I agree on the ITG double stance. That I'll give you. What I also know is that the other step artists are qualified. You may not like them, but I'll be damned if their heart and soul didn't go into every step chart and playtested like you wouldn't believe in addition to their level of experience. Incredible for what essentially amounts to a team of less than 10.

There's a lot of Kyle hate here, which is ok- to each their own. Again, for what it began as (a small in-house production) you have to use artists that will work for nothing but recognition. I don't see many other people essentially dedicating years of their life to a project with minimal return. That doesn't say much for you opinion of his music, but he is definitely doing it because he loves it. Also, you're going to see a lot of PIU return with nothing but more options for you as the player. Andamiro knows what players want and they've listened.

Mines were a way to force you into a pattern. They aren't used on anything but expert charts and if ITG songs are in the new version of pump- that's why. I don't think you'll see them in PIU charts.

As far as passing judgement goes, how much have you played? If you say "none, I just watched a video" then it's really difficult to take you seriously at all.

propose road trip

Effort is good, but it doesn't always equal quality. I've seen a ton of charts made by various people all over the internet for competition purposes, and I guess I just have a high expectation of what can be made because I've seen better.

I've dedicated many years of my life to various things (non-profit too). It's nice he is enjoying what he's doing, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. If this is the case, he should be doing this because he loves it, not because I do, right?

I don't see this as "Andamiro listening," but more, "This is what the ITG guys want in Pump."

Having played both Pump and DDR for several years, it's very easy to pass judgment because there is no difference. No innovation.
I don't have to jump into a pile of lava to test it for myself when I already know it's going to be painful.

I think it'll be cool
im not a pump player (yet) tho.
I just hope it doen't shut down PiU, since they are both officially Andamiro games.

I at least hope thay go original with the pad and maybe even the cabinet. they didn't do that yet for te beta.

All I have to say now is I know more about DTX than you guys apparently, and this game isn't DTX

DTX? wuts tat you talking bout now?

DTX is a dance game project that has been in and out of the making for years. Currently DTX is dead, and I think it will stay that way.

It was slated to be another 4-panel dancing game.

Need any more help?

I'm not saying effort == quality, but rather defending their qualifications. There is still a lot of shit out there, sure there's one or two good step artists, but that doesn't mean you put them on a payroll. I guess unless you're comparing apples to apples here, there's really no basis for "he/she can definitely make charts better."

My point was not about non-profit, or helping a church, or building a house, or whatever. You don't have to like anything, all I'm saying is that they are qualified to do what they are doing.

I guess I can't really argue with your opinion, but if you don't see what ITG has done as innovation, then I'm barking up the wrong tree.

So if I put a lot of effort into driving on bridges and seeing how my car performs on them would I be qualified to make such bridge?

Being qualified still doesn't mean you're any good at it. All it means is you put a lot of time into it to meet some "standard".

Sure ITG had a *Few* innovations, but taking them and applying them to the next game that won't sue you definitely isn't innovation.

Some people may like it. That's great. Seeing as how I didn't like ITG, I'm not going to be one of them.  :?

I can hope.

BlueSS: I'm done debating the point. If you'd like to keep referencing lava and bridge making in regards to step artists- have fun. I wish you good luck in finding your arrow smashing game.

I'm hoping this game doesn't just turn into Pump It Up: In The Groove - Kyle Ward - Mix.  From the videos, the songlist looks like its just classic pump songs, and his stuff.  Too bad his stuff isn't that great.  I still think some of the best stuff in ITG was from Kid Whatever, I doubt he'll want to take part in this series after all the ITG hassles.  This game just looks like an ego boost for Kyle himself, judging from the songlist so far.  I'm sure it'll change though... hopefully.

I still say they were better than any of Kyles stuff.  If your talking generic, then your talking Kyle Ward and all his aliases, what differ vary little in their composition.  Lets try and keep this more on topic though.  I guess the location test has about 130 songs in it, according to some posts I read on bemanistyle.  I think I'll wait and see if this thing shows up at Sakuracon before I play it.

I kinda agree. Kyle Ward had a few good songs under KaW, i liked his Kbit stuff, symphonious (tell) was unoriginal, but what doance game doesn;t have a classical remake right? smiley was decent, banzai was good, but Inspector K was like ZOMGZ! i LOVED playing to Inspector K music. Just my opinion tho. Dj Zombie and Kid whatever were good. And Go *60* Go byTakoyaki pwned everyone's soul. I hope Tekno Dred makes an appearance or two tho. bloodrush was good.

My problems with this game run deeper than just gameplay mechanics and steps. I'll use Turkeyslam's post from his forum to sum it up because it's exactly what I'm feeling:

-music from Korea that gives Pump music a distinguishable flavor of its own from a distinct culture (there is no kpop on piupro)
-"fun" nature where the focus is on enjoying yourself and immersing yourself in the music rather than getting perfect scores on songs
-the hip-hop, freestyle-like element that no other game has in any way... the breakdancing feel... the laxed nature where the game has easy grading to allow you to do improv freestyles on the machine and still do well when playing
-not being focused on "standardization" (all songs follow the same formula, level scale, and general features) but rather being more into experimentation (Another steps, various gimmick charts, remixes, full songs, crazy World Tour missions with hilarious requirements, Raw/Bee A-NM, etc etc etc)
-the general VIBE that Pump presents which no game can emulate in any way

I doubt anyone on here can understand this but oh well. They're basically alienating the game and it's fanbase.

