gameplay:
Much like most rhythm games, the premise is still the same. Notes which are characterized as small little ‘blobs’ will scroll down the screen to a line where the note must be hit with the correct corresponding button which will result in a note being played in the song and a rating being given dependant on how accurately it’s completed.
Also like other rhythm games, you have a bar that ranges from good to bad depending on how accurate you play the song and if you miss too many notes you fail the song.
A few features that were great about Pop N Music was its range of music, it’s art style, and options to modify songs by changing the speed at which notes scroll down the screen so that you could make it more challenging if you desired. These necessary parts of Pop N Music are completely void and nonexistent in Beat’n Groovy.
It almost feels like Konami watered down all the great features of Pop N Music and decided to cater a version towards North Americans. The largest change in the game which I believe was to compensate for playing on an Xbox 360 controller was the 9 button style from Pop N Music has been cut down to 5 buttons for this XBLA port.
This is in theory a good change to introduce new and casual players to the music genre but for experienced players not only is this not challenging, but the difficulty of the songs in the game is a whole different story.
When you download the demo you are given 3 different songs and can choose between the easier 3 button mode or the more difficult 5 button mode. While this does give you a taste of the game, it was very misleading, as I expected more songs to be unlocked that were shown (the total game only has 9) and possibly more challenging tunes to attempt and keep more experienced players playing. This was sadly not the case.
Song difficulties are rated out of 9 music notes with 1 being easy and 9 being difficult. With only 9 songs included in the game one would assume that there would be 2 or 3 easy songs, then some medium challenge songs; leaving one or two very difficult ones for the experienced players. Even though the difficulty meters are rated out of 9, the most difficult song is rated a 3 and that is it. There is no unlocked mode for expert and no way to speed up the notes in the song to arbitrarily boost the difficulty either. Clearly Konami is going to release songs for the game with more difficulty added in, but it is very disappointing as completing all 9 songs can be done within a half hour.
When seeing that this XBLA title had Xbox Live support for vs. mode I hoped that this would add some more playability, though is seems this was only given a once over and has no depth to it either. You can play vs. against anyone else on Xbox Live in player or ranked matches but the experience is very hollow. The host decides the song and when a second person joins the room the song begins. You see your half of the screen with your notes coming down but the other persons notes is not shown at all, so the only way to tell who is winning at a given moment is to quickly check the scores at the bottom of the screen and compare. There isn’t even a meter or anything in the unused space that sways back and forth to show who’s in the lead at any given moment. Once the song is finished, you see a score tally and who won and is thrust back into the main lobby where you can setup or search for another game.
A feature that was included but not expected was Xbox Live Vision mode. This is where you stand in front of your Live Vision camera and have to hit the notes with your hands in one of three places. It’s a very shallow and hollow experience and I don’t expect anyone to play this mode more than a few times as there is no reward for playing this style and it gets old very quickly.
Visuals:
The only visuals in the game are the characters you choose that do a few animations as you play your songs, and have a very childish style to them. The animation is very sloppy, though it was never intended to be appealing to the eye, even in Pop N Music. The characters in this game are mostly stereo typed characters such as a cheerleader, a skateboarder kid, a large black hiphop artist to name a few, and clearly were changed for North American audiences in hopes to appeal.
Sound:
A rhythm and music game should base itself around its music and song choices. Pop N Music had no problem with this, though with this title only having 9 songs, the longevity and replayability are very short and unrewarding. Some of the songs were taken right out of some of the Pop N Music games and others I do not recognize. There are different genres of music but none are anything most North American players will recognize unless they’ve played and have become accustomed to Konami’s music selection in their previous arcade games.
Closing Comments:
Clearly Beat’n Groovy is Pop N Music that has been severely gutted and changed to try and appeal to gamers here, but this is a very poor job and they clearly have DLC in mind for the future to compensate. Only having 9 songs in a rhythm game, I definitely felt cheated out of my 800 points and not even being able to unlock an expert mode to have a single challenging song made it even harder to swallow. Normally I wouldn’t even think twice about downloading new song packs for a game, but since this game already put a bad taste in my mouth, I am wondering if it will even be worth it to try and salvage my experience with this game.
I’m going to stick to Pop N Music and I hope Konami learns that putting a new skin on top of one of their other games will not fool everyone and having less than 10 songs in a music game is completely unacceptable.
Overall: 3/10
This game is so terrible I had to do a review for you guys to see to avoid anyone else wasting 800 points on it.
