>>664555Yeah, same amount of buttons. There's even an option to turn the pop-kuns into the beatmania icons instead to help people coming from one to the other.
The diffuculty is what makes the progress so sweet, though, it's very addictive. I would recommend it to anyone who likes rhythm games. You can start with 5 button mode and work your way up to the full 9, then just start levelling up from there.
My character of choice, tiku-taku.