I was watching X-play the other day, and Adam did a review on the U.S. version of Beatmania. I was expecting some bad reviews such as the sharp learning curve making it a game not for everybody, and maybe the taste of music Americans like and such since the genre of music was targeted mainly for Japanese...but I didn't expect to be bothered by it. I was wondering if anyone else saw it and felt like Sessler needed to eat shit and die
Anyways, a summary of what I remember from his review, the video footage of the review was very mocking to the game. They had some moron just hitting random buttons and scratching away not even playing the game correctly, and they even went as far as to make some stupid character called "Scratch" to insult the controller. Sessler kept babbling about how awful the genre of music that was included in the game, and repeatedly kept going back to the "Toxic" song to bring down the game. He even made fun of the song, Sana's "La Bossa Nova De Sana" which was a classic that goes back all the way to the very first Beatmania game back in "97. After dissing the playing mechanics, saying it's a rip off of the 'oh so greatly appraised' "Guitar Heroes", that it "wasn't clear what audience this game was aiming for", that whoever plays this game would be "some lonely nerdy gamer with no social life" or something like that, I just remember it pissed me off so bad
He was right about one thing: "It's not easy!" (and it showed the fail screen) Sessler's end results: "A Lame 2 stars out of 5"..and Sessler and Webb said that they don't think "there's ever going to be a game that can even compare to "Guitar Heroes"!
Now, my counter arguements...first off, if you're going to bring down a game, you'd better do your homework first. If Sessler wasn't a sorry ass video game reviewer, he would have known Beatmania is the "GODFATHER" of all music simulation games. How can he even say Beatmania is a rip-off of anything? If it wasn't for Beatmania, there wouldn't be Bemani games (D.D.R., Pop n' Music, Guitar Freaks, Drummania, etc.); no Bemani games, then no generic variations ( like Frequency, Amplitude, Guitar Heroes). It's like saying "
Tony Jaa is better than Jackie Chan". Jackie Chan is old school and has been doing movies back in the 70's; Tony Jaa is new school and just starting...you can't compare the 2 because they are from 2 different generations, but you can't totally diss the old school because that's where the roots branch from to form the new school stuff; and you gotta pay the respects! (Actually, you better pay your respects!)
I have to give it though, "Guitar Heroes" is a good game, even though rock music isn't my thing, I still liked playing it for the challenge; but if it wasn't for "Guitar Freaks", there probably wouldn't be any Guitar Heroes. Red Octane was the group that made the generic brand Konami controllers for D.D.R. and Guitar Freaks, and Harmonix made Frequency back in 2001, so it's already certain who's superior over the other.
The whole purpose of the U.S. release of Beatmania is to get everyone who hasn't played but wants to play it into the Beatmania scene, and get caught up with all the good people. (that and to give everyone a chance to try out 14 key
) Beatmania is a classic Japanese arcade simulator , and was aimed to give America a chance to try the arcade classic as well as get people into IIDX....that and because the steep learning curve, it's better to learn how to play at home for free instead of wasting your quarters/tokens/dollars away at the arcade. (if you have one at your arcade)
Back to the arguement, they didn't give it any effort to even try and play the game, nor did they even have any footage or a segment on the BeatmaniaIIDX part of the game, where all the better songs are. If they couldn't play it, I'm pretty sure they could have found somebody in Cali who was good, or at least a video from YouTube or something, and make it seem interesting to the viewers watching the review.
And about attacking the players of Beatmania, saying we have no life was uncalled for. I play Beatmania because it's challenging despite the steep learning curve. I've been playing it ever since "97 when my cousin brought home Beatmania, 2nd mix and 3rd mix for the PS1 from the Philippines (I'm Filipino btw), and then went all the way to this day to be playing IIDX 7-keys. Since I'm going to college, I have no time for online games or RPG's, and I'm sick of FPS's (although they're fun, but they make too many); I find Beatmania/Beatmania IIDX a perfect game for people who don't have time to sit around all day with an RPG, and just want to have a short 5-10 minutes of fun and then get to some homework...and then play Beatmania IIDX again
Adam Sessler's Beatmania Review on X-Play 
