Bemani

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Bemani is the blanket term for Konami's lineup of Rhythm Games. The name started as a Portmanteau Series Nickname for Beatmania, but later grew to be a catch-all term for music games by Konami.

Current Bemani series (series with new installments still coming out):

  • Beatmania IIDX
    A "DJ Simulation" game with 7 keys and a turntable.
  • Dance Dance Revolution
    A dance simulation game with four foot panels, each corresponding to a cardinal direction.
  • Guitar Freaks
    A guitar simulation game with a strum bar and three fret buttons.
    • Drummania
      A drum simulation game with five drums (hi-hat, snare, hi-tom, low-tom, cymbal) and a bass pedal. Often linked up with a Guitar Freaks machine to allow for linked "Session" play for up to three players. Known as Percussion Freaks in Korea.
  • jubeat
    A relatively new Bemani series in which you hit light-up panels arranged in a 4x4 grid with your hands. Known as jukebeat (also uBeat as a Working Title in early beta tests) outside of Japan and Korea, possibly because "jubeat", while pronounced with a silent J, could be mispronounced as "jew-beat". It's gotten an iPad and iPhone port, jubeat Plus, which was localized outside of Japan and Korea under the jukebeat name.
  • Dance Masters
    A dance game that utilizies the Xbox 360's Kinect peripheral.
  • Pop'n music
    A music game where you hit 9 big colorful buttons. The premise is like Beatmania, only this series does not attempt to simulate an instrument. Infamous for being deceptively Nintendo Hard, despite the fact that the cabinet and controllers seemed to be designed with children and casual players in mind.
  • Reflec Beat
    A new Bemani series involving competitive based gameplay. Circles bounce around the screen towards your colored line, and some of them may be reflected to the other player's. It has a wide variety of customization options to change the look of the gameplay. Currently, there are two arcade releases, Reflec Beat and Reflec Beat limelight, and a Japan-only iPad-only port called Reflec Beat plus.
  • Sound Voltex Booth
    The newest Bemani title, yet to be released. It draws similarities to IIDX and DJ Hero.

Bemani series that are now retired (no new installments):

  • Beatmania
    The very first Bemani series; it consists of five keys and a turntable. It had a few installments in the US as hiphopmania.
    • beatmania III
      beatmania with extra features such as a foot pedal, extra effectors, and a 3.5" floppy drive for saving scores. This is contrast to beatmania IIDX, which is its own series rather than an upgraded version of beatmania.
  • Dance ManiaX
    A dance simulation game with four sensors per player: two high and two bottom. The game is played by waving your arms (and sometimes, feet) across the sensors. Known as Dance Freaks in Korea.
  • Para Para Paradise
    A simulation of Para Para dancing. Similar to Dance ManiaX, but with five sensors laid out in a half-circle. Most of the music is Eurobeat (as is most music used in Para Para), and the game offers a "Para Para" mode (where you mimic the on-screen dancer to replicate the routines) and "Freestyle" mode (where you essentially make your own routines). Known as Para Para Dancing in Korea.
  • Keyboardmania
    A pianko keyboard simulation game. It's basically Beatmania WITH A KEYBOARD! Keyboardmania arcade cabinets come in two-player setups, with each player getting two octaves. Alternatively, one player can play a doubles mode involving using all four octaves and both screens! The last version, Keyboardmania 3rd Mix, can be linked with Drummania 4th Mix and Guitar Freaks 5th Mix for "Super Session" play with a total of FIVE players; two on Keyboardmania, one on Drummania, and two on Guitar Freaks.
  • Mambo A Go Go
    A game where you hit mambo drums. Possibly the least known Bemani game; it didn't even last more than one version.

Note: Beatmania/IIDX/III, Dance Dance Revolution, and Pop'n music have their own pages. Please put examples pertaining specifically to those games there. This page is for other Bemani games as well as tropes about multiple Bemani series.


Tropes used in Bemani include:
  • Announcer Chatter: DDR and DMX. Their announcers can get annoying sometimes. Other series have this too, but only during menus.
  • Idiosyncratic Installment Naming: Most games put "nth Mix" at the ends of their names for their sequels. Exceptions being:
    • Dance Dance Revolution: DDR MAX / 6th Mix, DDR MAX 2 / 7th Mix, Extreme, SuperNOVA, SuperNOVA 2, X, X 2
    • IIDX: nth Style up until 10th Style, at which point the series just stuck to numbers followed by subtitles.
    • Pop'n: Averted. Sequels just use numbers, at least until 12 when they start appending subtitles.
    • GF&DM: At one point in the series, due to Drummania always being numbered 1 mix behind Guitar Freaks, the two series dropped the "mix" format and started using "Vn".
    • Completely averted with jubeat and Reflec Beat.
  • Life Meter: Two typical variants.
    • One is a standard life meter; it starts out either half-full or completely full. Hitting notes correctly will raise the meter, while missing or poorly hitting notes will decrease it. If your life hits zero, you die.
    • The other, seen in the standard modes of Beatmania/III, IIDX, Pop'n, and PPP, starts you off with a low amount of life. You don't fail if your meter hits rock bottom, but you must finish the song with at least 80% of the gauge filled (or 70% in PPP) to clear it.
    • Keyboardmania, on the other hand, is a mix of the two. You need 70%~ to pass, AND your game ends if your life meter depletes.
  • Mission Pack Sequel: Most games' sequels basically sum up to "add new songs, throw in some new modes and features." Kinda justified, as an installment that forces a change of hardware would be quite costly.
  • Nintendo Hard: Most games take a lot of time to learn, even moreso to master
  • Portmanteau Series Nickname: What the term "Bemani" originally was..
  • Regional Bonus: Para Para Dancing (the Korean version of PPP) has three extra sensors. No, there is no 8-way mode; rather, it allows the player to play facing sideways or completely away from the screen.
  • Rule of Fun: Many of the the games that allegedly simulate musical activities don't do them accurately. This hasn't stopped them from being very fun to play.
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