What minor details in BEMANI games annoy you?

Ever, since I mentioned this, I got to digging around in other official simfiles to see what other charting blunders I could find.

And then I stumbled upon Beautiful Life by Aria from SuperNOVA1 for the first time. And that is possibly the most gloriously horrific abomination of a chart I've ever seen.

The charting isn't the problem. The main catch is that the chart contains over 100 (Count that - ONE HUNDRED) BPM CHANGES.

And the BPM changes aren't even subtle increments of decimals. They range from the 80's all the way into the 130's; you can visibly SEE the speed of the arrows changing as you play.

And the funny part? The song's BPM is a flat 100 anyway!

Some poor sod had to INTENTIONALLY mark on the chart each and every BPM change OVER 100 TIMES!

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Most of the songs back in the day had generic BGAs as well. Like on Extreme AC I think just Graduation, Dance Dance Revolution, and Sakura have exclusive videos (and that 2 seconds of Genom Screams that isn't shared anywhere else). Every other BGA you see is shared with other songs. Like we associate the bagpipes videos with Bag but they're used in other songs as well. The running man videos are in Genom Screams, Trip Machine Survivor, and Legend of Max. The DDR machine videos are in Paranoia Survivor and Paranoia Survivor Max. The dancing cactus is in Gamelan de Couple and Calico Cat Rock. I don't remember Max 2 AC having any unique videos, I think Max AC was the last one to have them, and I don't remember any on the PS1 versions at all. At that point we might as well just have the dancers.

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Not really sure if this is a good counter-point.

Yeah, a lot of generic BGAs were reused by many songs, but at the very least, each and every song was coded to use the same animations in varying ways, so there was at least SOME variation.

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I don't think they would have wanted to do much with the game during the pandemic, given that everyone was in quarantine and it would look like they were giving incentive to go out and play (not to mention arcades being closed). If DDR GRAND PRIX had come out during the pandemic then that would have been a great place to have those revivals, then get them on arcade afterwards. Too late now but at least it seems they're doing that with the Hottest Party ones and even old licenses, so hopefully they'll continue with songs from other games.

It's probably just a matter of perspective. Generic is generic, shared is shared, at least to me. I'd rather get to see a specific dancer that I like (which having an eAmusement card, I do) than generic videos. At least some songs do still have unique videos though, like The History of the Future.

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Good perspective about the incentive thing. It makes you wonder if Grand Prix began development specifically due to the pandemic. It’s good to see the series back seemingly in full force, with the new mix and all.

My favourite dedicated BGA was when they put You're Not Here in DDR and actually had a Silent Hill background video with Heather singing the song, and it was censored to an abusrd degree. It always made me chuckle that they decided to have it in the game at all.

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Maybe the song was singing about the BGA. Tsk tsk

Fun fact: MAX and MAX2 has plenty of only-used-in-one-song videos, especially if you don't count the two games with poorly assembled or implanted scripts (those being DDRMAX USA and DDR Ultramix).

alice1,2,3
attack1
bear1
bear2
bunny3
chain1
circle3
circle5
colors3
demon1
demon2
egg3
football1
kaliedoscope5
kaliedoscope15
kl1-6
lines2
lines3
mask1
mood1a
spiral1
sun4 (Euromix2)
text5
text18
text20
tunnel8
washable1-7 (Euromix2)

Anyway I agree with Retroguy. WONDERLAND (UKS MIX) on DDR EXTREME US is a solid script, one of my favorites and every video in it appears in at least one other song on that disc and yet it's still so unique.

disco1 and tunnel5's only other appearances on that disc are in THE REFLEX and they're used in a vanilla fashion, going at a solid 30fps. Here, however, they're both synced to the music and disco1 is assigned that epic stuttering right at the end, matching the music, where you just see the jukebox thing jut out to the right 15+ times before the song ends.

Likewise, discoball1 is really similar; It's used plainly in SO IN LOVE but here it switches direction every 8th note in three intensive parts of the song.

Also seeing all of these "genres" of videos interact with each other is satisfying, usually, especially on EXTREME AC, scripts are locked to one "genre" only (so you'd never see dance12 appear with disco1). disco1 and tunnel5 are the only videos that are still together in the other song they're used in, the other five are all separated. And this is just one example, there are so many creative scripts during the EXTREME US/Fusion/Festival era and even before those.

I don't know man, sure they're "generic" but in my opinion they all have a specific feel to them that helps them stand out, especially if they do, indeed follow the music (or at least the feel of it) and they all compliment each other, and they aren't just lazily dropped in like how StepMania plays them or like in DDR Ultramix.

I don't know why, but this thread has revitalized my urge to just rant about stuff for no reason.



Have you heard a song in a particular BEMANI game and thought "Woah. This could be a really good crossover to another game."?

