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Today Guitar Freaks V5 and Drummania V5 is officially released in Japan!

KONAMI annouced that they would officially release Drummania in Europe. The game concerned is Drummania V4. DMV4 is supposed to be released in September 2008 for Europe.

The game features 450 songs and some awesome licenses as KONAMI says, just hope it won’t be anything like European licenses for Supernova.

The thing I don’t understand is…..where the hell is Guitar Freaks? You know session linking is kinda of no use without GF machines.

Starting yesterday a Pop’n Music mouse is available at KONAMI store. The mouse is green and white and it looks more like ladybug (mechanically). Under the transparent wings you can see 9 Pop’n music buttons on the mouse. Wonder why they are there? It’s not just a Pop’n Music related mouse, it is also a controller for Pop’n Music game.

This game can run on PentiumIII 800Mhz, 512MB RAM. It has 500MB and needs DirectX 8 or higher. There are 12 songs by default but you can also download more songs for this PNM game from KONAMI official website.

Game modes available are - 3 button, 5 button, 9 button normal mode, 9 button hyper mode.

You can get the set (mouse and the game) for about 5000 Yen VAT excluded at konamistyle.

The new and this time not really awaited game Pop’n Music 16 was released in Japan the 24th of March.

The game is full of colors. In general most used color seems to be yellow (at least that’s my impression). The game features 34 new songs. Some of the songs are completely new, some of the songs come from other games like DDR or IIDX (sobakasu, run to you, 月光花). I was also pleased that a new Contemporary Nation is available in PNM16.

There is Enjoy Mode, Challenge Mode, (Cool) Challenge Mode, Expert Mode and Battle Mode. The second Challenge mode has new challenges than those we know from normal Challenge mode. Also Cool evaluation is turned always on in this mode. The rest is unchanged.

I got a chance to play PNM 15 finally and well I was amazed. The game finally looks quite “normal” but the announcer is terrible even worse….horrible.

It’s been a long time since I played PNM so I was surprised that I can still play it. Even though I did not get the results I was used to. Anyway I still could clear LVL 30 songs but I haven’t tried anything more difficult. I still need to get a hand on ASC^_^. But maybe one day it will come….

So well? Here’s a video of me playing Ninja Heroine. It didn’t go that well as I thought (as I could FC the song no prob.) but I finally cleared it (almost failed it^_~).

KONAMI couldn’t decide better, after releasing IIDX15 they announced a location test of their completely new music game called jubeat. This game is played with your fingers on a 4×4 grid. Your aim is to press the buttons at correct time.

The game’s name came from the word “yubi” meaning finger and “beat”. Thus the game is also pronounced with “y” not “j” as many people like to say.

There are two modes of play. Online play and Multiplayer. Online - you will be able to compete with players connected to the same network. Multiplayer - you can play against anyone standing right next to you (if there are two machines of Jubeat).

After selecting mode of play, you are prompted to choose a song. There 21 songs from which you can choose. Just press the button correspondin CD picture of a song you wish to play. If you are in Online play one player chooses a song and the other one matches the choice. In Multiplayer mode this is not necessary, the game starts right after one player chooses a song.

There are three difficulties in general Basic, Advance and Expert. Each song has its difficulty of its own (level 1 to 8). The boss song being a Snow Goose (200BPM LVL8 on Expert)
(You’ve got arrows and buttons on the arcade, one is effector button, one is for changing the difficulty and the arrows are for choosing a song)

When you finally get to the game your aim is quite simple. You are supposed to listen to the music for clues when to hit the panels (for example if the clue is lyrics - then you will be pressing the panels with at the same time you hear the vocals). These panels (starting position is all black) will start lighting up. Your goal is to press them^_~. The button variations can consist of all the buttons (1 at a time, 2, 3,4,…16).

The score is calculated from the evaluation of notes. If you get all perfects you should be rewarded with SS and 1000000 score. The worst “not fail” grade is D.

The game ends if you won’t get over 700000 points on one song.

Today I went with my boyfriend to Galeria Mokotow where is the famous PowerStation arcades hosting several music game machines. The first machine viewable from the entrance is PIU Exceed and the second one is the “new” machine of EZ2Dancer.

This Korean game from Amuseworld is played on 5 (Hard style) or 7 (Real style) sensors in single play. 3 are for the feet and 2 or 4 are for the arms. Of course there is the possibility to play on double.

As I played the game for the first time I just tried playing it on Hard (that means 5 sensors). I had no real difficulties with the game and I found out that it would be actually good for freestyling. My problem was that difficulty I need for freestyling is somewhere between 5-6 which is quite high. Anyway I had some fun and I will go try it again tomorrow. I will maybe even try Real style or Club style (Double mode)

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Video showing EZ2Dancer Double
For some basic information about the game go to => EZ2Dancer

Two days ago we could find the information that KONAMI announced that PNM 16 will be released in March 2008. The game’s full name is Pop’n Music 16 Party. It will contain more than 40 new songs. The song total should be over 700 (I can’t even imagine that).

A part from Battle Mode, Challenge Mode and Expert mode there will be once again Enjoy mode. Beginners will have once again a place where to start (hope it won’t be pink…-_-).

The whole interface should be blue.

The game will also have a new character^_~.

Today I had the chance to play the PSP version of Taiko no Tatsujin. I have to say this game from Namco is really colorful (well, mainly red and blue).

On PSP you can confirm the “don” drums by either pressing the arrow buttons or x, circle, square or triangle. The “ka” drums are confirmed by those L1/R1 buttons.

I skipped playing kantan (the easiest songs), played some 7/8 stars songs on futsuu (standard) and then I tried some muzukashii (hard difficulty) songs. I have to say that using the “sticks” is much easier than pressing buttons. I felt quite uneasy confirming each blue note. But well it was fun and I could clear some fives on muzukashii.

When I got back I wanted to play more of Taiko no Tatsujin so we helped ourselves for a copy of Taiko no Tatsujin DS.

This game is played with your styluses (you should be careful not to damage your Nintendo DS) instead of using the buttons on PSP. The game is slightly different as it is divided into two screens (one where you hit and the other one where you see the notes scroll).

But anyway this game is fun. Much better Donkey Konga^_^.

Last year on this very same date a Chinese company EZ2Dance produced and released a new version of Dance Station 3DDX. The game is called now Plus Dance Station 3DDX 3: D-Tech.

The machine differs little bit from the previous two versions. It red and blue panels on the platform and the hand sensor cage is red. On this cage you will also see flashing lights.

The game contains 87 songs. 15 songs are Chinese, the rest of it is Korean and the songs come from the previous two versions of 3DDX and Pump it Up.

The game has 2 difficulties for single (Easy, Hard - earlier known as pretty steps and hard steps) and one difficulty for double (club, earlier known as dual mode).

The Hidden Codes stay the same as on the previous version, so no need to learn new codes for speed modification or random steps.

all the information is taken from the official website at EZ2Dance.com

There is a new community around this game and they are making videos and comments ^_^. I’m happy that this game is not dead yet.

Note: for some basic info or videos you can check my site DS 3DDX 2