O2Jam is an online PC (now on mobile) rhythm game created by a South Korean game company, O2Media Studio in 2002.
The gameplay is slightly similar with Beatmania IIDX and EZ2DJ, but without turntables.
O2Jam's ownership often got tossed to some companies due to some financial problems and decreasing rate of popularity. O2Media went under in around 2008, the ownership was once passed to MGame company. Then later passed on Nowcom (now Afreeca TV), MoMo Corp., and finally, O2Jam Company (available only in smartphones).
In 2022, EZ2ON REBOOT : R had a collaboration with O2Jam, with the former game receiving various O2Jam content including 20 songs, cosmetic items, and a course of 7-key charts to replicate classic O2Jam PC gameplay. The collaboration pack was released on June 28, 2022.
Games in the Series
- O2Jam (PC) by O2Media (2002)
- O2Jam (PC) by MGame (2004)
- O2Jam Classic by Nowcom (now Afreeca TV) (2007)
- Pop Stage by MGame (2008)
- O2Jam Analog by Nowcom and Hangame (2010)
- O2Jam U by MoMo Corp (2013)
- O2Jam Music & Beat by MoMo Corp (2015)
- O2Jam by O2Jam Company (2019)
This game series provides examples of:
- Animesque: The few song images (especially which Cap. Claudiss (a.k.a. Cap. Bongsama) and Hazard drew those) feature an anime aesthetic despite being a Korean franchise.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: BeautifulDay's "V3" is the answer to Pump It Up's "Beethoven Virus". Both songs are remixed versions of the third movement of Beethoven's "Pathetique Sonata".
- Aside Glance: Exaggerated. In the alternate eye catch
of Lonely Song (drawn by Cap. Claudiss), there’s a figure of a girl dressed up as Santa Claus who looks at the screen and shushes the players while she’s sneaking into someone’s house to deliver some presents. - Backstory: According to the official website (you can find it here), the story of "O2Jam PC" takes place in Muracle, a fictional undiscovered star system which consists of 10 planets located far far away from Earth. Mysterious creatures called Ohms were recently discovered by dragons from the planet Draconic. The Ohms are so harmless and adorable, even some Muracle civilians take care of them. However, it’s discovered later by the scientists of planet Eliten that Ohms were sent from Muracle’s rival star system Geracle. The Ohms create low-frequency purring noises, leading Muracle to be destabilized and the civilians to be weakened. The only planet that isn’t affected by the Ohms’ frequencies is planet O2, because of the oxygen which was created by O2 civilians in their music seasons. Oxygen gas is the Ohms’ only weakness. The mission is to take part as an O2 civilian in eliminating Ohms by playing music as much as they can.
- Beach Episode: There are some songs with beach/summer themed genres and eye catches. They are Hello, Immortal Ocean, Beach Paradise, Color Paradise, Pit-A-Pat Summer, Hello Ocean, Paradise, Magical Vacation, Jump To Summer, Surf, Sunshine Love, Summer Party, Vacation Song, Summer Memory (a.k.a. Still Remember You), and Romantic of The Beach.
- "Blind Idiot" Translation: Puberty by BeautifulDay is actually a mistranslation of "난나야".note
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: O2MO the Robot Buddy mascot from “PC”, doesn't appear in later games. However, it reappears as maintenance notices in the O2Jam official Facebook page.
- Crossover: In 2016, O2Jam collaborated with Pump It Up and EZ2AC.
- Difficulty by Acceleration: Some songs have segments that switch from a reasonable speed before speeding up so fast it's impossible to see the notes falling into the bar. This usually requires players to memorize the song timing and even then, the fast speed means it's harder to time it and keep the combo going.
- Fake Difficulty:
- The note timing windows are influenced by song BPM, meaning that faster songs are more difficult to get Cools on; most other rhythm games use time-based (e.g. based on frames or milliseconds) windows that are not influenced by song speed. This goes in the opposite direction too, with very slow songs being extremely easy to get perfect scores on.
- Many songs use BPM-related gimmicks, usually halving or doubling the scroll speed of the chart, to make things more difficult for the player.
- Fanservice: The eyecatch for the song "Over the Ocean" features an unnamed female character shamelessly flashing her panties.
- Game-Breaking Bug: The Steam release's VIP subscription is supposed to cost 12.99 USD per month. However, due to an error, the player is instead rebilled 12.99 USD every day, making it about 30 times more expensive than it's supposed to be.
- Harder Than Hard:
- Some songs in the PC version have "Super Hard Special Edition" versions. These ones have identical Easy and Normal charts to the original, but a new, much harder Hard chart.
- "Electro Fantasy" has charts rated levels 2 (Easy), 8 (Normal), and 13 (Hard). "Electro Fantasy HD" features charts rated 25 (Easy), 29 (Normal), and 31 (Hard) and begins with a Scare Chord as a warning to the player. The eyecatch is also different, featuring the words "SUPER HARD" below the title.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf:
- Three songs by Beautiful Day (also known as O2Princess series), "Lonely Song", "Song of Vacation", and the appropriately named "Song of Pain" are sung intentionally off-key just for laughs. The images for the songs even depict a guy Blue with Shock from hearing her music.
- "Don't Tell Mama" is another Beautiful Day song sung by the same singer as the O2Princess series. While not as noticeable as the latter, the singer sings off-key during the chorus part.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: From the easiest to the hardest: HX, NX, EX, and SHD.
- In Name Only: After O2Jam PC has met its end, all aspects except the logo, songs, and the gameplay are completely discontinued in the next installments because they're developed by different companies.
- Misbegotten Multiplayer Mode: Despite being focused around multiplayer (as you stop gaining EXP in single-player play past level 10), the original PC game forces all players in the same lobby to use the same speed modifier.
- Non-Appearing Title: Apocalypse by UK (sung by Lil Min) never mentions the title and the lyrics aren’t related to that title.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: A lot of songs are arrangements of classical pieces, if not outright recordings of the original scores.
- Retraux: Chiptune genre songs are available in the series, especially Warak’s Demolished Soon.
- Scare Chord: The HD version of "Electro Fantasy" (basically the original "Electro Fantasy", but featuring Harder Than Hard charts) starts off with an ominous "THUD!"
- Socialization Bonus: In PC, some level-up missions require using modifier Rings, which cost currency that can only be bought with real-world money...or if another player has the Ring you need, they can join a multiplayer lobby with you and use the Ring, saving you the need to buy them.
- Unwinnable Joke Game: "Fantazindy" by RYO in SHD difficulty. This song starts slowly (however, the notes appear simultaneously and move randomly), but the difficulty surges and becomes so ridiculously hard that only the autoplay mode can succeed at it. The total combo for this song? It exceeds 9999 combos.
- Title Drop: There are a few songs that mention the name O2Jam:
- "O2Jam" by Dr. Flowershirts.
- "We Luv O2Jam" by M2U.
- "Feel The O2Jam" by BeautifulDay.
- The Unseen: There’s a stock passage in some eye catches from the first installment for O2Jam PC, which mentions Bidulz (the passage is also known as the “Bidulz Passage”). However, Bidulz never officially appears in-game. It’s written like this (the grammatically unfixed version is taken from Color Paradise):“I WAS LIVING MUSIC PLANET. ONE DAY,
MY FRIEND BIDULZ IS COMING TO ME.” - Word Purée Title: Subverted. The English title for “ 마니또” (a.k.a. “언제나 그대의 천사”)note is “Manitto”, which is completely untranslatable in some machine translators. “Manitto” actually means “Secret Santa” in Korean, a tradition where co-workers or schoolmates randomly pick names and secretly give them gifts (often they try to guess who).
