Pump It Up
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Pump It Up is a rhythm video game developed by Andamiro, a Korean coin-operated games producer. It is commonly abbreviated as PIU. Following Konami's Dance Dance Revolution play style, you use your feet to step on arrows according to the music.
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Gameplay
While the game's interface has changed as new versions were released, the basic remains: you have a pad composed of 5 buttons (two red ones on the corners closest to the cabinet, two blue ones on the corners farthest to the cabinet, and a yellow one in the middle of them). These are normally called arrows because of their drawings and representation on screen – the middle button shows a drawing of two feet, but for simplicity is also called an arrow by players –. On the screen you'll see a fixed line on the top of the screen, with gray arrows on the same shape as those drawn in the pad. As the song plays, colored arrows will appear on the bottom of the screen and go up under the same column of their gray counterparts. When a colored arrow reaches the fixed arrows on the top, you must hit its corresponding button on the pad.
When you hit an arrow, a small word pops on screen, depending on your accuracy: from best to worst, the ratings are PERFECT, GREAT, GOOD and BAD. If you miss an arrow entirely or press it earlier or later than the threshold for a BAD, you get a MISS. The threshold for each of these ratings varies across different versions.
Difficulty
Songs are ranked by difficulty levels, and a song often has more than one difficulty (one for each game mode it is listed).
Before Exceed — more information about game versions is available in the Releases section — was released, the difficulty for all game modes ranged from 1 to 10 (though they are not related – a level 4 Crazy song is way harder than a level 5 Normal song), with the exception of "Vook", a song introduced on The Premiere 2, on Double mode, which was level 12. With Exceed's debut, all levels were reworked, in a unified range from 1 to 20.
The way the difficulty rating appears on screen also varies a bit, depending on the version's interface: on The Premiere, The PREX, The Premiere 2 and Exceed, the difficulty is indicated by a natural number, like "3" or "8"; on all other versions, they are indicated by a line of circles, with as many circles as the level of the song.
Combos
When you successfully hit several consecutive arrows, you get a combo. If you get 4 or more consecutive arrows, the game will display, right below the accuracy rating, a counter informing how many consecutive steps you've hit.
Only PERFECTs and GREATs count for combos. Any other ratings will stop your combo. On some newer versions, though, a GOOD won't break your combo (but won't increase it either).
The greatest combo you make in a song is called max combo, and when you keep your combo going for the whole song it is called a full combo.
Jumps
Sometimes two arrows may go up side-by-side. When that happens, you must hit both of them at the same time, or you'll get a MISS. Because of the movement players most often make to hit those arrows, they are called jumps.
On the harder songs, three arrows or more may go up at once. In such cases, players normally try to hit two pad buttons with a single foot, or stoop and use their hands and/or knees to help.
Unlike in newer versions of DDR, jumps do not count as several points for the combo counter.
The versions up to The O.B.G. SE, however, worked on jumps differently: each arrow was independent, meaning hitting only one arrow of a two-arrow jump would count as a non-MISS (a PERFECT, for example) followed by a MISS, and hitting both could increase your combo by two. This behavior resembles Beatmania and other rhythm games, as well as Dance Dance Revolution's Solo series.
Hold notes
The Extra, Exceed, and Premiere 3 versions as well as the Prex series also feature another kind of arrow on screen, normally called hold note, freeze note or long note. These arrows look like streched versions of the common arrows. Their corresponding button must be held until the whole arrow passes through the gray arrows on the top.
For each half-beat or quarter-beat — the duration depends on the game version and song — a hold note is held, a PERFECT is scored; if it is not held, a MISS is counted.
Modifiers
Since the first release, all game modes accept modifiers which are enabled by using special codes. The effects vary from speeding arrows up to making them fade as they go up, or making them appear in random places instead of their pre-defined column (while still being on the same beat).
Most players, after a starting period, get used to applying the modifiers to make arrows faster, which makes them more spaced. This is a matter of personal preferences, but the Pump It Up culture generally favors speedy arrows (requiring faster recognition of movements).
Final rating
When a song is cleared, a results screen appears, which shows how many PERFECTs, GREATs, GOODs, BADs and MISSes were made, and the max combo. Then a final rating is given, which may be S, A, B, C, D or an F. An S (at least on Exceed and Exceed 2) means that no MISSes were made, while an F means a fail, and generally the player can't proceed to play another song.
