The games are known for their bright colors, upbeat songs, and cute cartoon character graphics.

Instead, it uses nine buttons, each three-and-a-half-inches in diameter, laid out in two rows (since the location test of Wonderland, a multitouch panel is added).

When a note reaches the red line at the bottom of the screen, the player presses the button or tap the panel, which triggers a sound within the song.

The goal of the player is to finish the song with the Groove Gauge in the "clear zone", a red portion that represents the top quarter of the bar.

When the gauge is at its maximum, "Great" notes become "Fever" - this is purely aesthetic, providing no bonus to score, and usually causes the player's chosen character to perform a different animation.

Doing so starts a minigame along the bottom of the screen, requiring the players to alternate pressing the action button in time with the song, in addition to playing the note chart.

This makes songs played in these modes significantly more difficult to achieve high scores on, as the value of "Great" and "Good" are decreased.

Each song is assigned a point value on a scale from 1 to 50 (formerly 1 to 43) regarding to the difficulty, and at the end of a game in one of these modes, the total is tallied.

Additionally in these modes, options called "Norma" and "Ojama" may be used to add point values to the player's Challenge Score.

A "Norma" is a set goal, while an "Ojama" is an active means of periodically distracting or disrupting the player.

This makes songs played in these modes significantly more difficult to achieve high scores on, as the value of "Great" and "Good" are decreased.

Enjoy Mode is a simplified mode for beginners with a reduced song list, simple note charts, and a less complex grading system, in which the player begins with 100 points and is docked one for each note they fail to play properly.

The graphics feature brightly colored and primarily solid shapes, rather than the metallic and textured interfaces of other Bemani games.

These options were originally provided with the intention of allowing multiple people to play along by adding one or two more notes for every note in the chart, sometimes resulting in a chord of all nine buttons, but it became a popular challenge for a single player to play a song in "double" or "triple" mode.

The first four console games for the Pop'n Music series were released on the PlayStation and the Dreamcast, with nine buttons on the controller.

Like Pop'n Music 2, it also features Key Disc technology, allowing play of its two predecessors.

Pop'n Music 6 featured 104 songs, the largest library available for the original PlayStation and the final game for that system.

Future console games for the main series and one compilation, all released from 2002 to 2007, are PlayStation 2 exclusives:

A revised controller was also released for the PS2 at the same time as Pop'n Music 10, though it is also compatible with the original PlayStation.

Pop'n Music Anywhere was a mini-game released for the VMU and PocketStation, handheld memory cards for the Dreamcast and PlayStation, respectively.

The game is also keysounded, similarly to Pop'n Music, meaning that missing a step will result in corresponding sounds in the song not being played.