There's some speculation that BMIII existed purely as a "patent troll game" to ensure they had more grounds to sue AmuseWorld (the creators of Ez2Dj) which was another game with 5 keys, TT, and foot pedal (the latter of which actually released before BMIII). Hell, even one of the decryption keys for BMIII is "jdotysae" (read that backwards). It's speculated that Pop'n Stage existed for the same reason except against Pump it Up. Great video btw!
@@_lun4r_ It helps explains why it died, if it was just to have the patent, and with 5-key on the way out, they basically decided to kill two birds with one stone, still having the patents to use as grounds to sue EZ2DJ.
in my opinion, 5 key never truly died out until iidx 26, the first iidx game to not include the 5 key modifier, but by the time rootage had come out, the 5 key modifier had gone from a way for 5 key players to ease their way into 7 key, to something only really used by beginners
Given a lot of these games would most certainly have the ability to upgrade to the next version, I'd say the "append" versions of BM3 were probably there to not piss off arcade owners who just bought a "new" version of Beatmania only to be told it would never be upgraded. The real question I have now is where's Beatmania 4 with 7 keys + foot pedal lmao.
4:10 another "rhythm game" with a hybrid difficulty is Rocksmith, a game for learning guitar/bass. It's a super helpful tool, especially since learning a string instrument has such a large difficulty curve if you've never actually played one before
I used to play Beatmania III at my local arcade back in the day. Even though I would have preferred IIDX, (which was hard for most arcades back then to get) there were some things about BM III I liked that IIDX didn't have or lacked at the time. BM III appeared to run at 60fps, which IIDX took years to finally do. BM III had several colorful, detailed interfaces depending on the the song played. I liked how these looked more than what IIDX did at the time. BM III had more sound options and effects to choose from. Also, it was the clearest sounding game at the arcade, at least my local arcade. I think it even sounded clearer than what IIDX did, but I could be wrong because back then I had limited access to IIDX and not enough experience playing the arcade version at the time. IIDX still has the better songs overall though. :) BM III had a headphone jack. IIDX took years to finally put one in with their Lightning Model cabinet which I feel was necessary since for some reason the arcade operators at my local Round 1 have the volume lower than the regular IIDX cabinet. I have to play on the Lightning Cabinet using headphones to hear everything better. Still, IIDX is the better game overall of course.
Huh. The headphone jack wasn't a thing on IIDX until the Lightning cab? That's odd. My Round1's standard cab has a jack. IDK, maybe the arcade techs hacked one in.
@@SuperSmashDolls It's possible, but one Round 1 arcade near me had the standard cabinet and I didn't notice a headphone jack there. Also the lightning cabinet lets you control the volume of what you hear in the headphones on the touch screen.
I spent many a token on Beatmania III the Final. It was a really great game. The cabinet was pretty, it sounded great, and the songlist was packed. Like you said, it was essentially just a "deluxe" version of 5 key but it just had a vibe to it.
There is another game that does the "hybrid difficulty" thing, Pump it Up. Specifically older versions of it had a game mode called Division Mode, where every song would start off easy, and then every so often, a G or a W would come up in place of one of the arrows, and if you hit the G, the song would stay easy, but if you hit the W, the song would get a little harder. And it'd keep getting harder/staying easy if you kept hitting Gs / Ws.
Now please do one on IIDX. I know it hasn't died yet, but I do really want a solid retrospective of some sort of it. There doesn't seem to be any good english ones out there currently
Great video. I remember playing beatmaniaIII at Magfest back in 2015 and it was pretty cool. At first I didn't really notice a difference since everything looked about the same. However, someone explained to me that the timing for the older songs outside of the BMIII folder were out of wack due to the new engine and hardware. I hopped between both BMIII and BM cabinets that were available and it became really apparent. Nonetheless it was an interesting experience; it was my first (and last) time trying out the spinoff.
back in my BEMANI heyday circa 2000-2009 or so at one point my local bowling alley HAD a beatmania III: 6th MIX! I definitely had some fun with it, although I remember the giant speakers being almost *too* loud to be bearable for too long. I guess if you wanted the ultimate 5-key experience there was bmIII: THE FINAL?
