beatmania

beatmania (original arcade) is a DJ simulation rhythm game developed and published by Konami, released for arcades in December 1997, running on the DJ MAIN arcade hardware. It is the origin title of the famous BEMANI franchise. The dedicated controller features five keys (three white, two black) plus a turntable for scratching. Notes scroll downward, players hit keys and scratch the turntable on timing to trigger sounds. The Groove Gauge decides pass or fail; accurate performance fills the gauge while missed notes drain it. The original release packs 7 electronic tracks including techno, hiphop and reggae, with tutorial stage and DJ battle segment. It supports single-player and 2-player versus mode. It invented the turntable-and-key DJ rhythm template and ignited the arcade rhythm game boom in the late 90s. It spawned follow-up lines such as beatmania IIDX and beatmania III. It can be emulated in MAME, standing as a milestone title in retro arcade rhythm gaming.

These are the default keys. Every arcade board has a different number of buttons and means different things by them. The rows above are buttons 1–6 on the board: on Neo Geo boards (The King of Fighters and friends) A/B/C/D are buttons 1–4, Metal Slug uses only 1, 2 and 4 (shoot / jump / grenade), and Pac-Man uses none at all. Six-button fighters with three punches and three kicks (Street Fighter II and the like) get a different layout from the core: light punch U, medium punch I, heavy punch Q, light kick J, medium kick K, heavy kick E. Click the gamepad icon 🎮 in the player toolbar, then “Remap keys” to open the emulator’s own control settings (keyboard and gamepad, saved automatically). Gamepads are detected automatically. On phones you get on-screen buttons.