Rhythm games are one of my fav game genres of all time next to fighting & RPG games and mean so much to me.
From the most influential such as Beatmania & Dance Dance Revolution, to more obscure games like Keyboardmania & EZ2DJ, I could go on for decades and decades talking abt my love for rhythm games. Point is, in my opinion, this genre's shown to be one of the most groundbreaking and stylish of the whole gaming scene.
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But from that scene there's one specific game thats been having me in a grasp for 3 damn years now..
(and lowkey i owe a lot of my art style to it)
yea bitch we talkin abt
What's Pop'n Music?
Pop'n music is a little rhythm game series made by KONAMI beginning in 1998. The gameplay revolves around 9 (or 5 depending on the mode) colorful buttons you hit to the rhythm of a song to fill the Groove Gauge.
this doesn't sound much different to other rhythm games, but what Pop'n uses to stand out is it's art direction, mechanics, and music.
Pop'n music has this cutesy and eye-catching Superflat pop art direction that really makes it stand out from other rhythm games.
Pop'n music 6 Soundtrack, Pop'n music 9, and Pop'n music 8
What I really like about the art direction of Pop'n is that the games are always throwing new themes and ideas at you with each and every version. Konami does this with their other rhythm games too, but Pop'n gets especially creative with its themes.
One game could be themed around a disco club, another can be themed like hollywood, another can be a whole VISUAL NOVEL PARODY, etc.
Pop'n music 14 FEVER!, Pop'n music 17 THE MOVIE, and Pop'n music Lapistoria
So with the game's colorful and playful style and the target audience being younger players, you'd think the game wouldn't be that hard right?
abt that
yea despite the game being for little shits it ain't afraid of letting go of your hand and vomiting notes (known in this game as Pop-kuns!) your way.
With harder charts your hands will be flying all over the damn controller all the time!
(it's kinda like whack-a-mole for weebs)
s/o TATSU me n my homies love TATSU
And being a game that's over 25 years old It's got an endless rabbit-hole of content with a diverse selection of music.
While most rhythm games stick to one type of genre or style since Pop'n music's controls don't resemble any instrument at all, it's allowed to be very broad with it's music selction.
J-Pop, punk, Visual Kei, Eurobeat, EDM & IDM, Jungle, Shibuya Kei, Jazz, There's a good chance there's at least ONE song you'll like from this game!
If You haven't yet, you can listen to a couple of Pop'n songs from the music player on the left!
What are the characters?
The posterchildren of Pop'n are Mimi and Nyami.
As for the other characters.. theres like 800+ of em so for this part i'll just show a mix of more important characters and some of my favs
debuted in Pop'n 2
Arguably one of the most, if not the most important Pop'n character
The in-universe "god" of the games (not even joking)
The character konami likes to use for all their Pop'n remixes
Based on first Pop'n Character Designer Mzd Mommy (???)
Just find the game on the Drop-Down menu, select your country, and see if there's any Pop'n cabinets. If you find one near you then congrats!!
If not then uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
CONSOLES
A lot of Pop'n music games have thankfully been ported to a decent amount of consoles from the original Playstation, to even a spinoff on the DS!
The mainline console games I reccomend are Pop'n music 8 to Pop'n music 14 FEVER! on ps2. These games came out around the peak of the series and have many of the most iconic songs and characters in the whole franchise.
There's also Pop'n Music Portable 1 and 2 which are KIND OF meant to be Pop'n 15-19 for the psp all but in name. While I still reccomend playing the ps2 games first, The portable games are still pretty good if its the only option you've got
Other than novelty purposes i wouldn't reccomend playing any Pop'n games before 8 as they are simply more barebones than the later games and don't really have much content anyway (that ain't really the game's fault but yknow)
wait what do you mean there's another option
BONUS: POP'N MUSIC LIVELY
ok so in 2020 Konami released another Pop'n music home game (9 years since Pop'n Music Portable 2 in 2011!)
This version is honestly really weird compared to the other home ports.
It's a subscription based (ew!!!!!) PC game that's supposed to be like the modern arcade titles but for PC with a monthly fee of 1628 yen or approx. 11 USD.
tbf the idea doesn't SOUND bad on paper and from what i've heard Lively is pretty good for what it is but like
It's still a little bullshit yknow?
for example when you pay for the basic course just to play the base game a ton of songs are locked behind dlc and even then theyre split in small volumes
genuinely wtf is going on here
These packs are mostly priced at 6091 yen
You wanna know how much that is?
and again this is a subscription based game so you can potentially spend 100s of dollars and when that server eventually shuts down all that dlcs gone.
I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS I LOVE SUBSCRIPTIONS
with that in mind, I'd reccomend Lively ONLY IF:
A) You can't live without modern Pop'n songs
B) You're a nepo baby
What does Pop'n mean to you?
I found out about Pop'n music through Bomberman R Online (RIP,) Saw Mimi and Nyami, and once I looked up the game they came from I instantly fell in love.
For me, Pop'n is just the most "me" game ever. it's got so much creativity and personality, unique and fun characters, amazing songs, engaging gameplay, It's on it's own level!!
There really IS nothing like it.
"We present this game to the people who love music and game. Peace."
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