@@cosmo3940 oh yeah before they went all ticket-spitters they had a lot of the good ones, DDR, Initial D, Wangan Midnight, I think they even had ghost squad at one point! last I checked it was ticket games and stuff like deadstorm pirates, definitely a downgrade.
You may want to look into Seven’s Code. It’s becoming a Dead Rhythm Game at the end of this month, so you can still get the game and record footage for a potential Episode on this title.
You pointed out how there wasn't much change between the different versions, but actually that was due to the developer team being merged with the original beatmania which meant that the team had to develop two games at the same time with a budget for one game: the team didn't have enough money or time to develop beatmania III (sometimes the team only had a month to develop) (source: few Japanese websites & videos)
Honestly, I would love the chance to talk your ear off about (Mirai Dagakki) Future TomTom to help out with providing info on a video regarding the game, should you want to make one for Dead Rhythm Games! Easily one of my favorite BEMANI games in recent years and the history behind it, albeit sparse, is fascinating. I miss it, like, a few times every year since it died.
Very late to this but at least for CORE REMIX / THE FINAL there was some other stuff added in. CORE REMIX virtually stayed as a “prettier” version of the game that it is based off of featuring completeMIX 2 songs + clubMIX songs. It also snuck in three brand new crossovers from IIDX 3rd style that were never added into beatmania previously. (R5, REINCARNATION, era (nostalmix)) THE FINAL III stays with this, game looks better aesthetic. Major changes were that the load times are much faster compared to the game based on. BGAs are also much more prominent versus the very small box of animations playing during base THE FINAL gameplay. Some THE FINAL songs even got unique BGA Animations. (NURUHACHI / fellows)
Beyond the ez2dj patent guarding, the original beatmania hardware (DJ Main) was just *super* outdated compared to everything else. Unlike System 573 (DDR) it didn't have CD, so each update mix was expensive, and a logistical challenge-hence why as you noted in your beatmania video, they were constantly pulling songs out and just eking every scrap of performance they could. The monitors were also... Not great. 5 key was still quite popular in japan after IIDX, so one of the goals of III was that arcade operators would (hopefully) replace those 5 key machines with something that could more gracefully move forward, with more songs from the back catalog in each release, like IIDX, DDR, Gitadora etc. That didn't happen, and IIDX picked up significant steam shortly after the release of 3rd style. I loved bmIII though, and *absolutely* brought my 3.5" disk with me to the arcade to keep scores! bmIII the final is in my opinion the ultimate 5 key game, with it's beautiful 60fps higher resolution display, headphone jack, 268 songs vs beatmania the final's 188, and score saving. :)
Are you planning on doing a video on the original GuitarFreaks and DrumMania games (both the original series and the V series) since they're a similar situation to 5 key Beatmania?
@@D2RCR Right. But based on the numbering, it seems like they were trying to see if it would outlive IIDX. beatmania beatmania IIDX beatmania III But IIDX stayed because it had gameplay features that people liked.
There's some speculation that BMIII existed purely as a "patent troll game" to ensure they had more grounds to sue AmuseWorld (the creators of Ez2Dj) which was another game with 5 keys, TT, and foot pedal (the latter of which actually released before BMIII). Hell, even one of the decryption keys for BMIII is "jdotysae" (read that backwards). It's speculated that Pop'n Stage existed for the same reason except against Pump it Up.
Great video btw!
This is super interesting. I can totally see it.
I was wondering about that. It seems very similar to ez2dj and thought that they copied them one to one.
I don't understand why is this 📌?
@@_lun4r_ It helps explains why it died, if it was just to have the patent, and with 5-key on the way out, they basically decided to kill two birds with one stone, still having the patents to use as grounds to sue EZ2DJ.
Neil Armstrong backwards is ‘Gnorts Mr. Alien’
in my opinion, 5 key never truly died out until iidx 26, the first iidx game to not include the 5 key modifier, but by the time rootage had come out, the 5 key modifier had gone from a way for 5 key players to ease their way into 7 key, to something only really used by beginners
Given a lot of these games would most certainly have the ability to upgrade to the next version, I'd say the "append" versions of BM3 were probably there to not piss off arcade owners who just bought a "new" version of Beatmania only to be told it would never be upgraded. The real question I have now is where's Beatmania 4 with 7 keys + foot pedal lmao.
