The Story So Far:

• The current arcade release of pop’n music comes in the form of pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE. The current console release is that of pop’n music 14 FEVER!, which was released two years ago. Usually, the timeframe inbetween console releases is a year (in which case the console version of pop’n music 16 PARTY♪ should’ve come out by now).
• About half a year ago, Konami attempted a downloadable web release with Beat’n Groovy, for the XBox Live Arcade. It failed horribly with both Western and Japanese audiences.
• Konami, not too far back, released an enquete about home versions of pop’n. This fueled speculation that a new version of pop’n might come – perhaps they would find a way to toss pop’n 15 and 16 onto a PS3 disc, and make it work with existing peripherals (PlayStation pop’n controllers that mimic the arcade are at least $200!)
• This month’s Famitsu has a little corner that denotes pop’n coming to the Wii, along with a screenshot of Mimi, falling pop-kuns, five buttons, and Miis, wrapped up in a rather shiny, not-really-pop’n interface. Text below the screenshot suggests that you shake the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in time with the music, and confirms multiplayer play.
• Said Famitsu issue also has a thing in the back denoting a release date for said pop’n game – August 6.
• Prior to that, Konami registered for a United States trademark on pop’n music on May 20, which covered “game software” alongside “cell phone program”.

Now, in the ever-continuing saga for the next console version of pop’n music, Konami, today, released a information page for the upcoming release of pop’n Wii that confirms the relatively radical makeover. Along with what we already know, it also denotes online connectivity, and downloadable content (through the red Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection Pay to Play emblem on the boxart).

There are plenty of people in the English pop’n music fanbase who are alienated by this decision to move to a next-gen console with half of the actual gameplay of the arcade version. Unfortunately, to Konami, the only people who play pop’n music are Japanese; other countries aren’t supposed to be able to import it in any flavor. It’s actually a pretty smart decision by them to keep people coming to the arcades to increase revenue, as opposed to releasing console releases in order for them to die out faster.

It might be part of the reason why arcades haven’t died in Japan: because you can’t replicate the modern Japanese arcade experience anyhow else.

I love you, Tomosuke. I love you so much.

I think, perhaps, that The Epic of Zektbach might be my all-time favorite Bemani album, maybe next to Milestone – the only thing that irks me about the album is Osamu Kubota’s voice in his rendition of Zeta – but even then, his voice does not render the track entirely unlistenable.

Also, I’m willing to bet that L’Erisia (Primary Logic) is going to become a pop’n boss song. There’s too much potential in there for a great chart across the board (cue 0:37, for instance) that I’d be surprised if it didn’t make it into a Bemani game in playable form.

If it makes it into IIDX, I wonder how the video will look like – especially after the oh-so-wonderfully produced Turii…

While chatting with Rome yesterday, he mentioned something about our blogs having not updated in a while. Not much has been going on in my life, other than the usual tedium of waking up, going to school, and going home, and perhaps hanging out with friends (sometimes referred to by my friend Tsubasa as “sociable nothing”) on the weekend. There are a handful of things that I can think of – none of which I can expand quite nicely upon.

This will be a post not unlike that of the Raymond Mar bullet-point variety: a collection of small (yet somewhat notable) things in my recent life.

• At Sunnyvale Golfland, beatmaniaIIDX 16 EMPRESS and GuitarFreaks&DrumMania V5 Rock to Infinity have been fully unlocked. On the IIDX front, Himiko (injoke aside) is, uh, a 12 on Hyper. Yes, I know that the song’s rated 11, but that’s called Konami Lying To Us. Also, Rock to Infinity (the song) is giving me a run for my money on Basic (88). And while I’m playing copious amounts of both, my time with pop’n music has suffered.
• Speaking of pop’n music, pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE officially released on March 4 after a small delay. The staff mention that the number of unlockables is to make up for the number of songs that were cut. Can I finally say hello to Water Stand songs on AC? Please?
• I recently got into Puerto Rico. It’s a pretty fun game. In fact, I’m considering whether or not I like it more than Die Siedler von Catan*.
• I started actually searching for and browsing stuff on pixiv, which is sorta like the Japanese equivalent of deviantART – the difference being that since I enjoy music game fanart and character fandom (it’s half the charm of pop’n music!), I get a lot more out of pixiv than I do out of deviantART. As an aside, I enjoy having 40 pages (registration required) of smooooch・∀・ parodies to look at, and I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.
• I’m still waiting for the full US release of DJ Max Technika. This week’s unveiling of the update at the Amusement Showcase International exposition in Las Vegas both kills me (I want to plaaaaaay~) and gives me hope for a prompt release of both the game and its online features (the update is scheduled to hit East Coast arcade hotspot 8 on the Break shortly after the show). In the meantime, I’ve found out that I can’t play a DJ Max Portable game anymore without thinking of Technika and how much more fun it would be tapping a screen as opposed to, essentially, DualShocking beatmania.
• I’ve started two JRPGs: one because one of its sequels is the hot thing of the moment, and one because I’ve been hearing hype about it and I’ve been meaning to try it out. Both are pretty fun.
• I watched one episode of White Album, which was interesting. I then rewatched half of Gakuen Utopia Manabi Straight! (I need to grab the other half from the aforementioned Tsubasa) and watched its OVA about three times. And, finally, an obligatory Clannad After Story update: I didn’t expect that, why’d they have to go there again?

