Pop 'n' Music is now on XBLA!

[BLeeP]

I almost always check the new demos for games on Wednesday, and there was a quietly released game called "Beat'n Groovy" put up today. I download it, expecting it to be crap. To my surprise, though, it's just Pop 'n' Music with a different name!

The game itself is 800 points, and it comes with 9 songs. The songs I've played so far are good ole J-Pop. I highly recommend this to people who enjoy Boom Boom Rocket (of which I know there are a lot of fans on here) or any of Konami's other music/rhythm games (especially Pop 'n' Music, duh!).

So go download it under it's American name of Beat'n Groovy, and maybe we can get some multi-player going sometime!

Summary:

Beat'n Groovy = Pop 'n' Music for 800MS points.

[rinichanraar]

Wait. I'm a little confused by this. Don't you need a really specific controller to play Pop'n Music? How does it work on a 360 controller?

[BLeeP]

Wait. I'm a little confused by this. Don't you need a really specific controller to play Pop'n Music? How does it work on a 360 controller?

You can use a regular controller for Pop'n Music. You always could on the Dreamcast and PS2 iterations, and the same is true for Xbox 360. As a matter of fact, it's your only option on Xbox 360. I was just thinking that the lack of a pop'n controller is probably why they changed the name. Either way you play it, though, Pop'n Music is a great game.

[Tayaya]

I download it, expecting it to be crap.

And you expected correctly. The gameplay is basically Pop'n Music, but if you've ever played one of the real pop'n games, you would know that this doesn't hold a candle to it.

I'm not trying to be one of those "the Japanese version is better because it's the Japanese one" kinda guys on this one, but this game is just not good. The fanboy in me that loves Pop'n will certainly chime in about how this game's interface is garbage, and how it lacks any of Pop'n Music's wonderful personality, character design, feel, and options, but even the core game is impossible to compare to Pop'n.

Choices of 3 and 5 key gameplay? Pop'n Music has 9 buttons....easy mode on Pop'n has 5, and even the most challenging 5 button songs are easier than 80% of the 9 key stuff. For someone that likes a challenge, they aren't going to find it in Beat'n Groovy.

Even the older Playstation 1 Pop'n games had 40 songs or so on them, the more recent PS2 ones have been pushing 120 or more. Now I'm not going to expect 120 songs on a downloadable game for $10, but surely they could do better than 9 given how short they are.

As someone that owns copies of all Pop'n games from 6 on forward (except 7), and a Pop'n Music Arcade Style Controller (official Konami one, not a Ransai), I have no reason to buy this game for sure.... but really no one else should either, given how atrocious it is.

[Mike Kelehan]

Complaints!

1. Can't reconfigure the controls. I wanted to do so in order to play it with a Hori stick, which is way closer to how Pop'n is supposed to be played.

2. No individual song leaderboards. The only leaderboard they have is a total score brute force one, which is based less on skill and more on time invested. Lame. Individual song leaderboards tell me which song I can improve the most on, and that helps me get better.

3. No difficulty selection. It's locked on "retarded."

I won't knock it for the very lame 3-key-only online mode or the unbelievably lame Xbox Live Vision mode, since they really didn't need to include them at all.