the elusive hd pop'n cab. i have seen quite a few pop'n cabs, but only one of these beauties, and quite far away from japan to bootpop'n music is actually one of the oldest arcade rhythm games, from the same era as dance dance revolution and beatmania. howevver, it's always kinda played second fiddle to them, consistently chugging along year after year in the background. although it has experienced a fair amount of neglect from both konami and the community, there is still a healthy respect for it and in many places you are still likely to find an ancient pop'n cab in some cobwebbed corner, the site of pilgrammage for a couple of grizzled old pop'n vets and occasionally those who are just curious. the line-up of nine huge, colorful buttons are practically begging to be slapped, after all.
what's most amusing to me about pop'n, though, is that it has a very cutesy, friendly art style that almost makes it seem like a children's game, disguising what is in fact one of the most brutally difficult rhythm games out there, rivalling even iidx. turns out there's quite a learning curve when it comes to learning the association between nine buttons and lanes on the screen, not to mention the insane chord combinations and charts that having so many buttons to work lead to. it's really something else, seeing an expert pop'n player at work, hands seemingly-teleporting across the controller, sometimes having to read and then hit up to six buttons at a time. really quite a workout, and it also produces quite a bit of noise, so you might hear it far before seeing it.
the enticing, extremely satisfying buttons along with the art style make pop'n one of my top games, although unfortunately i don't come across it very often. one thing i do have a problem with, though, is that the music selection isn't really to my taste. i like fast bpm, hype music, and unfortunately that doesn't mesh very well with pop'n's stule, so there's not a whole lot of songs in it that i like playing, most of them being crossovers from other games and not pop'n originals.
dancerush
konami, 2018
one of the newest dance games out there. attracts a lot of attention thanks to its huge dance pad that lights up where you step on it, which i see a lot of small children and random people trying out without actually playing the game. the game itself is based around a sort of a shuffle-style dancing which i guess might be popular with the hip people these days, i don't know. maybe they should have named it "danceshuf". if you get really into it, you can start doing some really sick moves, spins and all that. it's funny, though, because all of the best dancerush players i've seen are the nerdiest asian guys imaginable, well-represented among rhythm gamers in general, but the last guys you'd imagine pulling off moves like that.
in my experience, though, playing the game itself is extremely annoying. every time i log in, it feels like i have to sit through an unbelievable amount of bullshit before i can play. event announcements, event progression, warnings, so on and so forth. it feels like it takes five minutes to actually start playing, although maybe if you do play more than one credit per day or don't log in, it's faster. however, i'm always so put off by the menus that i've only ever played one credit of it at a time. then once you actually get into the game, a lot of the charts in the already-slim song selection are locked away behind an unlock system that requires you to play more and earn some currency or something. on top of all that, every time i've played it i've only gotten two songs per credit, which is one of the worst deals among arcade rhythm games. the only pro is that for some reason there's always a ton of free credits left on the machine by people, who i can only assume got confused by all the menus or something. it also doesn't seem very popular and it's likely that konami will stop updating it sometime soon, it's already been on the same version for quite a while.
jubeat
konami, 2008
jubeat (pronounced "you"-beat in the sophisticated european fashion, as opposed to the rather antisemitic alternative) is based around a 4x4 grid of 16 decently-large square "buttons". buttons is in quotes because i'm not really sure if they fully count as buttons, since there's barely any tactile feedback from them. when you press them, it really feels like they wiggle or move side-to-side in their frame rather than move backwards like "proper" buttons. apparently this is because they are all mounted on a sort of membrane, kind of like a very minimal version of a non-mechanical keyboard.
jubeat is also pretty much unique among button based rhythm games for having the actual buttons light up to indicate when to press them, achieved by having a big screen underneath transparent buttons. this makes it one of the most accessible rhythm games, because it's basically a variation on whack-a-mole. you don't need to take a lot of time to learn associations between notes on a screen and physical buttons on the controller, you just see the buttons light up and press them. they've even made a version for the ipad where you just tap places on the touchscreen instead of pressing buttons.
as a result of the accessibility, it was one of the first rhythm games i got mildly into, although it didn't hold much lasting appeal for me. one issue i always had was that the menus were rather difficult to figure out, especially getting to the more difficult charts. one thing i will say, though, is that jubeat has somehow managed to yield some of the most legendary bangers ever to have graced arcade button games, like "flower" or "evans". however, for the most part i've only played them outside of jubeat, in other games that they got crossed over into. jubeat itself seems to enjoy modest but enduring popularity, and has barely clinged to life as a still-supported game these past few years. it was pretty rare to find it in arcades in japan, though, and it didn't receive a major update for years although if i recall correctly, there was one just recently. cheap cabs are slowly making their way overseas to interested private buyers, but they are still rare in US round 1's, not quite EOL (end of life) enough yet to be dumped there.
museca
konami, 2015
museca is a kind of out-there rhythm game that uses five thick dessert-plate sized circular buttons, and then a random foot pedal down below. the most unique part is that the buttons can also be spun, a dual use i don't think i've seen anywhere else yet. the game itself has a pretty high-concept theme, a whole mess of stuff about "illustrations", "grafica", the notes or something are called "objects". visually it it looks very geometric, almost runic, lots of red and white, straight vertical and diagonal lines. the score grades are also given using a single stylized kanji which is good fun.
