Beat Arena is the VR spinoff entry by Konami that is part of the Bemani franchise and the first in the franchise to be released in VR for both Oculus Quest 1 and 2 which require Facebook account authentication if you want to play it. Sure, the reputation of Facebook isn't that great nowadays when it comes to privacy and especially for the past controversies they had caused upon the users. One thing you should not worry is the fact that Beat Games, the developers of Beat Saber were acquired by Facebook via Oculus Studios as there will still be new content on multiple VR headsets including Oculus Quest series of headsets. For PS VR version, there's seems to be some technical limitation but that's not what we're here for.
What we're here for is the news regarding Beat Arena. It was recently released and contains tons of songs to choose from and play with other in-game band members in front of the crowd no matter which game mode you choose. There's also other instrument to choose, something Rock Band VR lacks. And what's a rhythm game without the playfield with notes coming at you? Both Beat Arena and Rock Band VR have that but Rock Band VR seems to be going steps backwards with Freestyle type gameplay for Story Mode while retaining the actual playfield in Classic Mode although the Classic Mode looks more like a practice mode since you're not playing in front of the in-game crowd.
For comparison below:
Rock Band VR
- Classic Mode: Traditional playfield present with blank background and there are tons of songs to play.
- Story Mode: Free-style gameplay with the band and crowd. Features several venues.
- Lack of other instruments and online multiplayers.
Beat Arena
- Multiple instruments to choose from.
- Tons of songs to play with other band members in front of the crowd.
- You get to wave your hand or something as a way of making a gratitude to other members before you start the song. I don't know if this is the case for real-life band performances or not as I'm no musician.
- You also get to do some feedback to other band members at the end of the song.
- Regardless of the game mode, you get to play in front of the crowd and the playfield is present on top of the live scene in the background.
It's basically Konami's answer to Rock Band VR and what Rock Band VR should have been. I'm glad that there's a display of sufficient competence from Konami but there's still no guarantee that this alone can restore Konami's reputation. There's even a Yu-Gi-Oh VR game but I have no interest in blogging about it whatsoever.
OK, it seems that I made a close comparison of Beat Arena to Rock Band VR as Rock Band VR came out a few years earlier which is the opposite of many Bemani rhythm game franchises coming out earlier like DDR, Beatmania, Guitarfreaks/Drummania and Pop'n Music coming out in the 90s for instance. Beat Arena seems new and is not part of whatever game series whatsoever. It's similar to other Bemani games that came out in the 2010s as standalones starting from Future Tom Tom, Beatstream, Dance Evolution, Dance Rush Stardom, Nostalgia and Museca although Museca had its own controversy for a lack of originality in which it had the layout similar to the one from Neon.FM arcade cabinet. Nostalgia series seems like an answer to Deemo and the same gameplay elements are in Beat Arena as well in addition to the gameplay from Guitarfreaks and Drummania series.
Region-wise, Beat Arena was recently released in Japan and Asia so the players in the western regions are out of luck as of this time.
