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DDR Review

Dance Dance Revolution (abbreviated DDR) by Konami is everything the title says and more. DDR is actually a series (however the first game was simply entitled Dance Dance Revolution) of video games for the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Wii, Xbox and Xbox 360 that was first released. The basic game involves, well, dancing. When playing DDR, unlike most other games you do not use the basic controller (imagine dancing on your video game controller). Instead, the game comes with a mat. To put it as briefly as possible, the mat is just another controller only flat, without some buttons (don?t worry, those missing buttons are not necessary for the game), and one may step on the mat without destroying it. On the mat, you have four basic arrows spread in a north-east-south-west fashion, each arrow containing a pressure detector. Then, depending on your console you have A-B-X-Y, (Xbox and Xbox360) O-X-?-? (PlayStation and PlayStation 2), or A and B at the top and nothing else (Wii and GameCube) in the corners of the mat. Usually on the very top, there is either select and back buttons or start and select buttons. Although the mat is the ideal way to play DDR, there are?other ways. If you decide to use the controller, you can use either the directional pad or the buttons. Using the buttons instead of the directional pad is usually a better choice for most people. In DDR there are times where you need to put both feet in a direction on the same beat (i.e., you have to have one foot on the left arrow, one on the right). It?s virtually impossible to do this on the directional pad, simply because it only can go in one direction at a time. If you want to use the directional pad, it?s self-explanatory ? up is up arrow, etc. To use the buttons, simply align the direction of the buttons when holding it normally to the direction the arrows on the mat is pointing (say, if I was to be on an Xbox I would have Y serve as up, B as right, A as down etc.). In DDR, there are usually three levels of difficulty. Depending on your game, you will have Basic, Light, or Standard as the easiest difficulty, then Trick, Standard, or Difficult, and then Maniac, Heavy, or Expert. Some versions of DDR also include difficulties called Beginner and Challenge, beginner obviously for beginners and challenge obviously for those that want a challenge. If you observe carefully, when someone plays a song on Light, they look like they are simply moving their feet on the map. However, try Heavy and the steps will actually look like dancing in a way (assuming you are good enough to do Heavy). After choosing your difficulty, a cycle of songs appears on the right of the screen. Using the arrows on the mat, (sometimes you have to use the left and right arrows, not up and down arrows); you can scroll through songs to play. If you look closely, you will find something interesting on the left. Some versions have a foot rating (think of 4/5 stars kind of thing, but with feet instead of stars), which is a rating of the overall difficulty of the song, with lower ratings being easier and higher ratings being harder. There are very few 10-foot songs, but if you find a song like that, they are always overwhelmingly hard. For example, the song MAX 300 is possibly the hardest song in DDR. MAX 300 was given 10 feet, and with good reason. This song has a whopping 300 BPM, or beats per minute ? it is not to be taken lightly. A few other versions of DDR have a ?groove radar? on the left of the screen. The groove radar looks like a pentagon with another pentagon (the inner pentagon might appear stretched) in it. At the tip of each point on the outer pentagon, there is a label saying stream (how many steps are in the song), voltage (maximum amount of steps that appear on the screen at once), air (the number of jump steps, the times you need to do two steps on the same beat), freeze (the amount of freeze notes, which are notes that look like one note has been stretched out that require you to hold the note for the entire length), or chaos (number of steps in the entire song that aren?t quarter notes or eighth notes). Some versions of DDR even have both the groove radar and the foot rating. After going through all that and choosing a song, everything is relatively simple. At the very top of the screen there?s a very important bar called the life bar. The life bar is basically like health, if it all goes down you die. In DDR, you don?t die, the song just stops and you see a large, red YOU FAILED and then it goes to your score and grade, and you automatically get an E as your grade. Under the life bar are four outlines of arrows pointing in each direction, up, down, left and right. When steps from the bottom of the screen reach their corresponding outline, simply press the arrow on the mat that?s pointing in the same direction as on the screen. Depending how accurate the step is on the outlined arrow, you will get a Perfect (exactly on the arrow or extremely close), great (close, but not perfect), good (off by about ¼ of the arrow), boo (off by more than ¼ of the arrow), or miss (completely missed the note). Then, you have the notes. Quarter notes are the slowest and most common note unless you are playing on standard or heavy, eighth notes are found in between quarter notes and are quite common in both standard and heavy, 16th notes are found in between eighth notes and are found quite often in heavy, and 36th notes are found in between 16th notes and are very rarely found, even in heavy. There are also freeze notes, which, as stated earlier, appear to be extended green notes that you have to hold for the entire length of the note. If you hold the entire note you will get an O.K., but if you miss that note you will get a N.G. (not good). Then, and the very bottom of the screen is your total score so far. Don?t get overconfident, the score is supposed to be in the hundred-billions. Points are racked up in DDR extremely quickly and each note is worth more points that you think, so think again about skipping the note. And finally, there is the background. The background has no real purpose except to be very obnoxious, flashy, and in MAX 300 and literally say PRESSURE, with large spiked balls resembling the pain you are probably feeling in your legs and feet attempting the song, trying to distract you and make you mess up. In some cases, the background actually is why players mess up, so it?s often quite helpful to turn off the annoying music in the background if you can?t get rid of the background. After you finish a song, the screen congratulates you with a large, silver CLEARED and gives you your grade and statistics. Depending on how many perfects, greats, goods, etc. you got, you will get points that determine your final grade. A perfect is worth two points, a great is worth one point, a good isn?t worth any points, boos take away 4 points, and a miss will cost you 8 points. In addition, an O.K. from a freeze note will give 6 points, and a N.G. is the same as a good (ironically, considering N.G. is ?not good?) giving you no points. The final grade letter will be AAA if you get 100% of the total possible points, AA if you get 93%, A if you get 80%, 65% is B, 45% is C, and anything under that is a D. The only way to get an E is if you depleted your life bar during the song and failed, or if you got through the game but only scored 0 points due to boos and misses. Overall, this is an enjoyable game for most players. DDR offers exercise in addition to a fun gameplay. Although some players may disagree, Dance Dance Revolution is unique to other games and is truly a new revolution in gaming.

RATINGS:  7/10 (Own)

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