Bonus stage
If the game is properly configured, and if all stages are cleared with an A or an S the player will be able to choose an extra song to play. This is called the bonus stage.
From a bonus stage, it is not possible to get another bonus stage.
Game modes
Normal (Easy)
On a few versions called Easy, but most often Normal, this is the mode for beginners. Arrows hardly ever are off-beat, and jumps normally have no other arrows close to them, so players can understand them and get prepared in time.
The difficulty for this mode ranges from levels 1 to 7.
Hard
Almost all songs have off-beat arrows, especially 8th notes (half-beat). 16th-notes are infrequent.
The difficulty for this mode normally ranges from 3 to 8, with a few exceptions ranging from 2 to 10.
Crazy
The hardest single mode. All songs have half-beat notes, and most also have 16th or 24th notes.
The difficulty for this mode, until Exceed was released, ranged from 1 to 10; now, however, all levels were reworked, and this mode now ranges from 7 to 15.
Division
In this mode the player(s) are presented with choice making sections during a song which give them choices to change the mode at the point (each side being separate):
- G – Groove Style: a sort of step chart for freestyling; most commonly resembles hard mode.
- W – Wild Style: a harder set of steps, resembles Hard mode and Crazy mode depending on the song — it can also get more difficult than crazy if only Ws are pressed on certain songs.
If no choice is made during the choice making section the player who missed the choice making point is set to normal mode. It also to be noted that the songs have no set difficulty levels and instead the level is displayed as "??" due to the fact you can change the difficulty. This currently is the only way to have separate difficulties for two players on PIU, and was only present on Rebirth and Premiere 2. Andamiro only made 23 songs available on this mode, one of which seemed unfinished — A Prison Without Bars.
Freestyle (Double)
Previously called Double, but since The Prex 3 called Freestyle. In this mode, a single player uses both pads, having a total of 10 steps to hit. Most songs here are very similar to their Hard counterparts, with the additional challenge of having to move across both pads.
The difficulty for this mode normally ranges from 3 to 8, with a few exceptions ranging from 1 to 12.
Nightmare
Introduced in The Prex 3, Nightmare is a harder Double mode.
In The Prex 3, all Nightmare songs are of level 99 (which just shows up as a horizontal line of skulls going from one side of the screen to the other), but on Exceed the songs got actual difficulties and can go from 8 to 20.
In the newest version, Exceed 2, difficulties for Nightmare mode now include "22" and "??".
Extra Expert (XX)
Instead of featuring the traditional Crazy mode, the Extra version had the Extra Expert, where songs had a special difficulty rating. Other versions use the same steps from this mode in their Crazy mode.
One unique characteristic, though, is that songs have both single and double steps listed in this mode. The Extra Expert Double steps were, like the later-introduced Nightmare steps, harder than the original Double steps. However, these step sequences are not available in any other release – even the songs that already had XX Double steps in Extra got brand new sequences for their Nightmare versions.
The difficulty in this mode ranges from "1st Level" to "5th Level", with one song ("Can Can") being of a 6th "Final Level".
Half-Double
In this mode, a single player stays in the center of both pads and uses the inner six arrows to play: the center and rightmost arrows from the left pad, and the center and leftmost arrows from the right pad.
The difficulty in this mode ranges from 2 to 10.
Nonstop Remix
This mode appeared in Korean releases, and featured longer songs normally mixing two or three songs from artists featured in other songs of the game (most of the mixed songs also were part of the game). As the songs are longer, many people consider them also more tiring.
Just like Extra Expert, this mode also features single and double versions of each song.
Playing those songs you won't be able to play as many songs as in other modes, though – for example, in Extra a nonstop remix in single mode counts as two songs being played (while, for some reason, the double mode remixes still only count as one).
The difficulty in this mode ranges from 4 to 7, with an exception at level 9.
Nonstop Remixes later made a return in the Exceed 2 version, and are now graded on the same 1-20 scale as the rest of the songs, despite having higher numbers than certain stepcharts might normally have. Also, all the remixes in Exceed 2 now have Crazy, and occasional Nightmare, modes of play, a first in the series.
Battle Mode
In this game mode, two players compete on two songs in hard mode and a song in crazy mode. The winner for each song is the player who gets the highest score.
