Beatmania (Arcade)

beatmania (Arcade) I can do it so do it with me
You are the DJ, hit the key
Do it, scratch, bend your brain
Feel the beat, let's do it again.

The DJ simulator game beatmania marked the beginning of Konami's rhythm game craze, which would spawn more games, along with sequels upon sequels upon sequels.

While it was quite a rough beginning, with only eight available songs, and a maximum of four stages during standard play, it was enough to get players hooked for more.

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Prerelease Info

Unused Graphics#

Stored at offset 0x28000 of the third graphics ROMs (753jaa07.22d and 753jaa08.23d), alongside some of the gameplay HUD graphics, are squares. These were part of an audio visualizer graphic which was seen in an early mockup screenshot of the game.

Hidden Level Select#

A hidden debug feature allows the player to freely select a song by holding down the Test button and pressing one of the keys at the same time in the song selection screen. It should be noted that this doesn't work while Event Mode is turned on.

Game ID#

At the beginning of the game's HDD data, a string containing the game's ID and version can be found. This string can also be found at offset 0x1D70A of the program data (753jab01.6a and 753jab02.8a)

 GQ753   BEAT MANIA    VER 1.00 

References#