4:10 another "rhythm game" with a hybrid difficulty is Rocksmith, a game for learning guitar/bass. It's a super helpful tool, especially since learning a string instrument has such a large difficulty curve if you've never actually played one before
I used to play Beatmania III at my local arcade back in the day. Even though I would have preferred IIDX, (which was hard for most arcades back then to get) there were some things about BM III I liked that IIDX didn't have or lacked at the time.
BM III appeared to run at 60fps, which IIDX took years to finally do.
BM III had several colorful, detailed interfaces depending on the the song played. I liked how these looked more than what IIDX did at the time.
BM III had more sound options and effects to choose from. Also, it was the clearest sounding game at the arcade, at least my local arcade. I think it even sounded clearer than what IIDX did, but I could be wrong because back then I had limited access to IIDX and not enough experience playing the arcade version at the time. IIDX still has the better songs overall though. :)
BM III had a headphone jack. IIDX took years to finally put one in with their Lightning Model cabinet which I feel was necessary since for some reason the arcade operators at my local Round 1 have the volume lower than the regular IIDX cabinet. I have to play on the Lightning Cabinet using headphones to hear everything better.
Still, IIDX is the better game overall of course.
Huh. The headphone jack wasn't a thing on IIDX until the Lightning cab? That's odd. My Round1's standard cab has a jack. IDK, maybe the arcade techs hacked one in.
@@SuperSmashDolls It's possible, but one Round 1 arcade near me had the standard cabinet and I didn't notice a headphone jack there. Also the lightning cabinet lets you control the volume of what you hear in the headphones on the touch screen.
@@SuperSmashDolls afaik some arcades added their own headphone jacks to the older model cabinets by just splicing some wires
Wait, IIDX was running at 30fps at some point? I Though that every BeatMania IIDX games run at 60fps until Heroic Verse with the Lightning model
@@dantestriker7020 I believe every IIDX game before 9th Style ran at 30 fps.
10/10 video, 10/10 drip, and 11/10 bed made
damn right
I spent many a token on Beatmania III the Final. It was a really great game. The cabinet was pretty, it sounded great, and the songlist was packed. Like you said, it was essentially just a "deluxe" version of 5 key but it just had a vibe to it.
There is another game that does the "hybrid difficulty" thing, Pump it Up. Specifically older versions of it had a game mode called Division Mode, where every song would start off easy, and then every so often, a G or a W would come up in place of one of the arrows, and if you hit the G, the song would stay easy, but if you hit the W, the song would get a little harder. And it'd keep getting harder/staying easy if you kept hitting Gs / Ws.
taiko also has this on some songs as well
Now please do one on IIDX. I know it hasn't died yet, but I do really want a solid retrospective of some sort of it. There doesn't seem to be any good english ones out there currently
it hard to recap a 32 game thing
Great video.
I remember playing beatmaniaIII at Magfest back in 2015 and it was pretty cool. At first I didn't really notice a difference since everything looked about the same. However, someone explained to me that the timing for the older songs outside of the BMIII folder were out of wack due to the new engine and hardware. I hopped between both BMIII and BM cabinets that were available and it became really apparent.
Nonetheless it was an interesting experience; it was my first (and last) time trying out the spinoff.
back in my BEMANI heyday circa 2000-2009 or so at one point my local bowling alley HAD a beatmania III: 6th MIX! I definitely had some fun with it, although I remember the giant speakers being almost *too* loud to be bearable for too long. I guess if you wanted the ultimate 5-key experience there was bmIII: THE FINAL?
Wow that's awesome they had that at your bowling alley!
@@cosmo3940 oh yeah before they went all ticket-spitters they had a lot of the good ones, DDR, Initial D, Wangan Midnight, I think they even had ghost squad at one point! last I checked it was ticket games and stuff like deadstorm pirates, definitely a downgrade.
