pop'n music/rhythm (Wii) (International)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXxTI-49pX8

It looks like Pop'n Music was at Comic-Con, probably just for press though. You can see it to the left at about 40 sec.

Also an IGN article about it...

http://wii.ign.com/articles/100/1007570p1.html

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I'm quite scared for this game. For those who survived playing Samba De Amigo on the Wii, I'm sure you could relate on the motion controls for Pop N' Music. I really wish they would of stayed on the orignal concept with the expensive as heck controller.

I'll be Downloading, I meant purchasing this game and I'll give a quick review on how it is.
Just give me a couple days to do this.

This and Samba are completely different in the way they operate. The biggest problems that Samba de Amigo had wasn't in it's response to shakes, but the fact that it relied heavily on STRICT tilt direction along with the shakes. Often times what would happen in that game was that the shake would be fine, but the shake if you weren't razor precise, would throw off the tilt you're going for and result in a miss. I don't foresee this being an issue here knowing that it's directional shake based and doesn't involve precise tilting to highlight markers on the screen. I can trust them with this since HP2's hand markers were very responsive and I had tons of fun with them so like I said, I don't see a problem cropping up.

Besides, as crappy a game as Happy Feet was on Wii at launch, if MIDWAY could do a DDR knockoff just using the remote and have it work perfectly, I know damn well Konami can make it work.

Sorairo Days

Look for the annotations to explain the menus and stuff.

The thing with Samba is that it's really only playable with the MotionPlus.

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I finally got the game and I'll do a video first look sometime today.
Let's just say I'm not that mad at it.

I really hope there's another difficulty, because if there's not, my Sorairo Days video is about as hard as it gets.

Looks like it's really aimed for kids. The difficulty is at most the equivalent of a level 20 in AC pop'n out of a maximum of level 43.

Way too easy.

IIRC, I'll probably get the game going (maybe today) and can get some vids up.

Pop N' Music Walkthrough
Everything You Need To See In This Game

Alright, I played the game for about 15 min or so and I have come to the conclusion it sucks. Control is just awful

Yeah, it's just not pop'n at all.

Here's my (sort of) detailed review:

One of the key features of Pop'n Music games have been the colorful interfaces, the cute little minute details that make each game's interface look unique and pleasing to the eye. Unfortunately with Pop'n Music for the Wii, this is not the case.

When you first start Pop'n Wii, you are immediately taken to a tutorial stage, where on-screen instructions teach you how to play the game before you're left to practice on a demo song. This tutorial stage is where you first see the graphical interface of Pop'n Wii. Unlike the Arcade and PS2 versions of the game, where the gameplay is accessorized with two characters (the player's and the particular song's own personal character) seemingly battling it out, the Pop'n interface has you controlling one of the Pop'n character's hands to hit the pop-kuns on screen. The regular reactions to missing or hitting a note are still here, though they can be hard to notice and are not nearly as exciting as they are in the traditional pop'n games.

Behind your character is one of six 3D stages which is littered with both Pop'n characters and your Miis happily dancing away to the music playing. There's nothing exactly wrong with these stages (although there were a few instances where I couldn't see a pop-kun fall down because it blended with the background), but they don't really do anything special for me. Unfortunately, even the menu graphics lack anything special in this Wii incarnation. The main menu has a very boring yellow-striped background, and the song select menu is even worse, lacking such things as song banners or indeed anything that makes one song graphically distinguishable from another (besides the song name of course).

Now on to the meat of the game: the gameplay. Rather than using a traditional 9-button Pop'n Music controller, the game requires that you use the Wii-mote and nun chuck to play. The game is forced 5-button mode, where each button corresponds to a different movement from your controller (Move the nun chuck down, move the nun chuck to the left, move the Wii-mote down, move the Wii-mote to the right, and either move the Wii-mote to the left or the nun-chuck to the right, to be specific). This control scheme is actually moderately fun, but definitely needs some tweaking. It is a rare occurrence for me to play a song and not have the control scheme mess up on me, causing me to miss a note.

