The Weird Longevity of DDR and IIDX

 

Rhythm games are a thing that I assume most people, even the most enthusiastic of gamers, don't think about very often.  Around 2005 the genre got a pretty big boost in popularity for a while with the release of Guitar Hero and that boost was bolstered in part by the subsequent release of Rock Band but the whole thing turned out to be just a fad and the genre once again faded back into obscurity once those games died.  If you are a person who owns a Guitar Hero, Rock Band or DJ Hero controller I can almost guarantee that it's caked in dust and you probably forgot to take the batteries out and they have no leaked everywhere.

This is a bit less true for the Japanese arcade scene where the genre has been a staple almost for as long as the genre has existed but even in a space like this games come and go all the time.  Various rhythm games will pop up for a while and then vanish without a trace or be reduced to one machine stuffed in a single corner of the arcade that never gets used.  For example when I first moved into my new house in January of this year, there was a new game called Chrono Circle and at current time of writing I am completely unable to find a single cab for it anywhere.  It's been removed from my local place despite them initially having 5 cabinets and none of the bigger arcades I frequent in central Nagoya have them either, dead on arrival.  

But then there's Dance Dance Revolution, a game that has been a core part of the arcade experience both in Japan and the west since I was in primary school and a series that doesn't seem to be slowing down its content updates even in the current day.  I remember seeing it for the first time, I must have been about 10, in a bowling alley near my old house in Manchester.  Most arcades were either sit-down fighting game cabs, novelty games or rail shooters but then this motherfucker just sat there with its giant pad and massive speakers blasting out J-Beats and it sure as hell got peoples attention.  I played in that arcade pretty much all the way to me graduating high school and it was the one machine that would often stay fairly well maintained and updated with the place replacing the Euromix 1 cab with a Euromix 2 cab almost as soon as that version dropped.  Fast foward to my life in Japan in 2022 and DDR is STILL going strong, being one of the most popular games in basically any game center you go to and still being updated on the regular.  Hell, the last version to be released was DDR A3 which came out March of THIS YEAR with new songs being added constantly.  Also I can't speak with any degree of certainty but the few enthusiast arcade places I know about in the UK seem to always be packing at least a Euromix 1 or 2 cab.

Beatmania IIDX is another game with a similar life span as DDR but with it being Japan only its a game that most people outside of the rhythm game enthusiast circles actually know about.  It started with Beatmania back in 1997 which had 5 buttons and a turn table for a controller which was probably quite unique at the time.  Then in 1999 Konami released Beatmania IIDX which was a bigger, badder, louder looking machine with 7 buttons and then there was a Beatmania 3 in 2000 which had a pedal or something? and everyone hated it and it died after 2 years.  IIDX however, like DDR, is still getting content updates and new versions to this very day with the newest version IIDX 30: Resident being released very recently 

There are other games in the Bemani franchise such as Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania which have also had similar life spans and still get updates but the machines are stocked less and barely used by anyone that I can see.  Meanwhile, DDR and IIDX are so popular that most places have to have multiple copies of them and even with an average (based on places I go to) of 2 DDR cabs and 4 IIDX cabs there are still queues CONSTANTLY to actually get to play them.  Some of newer games from the Konami library are starting to cement their places in the arcade such as Jubeat and Voltex but if they are still around in, lets say 10 years, only time will tell 

I can't imagine why this is the case really other than that the skill ceiling for mastering these two games inparticular is IMMENSELY high.  Seeing extremely high level play for games like Voltex, Chunithm, Taiko etc. isn't exactly uncommon if you spend enough time hanging around these places but really high level play for DDR and IIDX is not something you see very often at all.  If I was to hazard a guess I guess it's the drive that these players have to truly master these games that keeps them coming back and pumping coins or Paseli credit into the machines which in turn keeps Konami updating them and pumping out new versions for people to get good at.

That's just my game theory on the matter anyway.  Does make me wonder if DDR will still be around in 30 more years.....and if I'll still be able to play it at that point

PS1 Marathon Roundup

So we did it! The PS1 marathon concluded and we did 24 hours of assorted PS1 games!  Big thanks to everyone who came in the stream and showed their support and an even bigger thanks to anyone who donated before and during the marathon!  

