Headlines

Beat'n Groovy (hereafter B'nG), Konami's latest entry in the western rhythm game market, has been an interesting game to review. It's simple enough to look at the individual pieces that make up the title and to try to draw some conclusions, but to do so is to ignore the mysterious negative synergy producing something less than the sum of its parts. Separately, there's nothing explicitly wrong with any one of the game's components. B'nG includes the gameplay of Konami's Japanese arcade franchise Pop'n Music, a fairly respectable set of songs from the same, art from designer NAPPIE, and the online capabilities of current-generation console hardware. Somehow things just don't work out.

In the first place, something is lost in the transition from bashing the daylights out of a big ol' arcade deck to tapping a joystick and buttons on an Xbox 360 controller. B'nG is similar to Pentavision's DJMAX Portable franchise, where columns are matched intuitively to a row of buttons or directions across the face of the controller. It's functional, but it's not as engaging as using the real hardware. Next, NAPPIE's character designs are paired pretty haphazardly with song selection to a degree that is baffling even to someone who understands what the characters are doing there at all. The rest of the graphics are sparse but functional. The difficulty of the game is greatly simplified from the often brutal charts underlying Pop'n Music's saccharine surface—aside from slip-ups due to the 360's shoddy d-pad, most players should breeze through the charts here. This is especially frustrating in light of the well-executed syncing and an overall lag-free experience.

The songlist, while above reproach in terms of the content that is there, is awfully short. Players hoping for something a little bit meaty are in for a disappointment when they realize that their $10 has gotten them a meager nine songs. Boom Boom Rocket, another rhythm title available on Live Arcade, was rightfully bashed for including only ten songs at release, and B'nG should be as well. This could be a sign of a plan to release new songs via DLC but unless the prices were extremely reasonable it would qualify as an insult to players.

Online multiplayer is included and while the netcode does what it needs to do the fact that only three-button play is included (a necessity when playing on an arcade controller) is strange when you consider that you're playing with someone not in the same room. Of course, if you don't jump online soon, you'll never do it at all—as of last Wednesday, the day B'nG came out, things were pretty desolate. One leaderboard exists to tally players' cumulative scores in ranked games. The failure to include boards for individual songs is a notable omission but I suppose the assumption is that they would simply fill with perfect scores faster than would be worthwhile.

B'nG is unfortunately symptomatic of many American Bemani releases: the existing audience is going to feel alienated by changes they view as unnecessary, while potential new players are just going to feel confused. For both groups, that's ultimately okay, as the former get back to their imports and the latter put Rock Band back in the system. But it's a letdown to see yet another lame release when a little more thought, a little more effort, or even just a few more songs might have made something worth getting excited about.