Intro:
In 1998 Konami released a rhythm game called Pop N Music. This was almost a children’s take on the popular Beatmania series which was a DJ simulator rhythm game also from Konami. There were two rows of large hand sized colored buttons that you would hit to time with the corresponding notes that drop to the bottom of the screen accompanied by colorful characters and a vast selection of music.
This is where Beat’n Groovy looses all other similarities with its superior predecessor.
Gameplay:
Much like most rhythm games, the premise is still the same. Notes which are characterized as small little ‘blobs’ will scroll down the screen to a line where the note must be hit with the correct corresponding button which will result in a note being played in the song and a rating being given dependant on how accurately it’s completed.
Also like other rhythm games, you have a bar that ranges from good to bad depending on how accurate you play the song and if you miss too many notes you fail the song.
A few features that were great about Pop N Music was its range of music, it’s art style, and options to modify songs by changing the speed at which notes scroll down the screen so that you could make it more challenging if you desired. These necessary parts of Pop N Music are completely void and nonexistent in Beat’n Groovy.
It almost feels like Konami watered down all the great features of Pop N Music and decided to cater a version towards North Americans. The largest change in the game which I believe was to compensate for playing on an Xbox 360 controller was the 9 button style from Pop N Music has been cut down to 5 buttons for this XBLA port.
This is in theory a good change to introduce new and casual players to the music genre but for experienced players not only is this not challenging, but the difficulty of the songs in the game is a whole different story.
When you download the demo you are given 3 different songs and can choose between the easier 3 button mode or the more difficult 5 button mode. While this does give you a taste of the game, it was very misleading, as I expected more songs to be unlocked that were shown (the total game only has 9) and possibly more challenging tunes to attempt and keep more experienced players playing. This was sadly not the case.
Song difficulties are rated out of 9 music notes with 1 being easy and 9 being difficult. With only 9 songs included in the game one would assume that there would be 2 or 3 easy songs, then some medium challenge songs; leaving one or two very difficult ones for the experienced players. Even though the difficulty meters are rated out of 9, the most difficult song is rated a 3 and that is it. There is no unlocked mode for expert and no way to speed up the notes in the song to arbitrarily boost the difficulty either. Clearly Konami is going to release songs for the game with more difficulty added in, but it is very disappointing as completing all 9 songs can be done within a half hour.
When seeing that this XBLA title had Xbox Live support for vs. mode I hoped that this would add some more playability, though is seems this was only given a once over and has no depth to it either. You can play vs. against anyone else on Xbox Live in player or ranked matches but the experience is very hollow. The host decides the song and when a second person joins the room the song begins. You see your half of the screen with your notes coming down but the other persons notes is not shown at all, so the only way to tell who is winning at a given moment is to quickly check the scores at the bottom of the screen and compare. There isn’t even a meter or anything in the unused space that sways back and forth to show who’s in the lead at any given moment. Once the song is finished, you see a score tally and who won and is thrust back into the main lobby where you can setup or search for another game.
A feature that was included but not expected was Xbox Live Vision mode. This is where you stand in front of your Live Vision camera and have to hit the notes with your hands in one of three places. It’s a very shallow and hollow experience and I don’t expect anyone to play this mode more than a few times as there is no reward for playing this style and it gets old very quickly.
Visuals:
The only visuals in the game are the characters you choose that do a few animations as you play your songs, and have a very childish style to them. The animation is very sloppy, though it was never intended to be appealing to the eye, even in Pop N Music. The characters in this game are mostly stereo typed characters such as a cheerleader, a skateboarder kid, a large black hiphop artist to name a few, and clearly were changed for North American audiences in hopes to appeal.
Sound:
A rhythm and music game should base itself around its music and song choices. Pop N Music had no problem with this, though with this title only having 9 songs, the longevity and replayability are very short and unrewarding. Some of the songs were taken right out of some of the Pop N Music games and others I do not recognize. There are different genres of music but none are anything most North American players will recognize unless they’ve played and have become accustomed to Konami’s music selection in their previous arcade games.
Closing Comments:
Clearly Beat’n Groovy is Pop N Music that has been severely gutted and changed to try and appeal to gamers here, but this is a very poor job and they clearly have DLC in mind for the future to compensate. Only having 9 songs in a rhythm game, I definitely felt cheated out of my 800 points and not even being able to unlock an expert mode to have a single challenging song made it even harder to swallow. Normally I wouldn’t even think twice about downloading new song packs for a game, but since this game already put a bad taste in my mouth, I am wondering if it will even be worth it to try and salvage my experience with this game.
I’m going to stick to Pop N Music and I hope Konami learns that putting a new skin on top of one of their other games will not fool everyone and having less than 10 songs in a music game is completely unacceptable.
Overall: 3/10