I will now do a whole bunch of short, 1 sentence reviews for all the games I remember playing

-Silent Hill: Probably the best horror game on the system

-Tenchu 1: Broken but awesome

-Tenchu 2: Janky but awesome

-Klonoa: Really fun but the last world can eat a dick.

-Future Cop LAPD: Great game but navigating levels is a real pain in the hole

-Pandemonium: Terrible platformer but it was incredibly satisfying to reach the end

-Parappa the Rapper: Punch, Kick, it's all in the mind, the timing windows make no goddamn sense.

-Ninja: Shadow of Darkness: Couldn't make it work during the marathon but it's really good I swear

-Mortal Kombat Mythologies Sub Zero: Remember enjoying it when I was younger but good LORD that game sucks ass

-Dance Dance Revolution: Dub-I-dub is best DDR track don't @ me

-Pepsiman: Way more fun to play than I thought it would be but the last stage can kiss my ass

-G-Darius: One of the best shmups on system but goddamn is it hard

-Spyro the Dragon: Why do people like this game? It kinda sucks 

-LSD: err, what?

If I forgot any I'm sorry but I think I got them all.

There's so many good games on PS1 I didn't actually get to play all the games I wanted to play so I'm putting this incentive up AGAIN! Just donate another 100 pounds to the alzheimers society and we'll do all the other great games we didn't get around to in this marathon 

Remember Dance Dance Revolution?

Way back when I used to live in the UK tons of people would talk about DDR all the fucking time.  Assholes at my school would be like "have you seen that game where you play with your FEET?!" or I'd see it occasionally on news websites as this revolutionary new thing that is not only fun but kind of good for you too.

Well now, apart from the die hard rhythm game fanatics that I surround myself with with, I barely hear anyone talk about DDR.  It's popularity, at least in the UK, started waning when Guitar Hero started to rise up and then after the western rhythm game fad died out I didn't hear anyone talk about it again.

But then I moved to Japan where every arcade has entire fucking sections of their gaming areas dedicated to rhythm games.  DDR, Drummania, Guitar Freaks, Voltex, Mai Mai, Groove Coaster, Pop n', HOLY SHIT, so many fucking god damn rhythm games.  Here in Japan, DDR is very very far from being forgotten and still requires a short queue up if you want to get a turn.

That said, DDR seems to have done away with all the individual titling that other Bemani games tend to follow.  For example Beatmania has a new fucking iteration like every goddamn year and Jubeat seems to have some new random ass word added to the title every time I enter a game centre.  Seriously, the last version of Jubeat was called "copious", I mean what kind of fucking name is that?!  Anyway, like I said DDR doesn't do that shit.

That doesn't mean that DDR isn't being updated but the versions that I see in arcades now seem to be a big compilation edition that just has everything on it.  Basically every song from every version of DDR is on there along with a great deal of the songs from every other Bemani game under the sun.  Having Konami's E-Amusement pass also unlocks more tracks as you level up and there's some thing involving medals and "boss songs" that I'm collecting as I play but I always skip through it too fast to know what the fuck is going on.

So yeah, DDR, the big old fucking granddad of rhythm games is far from a forgotten old fossil.  Still going strong and still enjoyed by many around the world.  I just wish I wasn't so out of shape so I could do all those expert tracks that I spent so much time practicing in my teenage years.

Less Shooters Please

This generation we have had a lot of first person shooter games, and I do mean A LOT.  To be honest, I wish this shit would fucking stop.

Before I go on, I don't have anything against FPS games, I actually quite enjoy them but I'm sick to death of going to a game store and just seeing FPS games fucking everywhere.  New Call of Duty, new Medal of Honour, new Crysis.  Good lord, don't people get bored of playing the same kind of game day in day out?

I mean we've just had the PS4 thing from Sony which I mentioned yesterday and already we've had fucking Destiny and Killzone.  Keeping in mind that the other games were Knack and inFamous (and I'm not counting that "announcement" from Square as a thing, fuck off) that's half the line up so far as fucking FPS games.  If there were more games than that I don't care, 2 is too many.