You may want to look into Seven’s Code. It’s becoming a Dead Rhythm Game at the end of this month, so you can still get the game and record footage for a potential Episode on this title.
may rhythm games never stop dying and may this series never end
Bruh you killed wacca with this
@@reillocb i'm so sorry but look on the bright side... it means we're going to get a new DRG video
You pointed out how there wasn't much change between the different versions, but actually that was due to the developer team being merged with the original beatmania which meant that the team had to develop two games at the same time with a budget for one game: the team didn't have enough money or time to develop beatmania III (sometimes the team only had a month to develop)
(source: few Japanese websites & videos)
I'm gonna play BMIII The Final just to explore. Underdogs like these deserve a good look in my eyes.
BMIII really did an EZ2DJ
This explains the KONAMI vs EZ2DJ (amuseworld) legal shenanigan...
I had no clue Beatmania had a foot-pedal version, damn
also. *TTFATF teaser* ?
glad someone watched to the end :)
I was literally gonna post everything here, amazing vid overall
Man I just discovered your channel and I LOVE IT!
I hope you cover DanceManiaX on this section as well!
Honestly, I would love the chance to talk your ear off about (Mirai Dagakki) Future TomTom to help out with providing info on a video regarding the game, should you want to make one for Dead Rhythm Games! Easily one of my favorite BEMANI games in recent years and the history behind it, albeit sparse, is fascinating. I miss it, like, a few times every year since it died.
Torquay used to have an limited bemani scene and theres an obscure group called team paranoia I wonder where did that all go??
omg ive been looking here and there to find out what beatmania 3 actually is thank you
AAAANNDD you forgot hiphopmania complete mix 2 was circulating too 😅😅
Thanks for your hardwork
Very late to this but at least for CORE REMIX / THE FINAL there was some other stuff added in.
CORE REMIX virtually stayed as a “prettier” version of the game that it is based off of featuring completeMIX 2 songs + clubMIX songs. It also snuck in three brand new crossovers from IIDX 3rd style that were never added into beatmania previously. (R5, REINCARNATION, era (nostalmix))
THE FINAL III stays with this, game looks better aesthetic. Major changes were that the load times are much faster compared to the game based on. BGAs are also much more prominent versus the very small box of animations playing during base THE FINAL gameplay. Some THE FINAL songs even got unique BGA Animations. (NURUHACHI / fellows)
I love your channel!!
Beyond the ez2dj patent guarding, the original beatmania hardware (DJ Main) was just *super* outdated compared to everything else. Unlike System 573 (DDR) it didn't have CD, so each update mix was expensive, and a logistical challenge-hence why as you noted in your beatmania video, they were constantly pulling songs out and just eking every scrap of performance they could. The monitors were also... Not great. 5 key was still quite popular in japan after IIDX, so one of the goals of III was that arcade operators would (hopefully) replace those 5 key machines with something that could more gracefully move forward, with more songs from the back catalog in each release, like IIDX, DDR, Gitadora etc. That didn't happen, and IIDX picked up significant steam shortly after the release of 3rd style.
I loved bmIII though, and *absolutely* brought my 3.5" disk with me to the arcade to keep scores! bmIII the final is in my opinion the ultimate 5 key game, with it's beautiful 60fps higher resolution display, headphone jack, 268 songs vs beatmania the final's 188, and score saving. :)
Are you planning on doing a video on the original GuitarFreaks and DrumMania games (both the original series and the V series) since they're a similar situation to 5 key Beatmania?
Would you cover Re:Rave and In The Groove?
Oh hey, I know the guy in the thumbnail. He’s me. 😉
Wacca\sevens code\Touhou Danmaku Kagura when?
Should have named it Beammaniadx
Is this supposse to be the sequal to BMIIDX.
It was basically an enhanced version of beatmania (not IIDX). It ended when the original beatmania did.
@@D2RCR Right. But based on the numbering, it seems like they were trying to see if it would outlive IIDX.
beatmania
beatmania IIDX
beatmania III
But IIDX stayed because it had gameplay features that people liked.
where is that shirt from?? it's cool af
the brand is called "neo4ic" !
Look up kickbeat
It's dead as hell