pop'n music (Arcade)

pop'n music
Developer: Konami GMD Publisher: Konami Platform: Arcade (Konami DJ Main Board) Released in JP: September 28, 1998 Released in KR: 1998 Released in TW: 1998 Released in AS: 1998 This game has hidden development-related text. This game has a hidden level select. This game has regional differences.

YEAH
LET'S GET MOVIN
YEAH
LET ME FEEL THE GROUND SHAKE
US REPRESENT NEW THE SUPER POP'N MUSIC BY KONAMI
IS THE SOUND OF THE BEST GAME SURE KIDS
SO GET READY AND ENJOY

The very first installment of pop'n music, the cheerful third entry of what would later become Konami's "Bemani" rhythm game series, following beatmania and Dance Dance Revolution, and running on the same hardware as the former. Rather than replicating an instrument or a dance, however, the goal is to simply hit notes (Pop-kuns) by pressing the nine big colorful buttons on the board.

Hidden Level Select

A hidden debug feature allows the player to freely select a song by holding down the Test button and pressing a combination of keys at the same time in the song selection screen. These don't work if Event Mode is turned on. Note that combinations 2+4+8, 2+8 and 8 don't work in the Korean release (see Regional Differences).

Key Combination	Song
2	Baby, i'm yours
2+4	FUNKY TOWN '75
2+4+6	e-motion
2+4+8	すれちがう二人
2+6	what i want
2+6+8	SPICY PIECE
2+8	The theme of GAMBLER Z
4	Quick Master
4+6	Electronic Fill
4+6+8	Hi-Tekno
4+8	monde des songe
6	YOUNG DREAM
6+8	El pais del sol
8	I REALLY WANT TO HURT YOU

Build Dates

At the beginning of the game's HDD data, a string containing version and build dates for the game can be found. Note that the string was slightly updated for the Asian and Korean releases of the game. By merging the first and second ROMs of each region, it's also possible to find these strings at the following offsets:

• Japan: 0x2471E
• Asia/Taiwan: 0x23880
• Korea: 0x236E2

Japan HDD	Taiwan HDD/Korea HDD
GQ803 pop'n music ver1.00 1998/09/04 (C) KONAMI	GQ803AA pop'n music ver1.01 1998/10/14 (C) KONAMI

Regional Differences

Four releases of the game are known to exist:

• JA - The original Japanese version, labeled as popn1j in MAME; known internally as v1.00
• AA - The Asian version, labeled as popn1a in MAME; known internally as v1.01 but uses the same HDD as JA
• TA - The Taiwanese version, labeled as popn1 in MAME
• KA - The South Korean version, labeled as popn1k in MAME

Both the Taiwanese and South Korean versions are based on the Asian one, though the former doesn't seem to have any noticeable differences at first glance.

KONAMI logo

The original Japanese release displays the 1986-1998 KONAMI logo during the Attract sequence. The Asian/Korean releases changed it to the more updated 1998-2003 logo.

Japan	Asia/Taiwan/Korea

Songlist

Song Info

Several genre/title/artist names were changed in the Asian/Korean releases. Changes are highlighted in bold.

Japan			Asia/Taiwan/Korea
Genre	Title	Artist	Genre	Title	Artist
J-TEKNO	Quick Master	act deft	J-TECHNO	Quick Master	act deft
DANCE	Hi-Tekno	Hi-Tekno	DANCE	Hi-Techno	Hi-Techno
ANIME HERO	The theme of GAMBLER Z (splash) TATAKAE! GAMBLER Z (gameplay)	words:RYO song:NARAMCHA	CARTOON HERO	The theme from GAMBLER Z (splash) Go for it! GAMBLER Z (gameplay)	words:RYO song:NARAMCHA
SPY	SPICY PIECE	ORIGINAL SOUND TRACKS	SPY	SPICY PIECE	ORIGINAL SOUND TRACK
BONUS TRACK	すれちがう二人 [Surechigau futari]	aprèsmidi	BONUS TRACK	Love passes by	aprèsmidi

Missing Songs

The Korean release, which is based on the Asian localization, lacks three songs: I REALLY WANT TO HURT YOU, The theme from GAMBLER Z and Love passes by. Their characters are still playable, however.

Electronic Fill

The background of the song Electronic Fill was replaced in the Korean release of the game, now being a palette swap of the background originally belonging to the song Quick Master.

JA/AA/TA	KR

(Source: dandiamond)

Mode Select Screen

Along with a redesign of the text design above the mode selections, the "CHECK!" text in the bottom was removed. The explanatory text for the blue buttons was also made more detailed (this change was also done in several other screens).

Japan	Asia/Taiwan/Korea

Result Screen

Several wording changes were made in the Asian/Korean releases, which include a fix in "Tonight/Tonight's Stats", and a simplification in the judgement counters. The colon in the stage counter was also removed, which was also done in several other screens (see below).

Japan	Asia/Taiwan/Korea

Stage:Number

Some more examples of the colon removing, now in the song splash and gameplay screens.

Japan	Asia/Taiwan/Korea

Name Entry Screen

Along with wording fixes in "Entry/Enter your name." and "Rank In/Ranking", the "It's All Good!" text in the left side of the screen was removed.

Japan	Asia/Taiwan/Korea

Total Result Screen

Again, more wording/typo fixes, this time in "Congratulation/Congratulations" and "All Stage/All Stages Cleared". The latter text was also slightly moved, and, yet again, the colon in the stage counter was removed.

Japan	Asia/Taiwan/Korea

Characters

Mary/Rave girl

The text in the Miss/Lose animations for the characters Mary and Rave girl was changed to many symbols in the Asian/Korean releases.

Mary		Rave girl
JA	AA/TA/KA	JA	AA/TA/KA

TORU KAMIKAZE

The text and hearts in the first section of TORU KAMIKAZE's Fever/Jam animation were removed from the Asian/Korean releases.

JA	AA/TA/KA

Character Names

Several of the character names were changed as well.

JA	AA/TA/KA

Song Differences (HDD)

Two of the game's songs have differences between the v1.00 HDD (used by the Japanese and Asian releases) and the v1.01 HDD (used by the Taiwanese and Korean releases):

INSTRUCTIONS

This song, which plays when starting up Beginner Mode, has some of its BG change and background keysound parameters positioned differently, likely to accommodate the new English graphics.

YOUNG DREAM

The v1.00 HDD erroneously assigns two 9 (rightmost white) notes to a blank keysound (ID 0x30); the faulty parameters are placed at positions 3162 and 3668, and affect the 9 notes on measures 25 and 29 (about 0:55 and 1:03 after the notes start scrolling, respectively). This was changed in v1.01, where these parameters load the keysound 0x22 (a cymbal) instead, which also applies to all subsequent pop'n music games.