I'm a big fan of Rhythm games, I enjoy all sorts of shit from Voltex to DDR to Beatmania, it's great.  But if I just played rhythm games every time I went to the game centre and every time I came home then I probably would have quit gaming by now, that shit would be stale.

I wouldn't even be so annoyed about it if the styles were varied.  If we had some more Doom/Quake-esque FPS games at least there would be some variation on the theme.  I know it's probably not going to happen because this shit sells like hot cakes but I've got my fingers crossed on there being significantly less semi realistic military shooters in the upcoming generation.

Note: I know Destiny isn't quite a "military" FPS but it's still the same kind of game play that I'm bored of.

The Japanese Game Centre

This is a topic I'm actually surprised I've not covered up until now since these happen to be my favourite hangout spots when I've got some time to kill as I'm milling around the streets of Nagoya.  But what makes them so damn good and why don't they exist in the same way that they do in the UK and other countries?

First, let me tell you a story about a game centre from ages past, Sega World in London!

That there, is a promotional picture for what was probably the only real game centre in all of the UK.  Sure, I'm aware that there are coin-op machines dotted round the country at bowling alleys and cinemas, but they aren't proper game centres, THIS was the real fuckin' deal.

Sega World was some hardcore shit back in the day, it had an amazing atmosphere, almost like a theme park for gamers.  The place was about 5 or 6 stories of just games, shittons of fuckin' games.  On top of that, every floor had some kind of ride or attraction to go on so that even if you weren't
 much of a gamer being dragged around by your buddy, you still had something fun to do.

Then guess what happened?  God shit on my soul and pissed in my face, Sega ran out money or some shit and the whole place got closed down.  But the dream wasn't over!  Segaworld basically got downsized and given a shit name, Funland.  Despite the shit name Funland was still pretty good.  The game selection was actually pretty solid and the machines were well maintained most of the time.  The atmosphere had kind of died a bit, it felt more like a seedy underground bar that you see in a post apocalyptic sci-fi movie than a proper game arcade, but there was still funtimes to be had at Funland.

Then once again I get a huge kick in the nads when Funland shuts down unexpectedly, and now what was once the greatest game centre in the UK is now home to a few fucking air hockey tables and it's full of bastard children running around breaking everything.   Actually I think it may have a In The Groove machine too, but fuck that game I quit playing DDR a long time ago.

Fuck you Air Hockey

Since then, every English "arcade" I've been to is a fucking mess.  The machines barely work, its full of bastard kids breaking everything and the only remotely good game any place ever has is DDR, but like I said before, fuck DDR,  I've played the shit out of it and I don't want to play it anymore, we need more varied rhythm games for crying out loud.

So after moving to Japan, I've been hitting the Japanese game centres, and holy shit, it's like my childhood all over again.  Sure, the vast majority of them are not as big but they are all basically like the London Segaworld.  They are clean, have a fun atmosphere, a good selection and best of all, everything fucking works.  When I say the selection is good, I mean it's really fuckin good, lots of innovative stuff that really capitalise on the fact that they are not limited to what home consoles can do.  You have games with interesting control schemes like Jubeat or Reflec Beat and then you have really cool ideas like Sengoku Taisen (something I'll blog about tomorrow maybe) there is basically something for everyone.

Please note this is not Sengoku Taisen but they are basically the same fuckin' thing so shut up

So why is this shit so popular in Japan but not in the UK or basically any other country for that matter?  I think there are 2 factors at work here.  First of all, gaming is a hugely popular past time here, huge amounts of people play these things.  There are more people willing to drop a couple hundred yen into a tekken machine than there are in the west.  Second, and the most important factor, is the busy lifestyle of your everyday working man.  If you are a Japanese Salaryman and you enjoy video games, you probably don't have time to be going home and diving balls deep into the latest console releases.  If you were a Salaryman you'd probably want something that you can drop a coin into, play for 30 mins to an hour, and then fuck off home to cry and prepare for the next day of boring, grey routine.

I'll probably spend the next few posts covering some of my favourites, dig through the archives and there is already info on one, Sound Voltex Booth.  So more to come soon!  If you do get a chance to come to Japan, a game centre should be one of the first places you go to, it'll blow your fuckin mind.