I'm also sad this is what America could likely be stuck with. Thank god Korea and Mexico are the biggest markets for AM and still love the game for what it's supposed to be and arcades here can "import" the real mixes.

You know, I'll be honest Davyn.  I really don't agree with about half of what you're saying, and some of it just seems a little overly biased.  I mean "fun nature that doesn't focus on scores?"  Players who focus on score are going to be trying to perfect attack a game no matter what they're playing.

You (or rather Turkeyslam) make a good point about Kpop, but remember this is still beta and that could easily change.  I don't think we really can judge the music selection at this point.

I'm all for seeing how this could turn out, I liked a lot of the things ITG was able to do; so this could be of my interests.  Afterall one complaint I have with PIU is it's terrible (IMO of course) interface as well as the WAY too loose timing window.  I don't know how much of this will change, but either way I don't see how it could be bad.

I'm excited to try this. Pretty convenient that I'm moving back soon Maybe this means I'll finally be playing Pump more.

Ok, so I watched the vids, that ALiens in our midst was fairly lame looking.  But the others looked fun; overall, yeah, it just seems like PIU with ITG options.  Hopefully this means I'll be able to actually play on a PIU machine, I've never even seen one that wasn't way old and in horrible condition.

I think that having Kyle Ward do the layout and some songs was a good idea.

Everything else should have been done by Andamiro though.  The only reason PIU turns me off is because it's so hard for me to use.  It took me literally about 5 seconds of looking at ITG to figure out how to navigate the game.  I've spent hours trying to figure out all the little quirks of PIU.

So I spent a little time playing Pump it Up Pro, currently beta testing at Big Al's Sports Bar & Bowling Alley (or as it's more commonly known, "Bi Gals") in Vancouver, Washington. I think people already know the basics behind what this game is already, so let's jump right into it.

DISCLAIMER: I am not the most knowledgable or experienced Pump player. Not that I'm very good at DDR/ITG, but I'm even worse at Pump. So I don't know all the details of which songs appear on which mixes and whatnot.



Also, my camera sucks. Sorry.

Let's first address the songlist, as that's what seems to be causing arguments already. Yes, there are Kyle Ward songs in the game. No, they are not the bulk of the songlist. Most of the songs are indeed songs from older Pump mixes, some of which apparently did not make it back for New Xenesis. Then you've got a good number of Kyle's songs from ITG1 and 2 (not all of them though), along with a handful of songs that were rumored to be in ITG3. Stop & Go, Esperanza, Ra, Hasen Mich... probably some others I'm forgetting. I believe there are some other new songs by artists who aren't Kyle too, but like I said, I honestly can't always tell which songs are new because I have no access to newer Pump mixes. Anyway, there's around 126 songs or so on this beta, and I don't know if more will be included later.

For what it's worth, the step patterns for the returning ITG songs are not identical to their 4-panel counterparts, i.e. there's nothing like the repeated Right arrow stomp on Utopia. Zodiac's chart looked a lot easier too. ITG1 songs like Utopia and Xuxa were edited down time-wise. Robotix has no 1337 bpm speedup, instead it's just one long pause in the middle, which is pretty lame. Xuxa has no BPM stops at all.



When you push Start, you're greeted with this screen. The "Progressive" mode is not selectable in this beta. I think it's safe to assume that the Progressive mode will likely be Marathons with scripted modifiers and all that. Also note the "INSERT CARD" at the bottom-left of the screen. In this beta there's no USB support, but it will be in the final. Presumably it'll save song records and modifier preferences, but who knows what else.



Here is what the song select screen looks like. One of the new "borrowed" enhancements from ITG is that you can see the number of steps, holds, 3/4/5 arrow steps, jumps, mines, and rolls. And of course you get to see the machine record, and the not-yet-implemented personal best through USB card support. For me, being able to see the number of steps is another welcome change. I always seemed to have a knack for finding Pump songs that were misrated because I had no idea what I was getting into when I selected the song. At least here you have a better idea of what to expect.

The song select timer in this beta is 40 seconds, which is waaaay too short.



Selecting a song brings up the difficulty/modifier selection menu. Pretty much all the modifiers from ITG are in here too. One important change Pump players might want to know about are the noteskins - by default, the arrows are colored by 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc. Of course in old Pump versions you had orange for UL and UR, yellow for Center, blue for DL and DR. If you prefer that format, fear not! Select the "Classic" noteskin and you're good to go.

