The origins of rhythm games?

[Obiwanshinobi]

So PaRappa the Rapper and Gitaroo Man remain the only two I've played to completion (an odd minigame here & there notwithstanding), and when I reached the Green Beret GBA port's first stage's finale, its likeness to rhythm games struck me.

[To make sure, NES port screwed up that one; all it takes to endure it is lying down and bashing on a knife button (all the more trivial with auto-fire). On the other hand, GBA port, with or without Konami code, is way less frantic than arcade original on settings that MAME version I played it on deems default, at least in the first stage (sends enemies your way more sparsely), but it benefits from a separate jump button (I think the original would have to be ROM-hacked for the sake of separating jump from up). GBA port also offers 2 player co-op with only one cart, yay.]


Anyway, that finale is the real thing on GBA, unlike on NES. Valid no-flamethrower, knife-only tactics here - NOT to move left or right, only to press jump or knife button within timeframes harshly imposed on you, difficulty coming from enemies' procedurally generated order of their arrivals and air-kicks timing. These days, I presume, such gameplay is nothing unique in mobile phone games you operate with one thumb. When I played it, however, the similarity of it to Parappa-style games was striking. Now I read the genre was technically conceived in the early 1970s...

Spoiler

Kasco (Kansei Seiki Seisakusho) created a rhythm-based electro-mechanical arcade game, designed by Kenzou Furukawa and produced by Kenji Nagata. According to Nagata, it was Furukawa's "idea for a game where you’d lift girls skirts in time to some rhythm", inspired by the 1969 Japanese Oh! Mouretsu commercials.

...but the fact Green Beret is a game from Konami, whose twelve years younger Beatmania laid path to their prominence in the genre, makes me wonder if both drew ideas from the same source, or maybe even playing that bit without flamethrower by anyone wasn't even intended? Sure enough, when play-testing, I would research how any part of such a game plays without power-ups.

*) Looking up various playthrough recordings on YouTube, I've yet to find one where they wouldn't use flamethrower there, admittedly. Doing it strictly jump & knife way on GBA seemed like the right way to me, but then, I couldn't be bothered even trying to reach that point on MAME, because, eurgh, up for jump.

[cj iwakura]

I always figured it was Beatmania, at least as actual rhythm games go, unless you count earlier mini-games and so on.

[CStarFlare]

Doremikko is arguably not a game (think Mario paint, but for audio only and on the FDS) but it is Konami's first foray into peripheral based music software and the first of its kind for a video game system I'm aware of. Wikipedia lists Human Entertainment as a developer on the game as well, which is cool because I guess I never heard of them doing anything other than Clock Tower, but it looks like they also released a dance game for the NES power pad the earlier in 1987, the same year as Doremikko, and it does appear to be more of a game than Doremikko was (albiet one dressed up as an aerobics calls). This one was with Bandai, so Konami weren't the only ones playing with the concept in the mid 80s.

I clearly haven't been giving Human enough credit, even though I loved Clock Tower. What an interesting company.

[heatimusZ4]

space invaders

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm not sure if every music has a rhythm, though.