On versions up to The Premiere, a player could "attack" (cause the effect of a modifier, like speed up or vanish) to the opponent's scrolling arrows by accumulating a combo and then breaking it. The effect depended on the combo accumulated by the attacker. On The Prex and Extra this attacking feature was removed. Recently released Exceed 2 brought it back in a whole new "station" as it was referred to. There would be extra bonus arrows containing power ups activated by action steps that come up later which launches the attack. The battle could be decided in only 1 song in most cases.
Stage Break does not affect this mode.
Combo Battle Mode
In this mode the players rack up combos and the highest combo count wins. The only requirement to win is to get a higher max combo.
This mode was introduced in The Premiere 2/Rebirth.
Home versions
Andamiro eventually released a home versions of the arcade game. These versions are designed to run on PCs, coming with a CD containing the game and a special dance mat, with arrows on the same size of the arcade's pads.
On Korean versions, the mat is connected through the PS/2 port, and comes with an adapter to share it with the keyboard; on international versions, the mat uses an USB plug.
PIU can be simulated by programs such as Kick It Up and StepMania.
Just recently, Andamiro released the Korean version of Pump It Up: Exceed on the Playstation 2, which includes all songs from the arcade version. You must have a Japanese/Asian PS2 to play. However, an American version is to be released on the XBox and the PS2 during E3 2005. Read more here: http://piugame.com/kor/exceed/ps_how.html
The songs
The songs used in Pump It Up are normally Pop songs or specially-produced music, created by a musical division of Andamiro. As of Pop, the first versions featured several K-Pop artists, like Baby V.O.X., Fin. K.L. and S.E.S.. As the game's popularity grew on other countries, international Pop and Latin Pop began to appear.
A special musical division of Andamiro, called Banya, is in charge of making new songs targeted especifically for the game. Of all songs released until the Exceed version (202, not counting the nonstop remixes), there are 60 songs by Banya (about 30% of the total), while no other artist has more than 5 songs.
As on Dance Dance Revolution, songs are typically between one and two minutes, with nonstop remixes (like DDR's long versions) around three minutes long.
Releases
1998 – Pump It Up (Arcade)
Available game modes: Easy, Hard, Double, Nonstop Remix, Battle
The first version released. Features 15 normal songs, and 4 nonstop remixes.
From this version, songs that became particularly popular were "Funky Tonight", by the Korean pop group Clon, and "Another Truth" (also known as "Cordiality"), by Novasonic. "Funky Tonight" is one of the most used songs for freestyling.
1999 – Pump It Up: The 2nd Dance Floor (Arcade)
Available game modes: Easy, Hard, Double, Nonstop Remix, Nonstop Remix Double, Battle
The second release, featuring 4 old songs, an old remix, 17 new songs and 6 new remixes. The same interface from the first version is used, and one of the new nonstop remixes is hidden and can only be found with special codes.
To play the Nonstop Remix songs in double, a special code is needed when selecting the Nonstop Remix mode.
1999 – Pump It Up: The Fusion / The 1st & 2nd Dance Floor (PC)
Available game modes: Easy, Hard, Double, Nonstop Remix, Nonstop Remix Double, Battle
The first home version; there are no arcade counterparts for this one. It includes songs from both 1st and 2nd releases, summing up 32 songs and 10 nonstop remixes.
No new songs are introduced in this version; it is the first "collection" release, which just packs old songs.
2000 – Pump It Up: The O.B.G. / The Oldies But Goodies (Arcade/PC)
Available game modes: Easy, Hard, Crazy, Double, Nonstop Remix (single/double), Battle
The first version which offered Crazy mode, though a special code was needed to enable it. The code also has effect on Nonstop Remix, but cancels out the effect of the Nonstop Remix Double code if used.
A new interface appeared: the blue arrows are used to scroll through the available songs, which appear in pairs on the top of the screen. Each of the red arrows is used to choose one of those songs. The yellow arrow has no purpose other than entering codes.
21 songs and 7 nonstop remixes were added. Apparently, this version carries no old songs.
The O.B.G. SE / The Season Evolutionary Dance Floor (Arcade/PC)
Available game modes: Easy, Hard, Crazy, Double, Nonstop Remix (single/double), Battle
Apart from songs, there isn't much new in this version. Same interface as the previous version. A special feature, though, is that it features a secret song, "Kiss", which can't be found in any other version.
14 songs and a single nonstop remix were added, and presumably no old songs. It is unknown if it really has a single nonstop remix or if it comes with The O.B.G.'s, though.
Pump It Up: The Collection (Arcade/PC)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Double, Nonstop Remix (single/double), Battle
A new "collection" release, which packs all previously released songs (except for SE's secret song) in an O.B.G.-style interface.