Speed modifier wise, it seems that they're faster than what the same mod would be on a previous Pump game... i.e. x1 feels more like x1.5 on older Pump mixes. I ended up playing most of my songs on x1.5 because x2 often felt way too fast... but maybe that's because the pads were pushed up pretty close to the screen. So I would highly advise against picking x3 on anything if it's your first time playing this version. Also, the available speed mods for selection were (this might not be 100% right): x0.25, x0.5, x0.75, x1, x1.5, x2, x3, x4, x8, C200, C400, Random. Yeah, those are two pretty horrible choices for C mods.

(P.S. I thought Aliens In Our Midst was really fun, yes it's very slow and hand-heavy, but I enjoy hands and much prefer to play songs that don't have 8 bazillion steps)



Ehh, figures the only results screen I'd take a picture of would end up blurring and looking like shit. Ignore the generic Pump it Up Pro banner, the game does show the banner of whatever song you played, but some songs did not have banners in place yet. So you've got mines and rolls from ITG, but that's not the only things that were borrowed - there is now a "Superb" step timing in the line of Marvelous and Fantastic. The Perfect window has always been huge enough to drive a truck through in Pump, the timing windows in Pump Pro... are roughly the same size as ITG, but slightly looser. It certainly felt easier to stay on beat with Superbs than it was with Fantastics, although I was sort of annoyed that Superb and Perfect have roughly the same font color, making it a little more difficult to tell when you're going off-beat. Also, you can't see your percentage score until the song is over, there's no score display during the song.

Maybe it's a side effect of having slightly larger timing windows, but the song syncing? It felt wonderful. I can't think of a single song I played that felt "off". (it's worth noting that Bi Gals has an unpatched Supernova machine placed back-to-back with Pump Pro. I played one game of that while I was there and I was so spoiled by the nice syncing that it became impossible to get assloads of Greats)



yeah, I'm dreading having to read that on potential marathons  ;o

At the beta test, the price is $1 / 3 songs, and there is NO Extra Stage. Whether it will be added later, I don't know. Also, double premium appears to be disabled, so Freestyle/Nightmare songs end up costing 2 songs. I'm sure this will be an operator-adjustable setting (hopefully defaults to On)



It's worth clarifying that Pump it Up Pro is NOT the successor to New Xenesis, but rather it's going to be a whole new "series" of Pump. It will get a worldwide release, and possibly a home version if it does well.

I'm rather surprised that the game is already getting so much bashing from both the 4-panel fanboys who refuse to play Pump, and the 5-panel fanboys that don't want any ITG influence in their game. I'm someone who's infinitely more comfortable with 4-panel arrow smashing games, but guess what? I enjoyed Pump Pro more than I did than with my limited experience with the other games in the series. I think it may just end up being fairly successful in getting 4-panel players to finally give Pump a try though, because I really appreciated the improvements to the interface (seriously, it always felt so awkward to me to have to select songs with the arrow panels, so better late than never having selection buttons on the cabinet). In talking with Kyle, he said that he truly believes that players should have a choice in what types of dancing games to play, and that variety is a good thing. I couldn't agree more.

Give it a try before you write the game off. Seriously. I will definitely be playing the finished version when it's released.

I'm a 4 panel fanboy that also played pump occasionally for fun.  I don't like what essentially is an attempt to integrate two very different games with rather different fanbases.
What is considered "good" in pump and ITG are different (combo/miss count and score, respectively), and... well you know what, all pump pro is is ITG with 5 panels with a couple of pump gimmicks that could be in ITG if it wanted.  I hope I didn't just skip over some blatantly obvious innovation of sorts that proves that wrong.

edit: I forgot to address the second part of my quoting.  Variety is in being able to choose between (DDR or ITG) or Pump.  There's plenty.  integrating them just mashes the boundaries and prohibits mastery of any one game.  Which by the way was a fundamental concept of ITG (mastery of 4 panel dance games).

edit2: dancetrax is a dead project that will never happen in which at one point archowl was going to make his stupid shit like you know from stepmania.

I'm expecting to enjoy this a lot.  Back when ITG first showed up in my area, I was disapointed about having to go back to 4 panel to play new content, since the patterns are so awkward and limited.  ITG's gameplay and Pump's layout combined, while not revolutionary, is an excellent idea that is a lot of fun.  What this is is an incarnation of ITG3, so I don't understand why the same people who were anticipating its release now bash the game because of a change in the arrow layout.  The Pump purists  are being alarmist at simple correctable flaws in the beta, and view this game is violating their sacred franchise.  ITG's beta was a lot crappier than this, and they managed to turn it into a somewhat polished product, so I'm optimistic about Pump Pro's future.

buttons on the machine? no thanks

people, if you are upset by this, play PiU instead. not that big of a deal. I was a little pissed when ITG first came out because the noteskins and mods and 12/13's and all that 'ruined' the concept of DDR. After actually playing it long ebough, i like as much if not more than DDR, and I know some people are DDR players that still hate ITG. TGhat's fine. They can play DDR instead. I'm assuming this won't take the place of PiU, rather it will just be an alternative, for those of us who want to get into pump, but have been playing ITG so much, that PiU would be to hard to try. Also, I'm still hoping Pump Pro Final will have an original pad design like they did with ITG :3