For those of you who did not know, Konami's Beat'n Groovy hit XBLA today, which is the American localization of the japanese rhythm game, Pop'n Music made by the same company. I have spent some time with it and I can easily say that this is the worst thing that Konami has ever put out here in the US (though I do have low expectations of that Castlevania fighting game that IGA and co. are developing on the wii).

You must be wondering, "what the hell did they do to make this game suck so much". Well, I'll fill you in with a nice list of things that I personally found.

First thing you will notice when you boot up the game is the game's "unique" artwork style. Kinda reminds me of something like a cross between those "Homies" and "Bratz" dolls, just freaking ridiculous looking character designs.

The second thing that every Pop'n Music player will notice is the omission of 9-key mode and multiple song difficulties for each song(normal, hyper, and ex). I do understand that gaming is going through this "casual" thing right now, but I personally don't think anyone who enjoys wii sports or Rock Band will enjoy this game at all. By omitting certain options that make the game enjoyable such as customizable controls, unlockable songs, or only having a bare-bones multiplayer option, you not only spit in the face of those that want to support you, but the casual will only frown upon this game as an inferior clone to what is currently available.

The third thing that stands out is this game has only 9 songs. Yes, you read that right, only NINE songs in the full version. I think Boom Boom Rocket has at least 15 songs, but those songs are long compared to anything in Beat'n Groovy. With the download weighing in at about 124mb, you'd think that there would be at least 15 in the default package. Maybe Konami will support this game via DLC song packs, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

The final thing that everyone should notice is the current state that the game is in. It feels like a bad beta product with the game constantly kicking you back to the main menu after every song you finish in the arcade mode or even the small things that really bug me such as the lack of note explosion when you hit a note perfectly, you just see it coast on by as if you never even hit the thing. Besides those things, I think they forgot a judgment level because when you miss a note, you don't see anything saying you missed it. Nothing saying bad or poor, just a blank blue column sometimes.

Anyways, the point that I'm trying to make here is that I believe that Konami can definitely do better than this (I just played Pop'n Music Party at my local arcade last week and it is definitely my favorite one so far). I just hope this isn't their only chance to show America what Bemani is all about since they auto-failed with Beatmania US and Rock Revolution isn't looking all that hot either. I just hope that my 10 dollars worth of Microsoft fun bucks can give Konami that extra chance to bring a disc based Pop'n Music to the Xbox360 in America sooner than later.