Though there are no new productions, this version features a total of 66 songs and 18 nonstop remixes.
2001 – Pump It Up: The Perfect Collection (Arcade/PC)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Double, Nonstop Remix (single/double), Battle
As the title suggests, this version improves The Collection by featuring all songs that appeared in that version and adding 17 new songs (no new remixes). That means 83 songs and 18 remixes.
The interface is similar to the previous ones, but with a new game mode selection screen which offers Crazy mode without the need of a special code. Also, in the song select screen, instead of representing songs by small pictures it shows a roulette with slanted labels, each with a song name written to it. This change is particularly unfriendly among non-Korean players (which, though this is another Korean release, may play this version on arcades that imported the game).
This version was later released for PC, but using an interface similar to The Premiere, described below. This PC version was also released internationally. Apparently, this release actually happened after The Premiere's debut, though the game is identified as The Perfect Collection and does not feature any of the international songs.
2001 – Pump It Up: The Premiere / The International Dance Floor (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Double, Battle
The first international release. Features 6 new songs, all of them from Pop, from NSYNC to a-ha, and 81 old songs (in other words, almost all the previous songs). Several songs were renamed, so that they had English names – or, at the very least, romanizations.
The interface has been redesigned: the blue arrows still navigate through the songs, but only one song appears on screen, which is confirmed with the center button. The red arrows are used only for entering codes, which are a lot simpler (and thus easier to memorize), and there's a single code for speeding up arrows instead of separate codes for each velocity, making it more user-friendly.
A special Brazilian version was also released, which featured, instead of the 6 international Pop songs in english, 8 Brazilian Pop songs in portuguese.
2001 – Pump It Up: Extra (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Extra Expert (single/double), Double, Nonstop Remix (single/double), Battle
As it is another Korean release, this version should be considered another successor of The Perfect Collection, not from The Premiere.
This version is quite unique: it changed Crazy's name to Extra Expert (or XX for short), introduced a brand new interface, a new Double challenge (the XX Double) and the hold arrows. As it is a Korean release, the Nonstop Remix mode returned.
On the new interface, the blue arrows choose the songs as usual, but the red arrows change the game mode. With a single credit you're able to play songs from any mode (considering the limitations like Double modes only being available when there's only one person playing, and Battle mode only being available when there are two players). Like in The Premiere, the center arrow is used to confirm the selection.
This version was actually produced by F2System, an Andamiro affiliate which also produced in 2000 the Techno Motion dance simulation game. Two of the songs from this version are signed by F2: "Holiday" and "Can Can". Can Can, which now has an artist of Radezky since its inclusion on Prex 3, appears in the KPOP section of Exceed, despite being produced specifically for Pump It Up.
23 new songs were added, and 5 nonstop remixes.
Pump It Up: The PREX (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Double, Battle
A new collection, aimed to fuse The Premiere and Extra (hence the name PREX). Contains The Premiere's 87 songs and Extra's 22 normal songs (nonstop remixes and the new version of Clon's "First Love" were not included).
The interface is from The Premiere.
2002 – Pump It Up: The Rebirth (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Double, Half-Double, Division, Combo Battle
This Korean release features a slightly improved Premiere interface: different codes, and a new code to switch between Easy, Hard and Crazy modes (changing game mode from other modes is not possible).
Two new game modes were introduced: Division and Half-Double. Unfortunately for the Division lovers, this mode was dropped and no other version has offered it again, save Premiere 2.
There are 36 new and no old songs available in this version. Though it is a Korean release, the Nonstop Remix mode was not included.
This version was simultaneously released with The Premiere 2.
2002 – Pump It Up: The Premiere 2 / The 2nd International Dance Floor (Arcade)
Available game modes: Easy, Hard, Crazy, Full Double, Half-Double, Division, Combo Battle
The international counterpart for The Rebirth. The 36 new songs from Rebirth are featured, with 66 old songs from The Premiere (though this is an international release, there are no old or new international songs). The new songs from Extra, which appeared on The PREX, are not available.
This version is normally not considered a collection, just an alternative version of The Rebirth. When attributing the new songs to a release, people often call those 36 songs as "Premiere 2/Rebirth songs".