in any case the gameplay itself wasn't too bad, if a little easy, and having to both press or spin the buttons was pretty neat. one (literal) pain point though was that my hands would always end up hurting from pressing the buttons after a few songs. i'm not sure if it was something to do with the design on their surface, or maybe i was subconsciously hitting them harder than usual because they were such big juicy targets. also, the foot pedal seemed really cool at first, but hovering my foot above it for an entire song waiting for maybe three or four pedal notes at the very end started to get very old fast. plus, it always felt like they would catch me off guard, and even if my foot was in position hovering, i would often hit them late anyway. my final complaint is that the menus were a bit annoying to get through for each play, however that was probably because the game was offline and so it would try and tutorial me every single credit, although if they had put in a bit of effort they could have made that less annoying in the offline patch.
i guess museca was too much for the unwashed masses, as it was discountinued after a couple of years and only one major version update. to add insult to injury, old museca cabs are particularly difficult to find because konami sold upgrade kits to turn them into a completely different game called bishi bashi channel. observant arcade goers will notice that bishi bashi channel cabs still retain four of museca's distinctive big spinny buttons and the glowy, vaguely triangular transparent decorative part of the base. for some reason, nowadays the best place to find museca cabs is at random round 1 locations in the US, a traditional dumping ground for old but still functional arcade cabs.
para para paradise
konami, 2000
para para paradise was basically the first rhythm game i really got into. as a huge fan of eurobeat (not from initial-d or anything, in fact i haven't even seen initial-d until relatively recently, i just kind of followed a natural progression from 80's pop to italo disco to eurodance and then to eurobeat), the game had appeared on my radar before i'd ever seen it. this is because basically the whole songlist was eurobeat, since para para dancing is done to eurobeat. i didn't think i'd ever see an actual cab, though, as it was very old and had been discontinued many, many years ago as para para fell out of fashion.
then, one day i was let in for free via the backdoor to a big, vaguely asian-themed event in my town by a vaguely asian friend, and what do you know, for some reason they had the playstation 2 port of para para paradise. i proceeded to play the absolute crap out of it and seriously considered buying it for myself on ebay, as the special controller actually worked quite well. then, only a few months later, i went to a con and there was an actual, honest-to-goodness para para paradise cab, which i played until my arms fell off, chugging energy drinks to stay awake until 3 am. the sensors were a lot better and so was the sound system, standing on the stage in front of the huge speaker, you really felt like you were IN the eurobeat music.
after that i acquired a copy of the ps2 game along with controller and a japanese ps2 slim to play it on, and for a long time that was the only rhythm game i owned at home. i played it quite a bit, but unfortunately the charts don't get all that hard so after a while i'd get bored and shelve it again for a while. but, i always look forward to those rare opportunities when i get to play it on an actual cab. there's also an interesting mode in the ps2 game which will teach you the actual para para routines that go with the songs, with example videos of paralists dancing and all. i've considered getting into it and learning a routine for quite a while but i dunno, it would be a lot of work and i can't imagine i'd ever have any chance to actually perform.
dance maniax
konami, 2000
dance maniax is a very old, hand-based dance game, probably closest related to para para paradise. the cabinets have a pair of arms on each side with motion sensors on the top and the bottom, for a total of four inputs. you can play with one player on each side of the cab, or play alone on either side, or even stand in the middle and use the two middle arms for your inputs.
out of all the possibilities, this somehow was one of the first rhythm/dance games i ever played despite the fact that it's extremely rare. just when i was starting to get into them after having gone to japan, i went to a con with some friends and in the gaming section, there was a single rhythm game cab: an old dance maniax machine. i guess there was some guy around who was a dance maniax maniac because to go along with it was also a homemade dance maniax set-up made with pvc pipes and stuff that i can only imagine was the work of the same person. i was immediately hooked and played it for many hours, although i was constantly running into the issue that i would hit the motion sensors while transitioning from top to bottom, since they were in the middle. i left with a good impression and didn't play it again for a while as it's quite rare, but the next time i played it, it felt like there was MASSIVE input lag from the sensors and i couldn't hit any notes. i don't know if it was a skill issue or an actual hardware issue, but after that single credit, i gave up and haven't played it at all since, although that was also the last time i saw a cab for it.
the elusive hd pop'n cab. i have seen quite a few pop'n cabs, but only one of these beauties, and quite far away from japan to bootpop'n music is actually one of the oldest arcade rhythm games, from the same era as dance dance revolution and beatmania. howevver, it's always kinda played second fiddle to them, consistently chugging along year after year in the background. although it has experienced a fair amount of neglect from both konami and the community, there is still a healthy respect for it and in many places you are still likely to find an ancient pop'n cab in some cobwebbed corner, the site of pilgrammage for a couple of grizzled old pop'n vets and occasionally those who are just curious. the line-up of nine huge, colorful buttons are practically begging to be slapped, after all.