Another major change to the gameplay model is actually the music itself. Rather than having each note keysounded, the game actually just plays the OST-quality version of the song as you play with no keysounds, similar to how DanceDanceRevolution and Jubeat work. Instead of key sounds, the game has you select from a number of instruments, from a whistle to snare drums to wooden clappers, that play when you hit the note. I appreciate the twist-up, but it gets annoying to have each note play the same exact thing over and over and over and over....Especially when many of the instruments make it hard to hear the actual song.

Speaking of music, Pop'n Wii is lined up with all the songs you'd expect from a Pop'n Music game....just not as much of them. The game is limited to an on-disc collection of 40 songs, but those songs are filled with the trendy J-Pop and catchy Konami Originals of a normal Pop'n game. Pop'n Music was always a game that catered to a Japanese music taste, but there are almost no songs here that are vocalized outside the Japanese language, so fans of the English Pop'n songs may want to sit the Japan version out. Overall, looking past the actual numbers, the songlist is pretty nice. Catchy licenses like 空色デイズ (Sorairo Days), ポリリズム (Polyrhythm), and キセキ　（Kiseki) and here along side fan-favorite KOs like High School Love, 凛として咲く花のごとく (Rin Toshite Saku Hana no Gotoku) and PingxPongxDash.

Unfortunately, it's hard to say it's very fun playing these songs. Part of it has to do with a sometimes buggy control scheme, yes, but the biggest part to me is the lack of difficulty. By default, each song only has a "standard" difficultly you can play, which are very easy (most of these charts probably have somewhere around 100 notes). If you clear a song on standard with a 100% lifebar (which can be a hassle with the control scheme actually...), you unlock that song's "challenge" chart, which really isn't all that much harder (I don't think I've found a challenge chart yet that cracks the 300 note mark). Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be another level of difficultly, which leaves me to entertain myself by trying to do silly para-para dances during the songs (...). In fact, if it weren't for the control scheme bugging out once or twice a song, I could 100k every song on this game for sure.

And make no mistake, I've only been playing this game for one day, and I only bought my Wii two weeks ago (and a majority of that time was spent playing DDR), so it's not like I'm terribly experienced with the Wii controller...

Speaking of 100king a song, there's no such thing in this game. The game rates each pop-kun hit with either FEVER!, Great, Good, or Miss, but it does not keep an actual number score for you. Instead, you get grades in the form of trophies....Three in all. A bronze trophy for passing the song, a silver trophy for beating the song with a 100% lifebar, and a gold trophy for full-combing a song. Yes, that's it. Despite getting 100% greats on a song on both standard and challenge, I received no special acknowledgment. A gold trophy is the highest this game gives you.

So, bottom line: is this game fun? Yes. But these seems better suited as a mini-game, not as an entire spin-off of its own.

According to 2ch, this game only sold 900 copies on it's first day in the whole of Japan. Hilariously pathetic.

I've noticed that the reviews for the game on Amazon.co.jp have not been very friendly.

Oh dear, pop'n failure I guess. Though from what I've seen, Pie is absolutely right: it's a mini-game, and lacks substance to hold its own as an actual game.

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According to Pie, I hope the US version will give us more songs on it

This game looks a like very different one, if you compare it with the rest of games from pomu series.

The licenses are great, but for me the problem would be the Wii controller.

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The following songs will be on the US version of the game, according to the Gamescom trailer

ABC
I Want You Back
Come Clean
Waiting For Tonight
Love Shack
It's My Life
The Fear
Poker Face
Celebration
Virtual Insanity
The Reflex
Pump Up the Volume
We Are Family
Take On Me
Oops...I Did it Again

Ska Ska No. 4
Space Dog
together 4ever
Magical Voice Shower
PULSE
echoes
MEI-KYO-SHI-SUI

I lol'd just a little bit at this.

Ooh, do you have a link to the trailer?

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