Overview
Pump It Up, often abbreviated PIU, is a franchise of arcade, console and portable video games developed by Andamiro, a South Korean arcade game manufacturer.
The arcade dance games were representative of South Korean arcade scene from the late 90's to early 2000's, leading a huge boom of arcades - often referred to as the Renaissance of arcades in South Korea. After the popularity of arcades died down around the early 2000's, Pump It Up continued to be a success internationally, especially in Latin America.
In the beginning, there is no denying that PIU is a direct rip-off of DDR. It is objectively obvious that the dance pad is the inverse of DDR pad; instead of up-down-left-right pattern, the buttons are four diagonals and a center button. Simply put, PIU was simply yet another DDR clone in the sea of clones that were developed in the late 90's.
As the arcade games progressed - after yearly (or sometimes even more frequent) updates to the UI and songs, the gameplay also started to diverge from core DDR mechanics. For example:
- Introduction of hold notes (before DDR)
- Usage of USB sticks for tracking progress
- Focus on high difficulty step charts as opposed to DDR's focus on accuracy.
List of Arcade Releases
| Title | Release Date | Region | Notes |
|---|
| Pump It Up | August 1999 | S. Korea | |
| Pump It Up 2nd | December 1999 | S. Korea | |
| Pump It Up 3rd: The O.B.G. | May 2000 | S. Korea | |
| Pump It Up The O.B.G. Season Evolution | September 2000 | S. Korea | |
| Pump It Up The Collection | November 2000 | S. Korea | |
| Pump It Up The Perfect Collection | December 2000 | S. Korea | Third game in the same year (2000) Revamped interface |
| Pump It Up EXTRA | February 2001 | S. Korea, Latin America | First international release Only game developed by second party (F2) |
| Pump It Up The Premiere | July 2001 | Europe | First EU release |
| Pump It Up The Prex | November 2001 | Latin America | |
| Pump It Up The Rebirth | January 2002 | S. Korea | |
| Pump It Up The Premiere 2 | March 2002 | Europe | |
| Pump It Up The Prex 2 | November 2002 | Latin America | |
| Pump It Up The Premiere 3 | May 2003 | Europe | |
| Pump It Up The Prex 3 | October 2003 | S. Korea, Latin America | |
| Pump It Up EXCEED | April 2004 | Worldwide | First worldwide release |
| Pump It Up EXCEED 2 | December 2004 | Worldwide | |
| Pump It Up ZERO | February 2006 | Worldwide | |
| Pump It Up New Xenesis (NX) | December 2006 | Europe, Latin America, Asia, Oceania | |
| Pump It Up Pro | August 2007 | N. America | First game based on Stepmania engine, co-developed by American developers |
| Pump It Up NX2 ~Next Xenesis~ | January 2008 | Europe, Latin America, Asia, Oceania | |
| Pump It Up NX Absolute | December 2008 | Europe, Latin America, Asia, Oceania | |
| Pump It Up FIESTA | March 2010 | Europe, Latin America, Asia, Oceania | |
| Pump It Up Pro 2 | April 2010 | N. America | |
| Pump It Up FIESTA EX | March 2011 | Europe, Latin America, Asia, Oceania | |
| Pump It Up FIESTA 2 | November 2012 | Asia, Latin America, Oceania | |
| Pump It Up INFINITY | April 2013 | N. America, Europe | |
List of Home Releases
| Title | Platform | Notes |
|---|
| The Fusion - 1st & 2nd Dance Floor | PC | Included a PIU pad that connected to an adapter. The inputs to the adapter were ps/2 connection from a PIU pad and a ps/2 keyboard; the output was a ps/2 port into the PC. The adapter had a switch that allowed either the keyboard or the dance pad to be enabled - one at a time. The dance mat produced keyboard inputs, but reversed vertically (i.e., Q and E were mapped to bottom left and bottom right, S to center, Z and C to top left and top right) as a measure to prevent playing with a keyboard. |
| The Fusion - 3rd O.B.G. Dance Floor | PC | Sold as both a bundle with dance mat, and also as a standalone disc. |
| The Fusion - Season Evolution O.B.G. | PC | Sold as a standalone disc only. |
| The Fusion - Perfect Collection | PC | |
| The Evolutionary Dance Floor | PC | International release; a USB dance mat was included. The game is most similar to Season Evolution O.B.G. with some Banya songs excluded. |
| Banya Collection | PC | Second international release. |
| The PREX 3 | PC | Korea and International; last PC release. |
| EXCEED | PS2 | Korea; first console release. |
| EXCEED SE | PS2, XBOX | North America. DLCs were available on Xbox Live version. |
| EXCEED Portable | PSP | Korea. |
| Zero Portable | PSP | Korea. Last home version release. |
Other Releases and Spin-Offs
- Pump It Up Jump
- Released internationally; a small cabinet designed for small children based on PRO software, using Stepmania-based engine.
- Pump It Up Fitness
- Shown at GSTAR 2013; never released.
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