2002 – Pump It Up: The PREX 2 (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Full Double, Half-Double, Combo Battle
Fusing again the Premiere series with Extra, this international collection was released, with an Extra-style interface, all 36 songs from Premiere 2/Rebirth, 21 songs from Extra (the same included from The PREX, except for "Circus Magic") and 36 songs from previous versions, making up a total of 93 songs.
2003 – Pump It Up: The Premiere 3 / The 3rd International Dance Floor (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Full Double, Half-Double, Combo Battle
This international release features an Extra-style interface and 20 new songs, all from American Pop and Latin Pop, the latter due to the increasing success of PIU in Latin America, especially in Mexico.
However, featuring only 36 old songs (summing up 56), this version was rather disappointing for a very expressive number of fans.
2003 – Pump It Up: The PREX 3 / The 4th International Dance Floor (Arcade/PC)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Freestyle, Nightmare, Half-Double, Combo Battle
Breaking the PREX tradition, this version is not a collection, as it features 3 new songs and does not feature very many Extra songs. It uses the same interface (including same graphics) from The Premiere 3. In total, there are 77 songs.
Apart from the new songs, this version also featured the return of Banya's "Hypnosis" and "Ignition Starts", songs from the first version which never appeared in international releases, a few new step routines for old songs and the Nightmare mode, bringing the challenge in the game to a new degree.
There was also a special release of PREX3 for arcade that did not include the rap songs with profanity in them, which brought the song list down to 72 on this version.
In December, the PC version of The PREX 3 was released.
2004 – Pump It Up: Exceed / The 5th International Dance Floor (Arcade/PS2)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Freestyle, Nightmare, Battle
As this is the 10th arcade release (not counting collections), this version has an X (a roman 10) in its logo, and a name making a reference to that: Exceed.
This release introduces yet another interface, where the songs are divided into three channels (Banya, Pop and K-Pop). You use the red arrows to change the channel, and the blue arrows, as usual, to change the song. Only after you confirm a song with the yellow arrow you'll be prompted for which mode you want.
An interesting fact is that this version uses a completely new hardware, making upgrades from older versions not so simple, but offering a much more responsive and visually improved interface and interaction.
Exceed also uses a new operater menu interface which allows an arcade owner to lock out songs they deem inappropriate for the arcade (for example if a lot of kids go there)
This version features 24 new songs from a total of 102.
A PlayStation 2 version of Exceed was released on November 11, 2004. Its release marked the first appearance of Pump It Up on a console system.
2004 – Pump It Up: Exceed 2 (Arcade)
Available game modes: Normal, Hard, Crazy, Freestyle, Nightmare, Battle, Remix
Featuring a slightly modified Exceed interface, the player first must choose between three game modes, called Stations:
- Arcade station
- The gameplay is similar to the previous games, featuring Normal, Hard and Crazy, and also Freestyle and Nightmare for single-players.
- Battle station
- A mode made especially for matches, featuring four different battle modes. It takes only one credit (instead of the usual two for two players), but only one song is played. The song is also limited to being selected from the remix selection (hard mode only). Special modifiers can affect gameplay, which are activated during gameplay by stepping on particular arrows, signified by specialized icons. The variety of available modifiers depends on the mode of battle selected (i.e. 'Minesweeper', 'Item Battle'). A pair of characters are also depicted on screen, who react to the loss of health during gameplay.
- Remix station
- A mode specifically for playing longer songs, in the old Nonstop Remix fashion. In this mode you can normally play only 2 songs.
This version features 18 new songs from a total of 136.
2005 – Pump It Up: In The Groove 2 (Arcade)
Available game modes: Single, Double, Battle, Marathon, Survival
Roxor Games partnered with Andamiro to create a new dedicated cabinet for their successor to In The Groove. On June 18, 2005, Roxor Games announced that the game would become part of the Pump It Up line, though it would still be a four-panel game like Dance Dance Revolution. For more specific information, see the wiki for that game, as PIU:ITG2 differs greatly from normal PIU games.
This version features a total of 131 songs.
See also
External links
- Andamiro website (http://www.andamiro.com/)
- Pump It Up official website (http://www.piugame.com/)
- Pump It Up Ranking (http://www.piuranking.com/) – official worldwide records database
- Pump Haven (http://www.ph-online.net/) – fan site featuring an interntaional Pump community, simfiles, game music and videos, and various other PIU media
- PumpXtreme.net (http://www.pumpxtreme.net/) – fan site
- Evodance (http://www.evox.exoboards.com/) Spanish fan forum with a lot of PIU things.