I can only think of a few off the top of my head.

Can Be Real / Vision F. (CS DDR Party Collection) -> Beatmania IIDX

This is such a bloody good song, and would have made a nice house entry into the earlier IIDX games. (Or even a CS entry)

PARANOiA Revolution / CLiMAXX OF 360 or TRIP MACHINE EVOLUTION / DE-JAVU (AC DDR X3) -> Also IIDX

PARANOiA Revolution because it sounds like a perfect fit for some IIDX extra stage system, and TRIP MACHINE EVOLUTION to compliment it (plus it was made by DJ TAKA who is heavily featured in IIDX games. The stars were aligned for it to be!)

I guess they didn't want to add them for the fact that there was already Paranoia HADES and Trip Machine Phoenix...

volcano (AC SuperNOVA) -> GDFM/GITADORA

When I first heard this song, I genuinely thought it was a crossover from GDFM, only to find out surprisingly that it was a DDR original! It so sounds like it could be an OMES from a GDFM game.



There are probably way more examples, but I'm too lazy to remember them.

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Speaking of BGAs, it really bothers me how they bothered to bring back random videos like Gamelan de Couple instead of ABSOLUTE. Yes, it has its own video in IIDX but what I liked about the DDR BGA is that it showed all the old characters in card form, it felt like a tribute to all of them (which is fitting consering the video comes from that era when characters weren't selectable anymore in AC games?)


Oh yes, specially with Naoki's songs. Prelude and Vanity Angel could be great Nostalgia crossovers (specially the latter, seeing how Nostalgia barely has original DDR crossovers). I know they're not piano focused songs, but that didn't stop them from adding Starlight Fantasia with added piano parts

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This might be a mild take.

With the rise of Attack PFC Encore Extra Stages in DDR like Love Is The Power Re:Born, Over The "Period," and ACE FOR ACES, I'm wondering why that feature hasn't been used as a new RISKY option yet. For me, I actually believe it's a great incentive for players whose goal is to PFC songs they haven't yet without having to waste time missing steps and deliberately failing a stage after they flag a song, where they can just go "Great->FAILED->Start song over until they get the PFC."

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I'm not sure what the purpose would be as it really doesn't waste any time simply just missing the next arrow if you get a Great.

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Some SDVX girls would look the same if you gave them the same hair color/style, eye color and outfit. We really need more variety in the character design besides that tbh

Some genre titles don’t make sense. One is “Like A Pop’n Music” ‘s genre “Pop’n Pop” ?????

Some Beatmania mv’s are just shapes and stuff. They could make a cool music video but it’s mostly shapes and whatever. No insults to the MV creators, just they were probably rushed to make it maybe. Wish they weren’t, they could make some cool stuff.

Gacha system in some games

When they say “international release” and it’s just China and Korea

The fanservice. It’s awful. Especially how much of it is girls, and how some of it is minors.

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It annoys me that the OG GUITARFREAKS and drummania games were always one mix off from eachother. I know GUITARFREAKS was released a few months before drummania, and this issue got fixed with the release of GuitarFreaks V & DrumMania V, but it still bugs me a bit. I wish Konami had waited a bit to release both of them at the same time.

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This stupid stop in Fascination MAXX is slightly off rhythm. The problem is that the first 32nd note comes right before the stop, which means this turns into a mini jack during a part that otherwise doesn't have any, plus the fact that this is off rhythm, and slightly faster than if they had put another 24th. Also this entire section sounds ever so slightly off rhythm.
Fuck FAXX honestly.

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When single musical notes are represented in the chart as gallops (two 16th notes), like in the middle section of FELM and . It's always awkward to hit them, because the 16th note that comes right after the first one almost never represents anything musically. The gallops in Tsugaru or Cow Girl are much easier to keep time with, and those two songs for instance make it feel musically natural. I've never played a chart that makes the skibop skibop skibop feel natural.

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I noticed that in 1998's jacket you can see the points where the old background's artwork was expanded and now I can't unsee them. It's more noticeable at the right side

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Ah yes.

What minor details in BEMANI games annoy me?

The very fact that disco2 and cyber1 (plus rotation4 and spikes11) are on the game disc for DDR EXTREME (AC)... and never get used.



Clips that don't appear in DDR EXTREME (AC) are a lot less known about and less used than clips that are, mainly because of how highly accessible beware's EXTREME simulator is. Also disco2 and cyber1 are two of my favorite videos. That makes me sad.

Oh well.

I hate when Konami ignores previous versions of a song if they weren't "canon". Like the Xbox version of Starmine was right there, they could have made that mediocre 2014 Expert chart a Challenge chart and kept the good version from UM2 that they even used in Strike, but nope. Thrown in the garbage.

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