* I like saying Die Siedler von Catan, as opposed to The Settlers of Catan…if only for my opinion that it sounds cooler.

So at AOU 2009, Konami’s showing off pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE prior to its official release – and thus they’ve released the website for the game, which has a full starting songlist!

I’ve translated the page for the perusal of pop’n players who don’t understand Japanese and are too lazy to Rikaichan.

One of the things I like to do nowadays in my spare time is go through each pop’n music release and play the crap out of it to unlock it, because up to this point in time I still have yet to do so. Just two days prior to my drafting this post up, I unlocked pop’n music 12 Iroha, and was happy. Then I had the pleasure of playing eighteen stages in Marathon Mode to die at the hands of Bubble Bath Girl [EX] – not a pretty failure.

I decided a part of the way through my playthrough of pop’n music 11 that I would revisit a good old friend, and so I swapped the 11 disc for pop’n music 14 FEVER!, the last great pop’n game to ever release on a home console.

There’s something about Fever that I’d like to hold dear to my heart. At Sunnyvale Golfland, all we had for the past year and then some was Fever. Fever was what I devoted at least a twenty to each month. After several attempts at emulation (pop’n 5 for the original PlayStation on keyboard!) and DualShocking, Fever was the game that finally got me addicted to pop’n (blame its inclusion of the Super Mario Bros. Medley). Fever, over the span of that year, saw me progress from the low level-10s to the level-40 wall (out of a difficulty ranking spanning 43 levels), before the innards of the machine were gutted and its marquee replaced with that of pop’n music 16 Party♪, the likes of which I had experienced two months prior, during a trip to Asia. Not only did the arcade release see the progression of my skill, but the home version of Fever was the first home pop’n game I had unlocked fully, on DualShock skill, while waiting for my Desktop Arcade arcade-style controller to arrive.

And now I had returned, after a month and a half worth of Party.

During my play, the home version of Fever felt incredibly weird to me. It was familiar, yes. The home-version exclusive songs were quite fun to play, yes (woooo Innocent 3!). But after a four song set, I decided that it just didn’t feel right anymore.

I wonder why. Perhaps it’s because Fever was all I did have, to the point where I became sick of it, like every other player at Golfland. Perhaps it’s because Fever was really the bad mix that others made it out to be.

I’ve decided that it probably was a mix of both. I think I’ll be ready for another round of Fever in probably a year from now.

So, in Japan, pop’n music 17 THE MOVIE commenced its location test. Here are the details, having been updated updating live from 2ch‘s music game board after the break.

Songs

• [Adolescence] Pink / Parquets
  13/27/36/ Chinatsu
• [Russia 2] Retro Danshaku no Nageki (Retro Baron’s Grief) / Troupe Record
  19/31/39 / Pirozhki
• [Cinema 2] Movie “Under The Emptiness of Jenova” Theme (?) / Q-Mex
  18/27/37 / Kevin (17)
• [Capsule Princess] Fushiginakusuri (Miraculous Medicine) / Ueno Keiichi feat. Satoe
  14/29/34 / Monimoni
• [Cutie Techno Pop] We Can Change / Sota Fujimori feat. Kemy
  16/26/32 / Sora Hoshino
• [Folktronica] Ringo Logic (Apple Logic) / Dormir
  15/26/35 / Rosalie (2P)
• [Star Hero] Boku Mo, Watashi Mo, Movie Star☆ (I’m Also, I Am Also A Movie Star) / Ucchies Z
  21/28/38 / Star☆Nyan
• [Hard Action] Commando / 96
  23/33/40 / Wild
• [Wasan Techno] ZIN-DEN-GO / V.C.O.
  17/30/38 / DJ Raijin (2P)
• [Girls Alternative Core] make my way / Yasuhiro Abe feat. Moria Motoko
  22/33/40 / Erika
• [Ninja Metal] Seisui no Jin (Camp of Seisui?) / Hideo Suwa
  N/37/41 / Yoshio (Old ver.)

Features

• Skin feels “10-ish”; lots of purple everywhere
• Rapidly double-tapping the left yellow button allows players to switch between genre and song titles

Additional Notes

• Licenses seem to be missing except for Konayuki and Sousei no Aquarion?
• Hawaiian Punk (and its character) are now gone
• Combos are now identical to IIDX (start from first note, not second); whether or not mash poors drop combo has yet to be confirmed
• ee’MALL song [K-Classics] Akumajo Dracula Medley has had its character changed from Yuli to Simon Belmondo 2P.
• Two-hour wait time reported
• according to PMDream, “approximately 40 people were waiting in line at opening”
• Songs from pop’n 1~15 are bundled up into one category for the location test; within the category, white buttons may be used for navigation from game to game a la level/title sort
• 16′s icon is Tent-Kant (Toy Contemporary), 17′s is, as per usual, Mimi and Nyami
• CS icon is Ratte and Lotte
• Artist Sort is now implemented
• Enjoy Mode now uses the same songwheel as Challenge Mode
• They’re using Party’s sound as a placeholder