Dance Dance Revolution

Dance Dance Revolution, also known as DDR and Dancing Stage in Europe, is a music video game series produced by Konami. It was first introduced to Japanese video arcades in 1998, after being shown at the Tokyo Game Show earlier that year. Since then, the game has gained significant popularity elsewhere in the world, including large portions of North America, Europe and Australia. As of 2005, over 90 official versions have been produced, including those for home video game consoles. The Dance Dance Revolution series is a subset of the larger Bemani series of music video games. As of 2007, there are over 1,000 songs featured in all versions of DDR worldwide.

The game is played on a dance pad with four arrow panels in a cross barby formation: left, right, up, and down, eight arrows (two 4-arrow pads), or six arrows (the 4 main directions plus up-left and up-right diagonal panels, known as solo mode). These panels are pressed using the player's feet, in response to arrows that appear on the screen in front of the player. The arrows are synchronized to the general rhythm or beat of a chosen song, and success is dependent on the player's ability to time and position his or her steps accordingly.

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Gameplay details

In Dance Dance Revolution, a player must move his or her feet to a set pattern, stepping in time to the general rhythm or beat of a song. During normal gameplay, arrows scroll upwards from the bottom of the screen and pass over stationary, transparent arrows near the top (referred to as the "guide arrows" or "receptors"). When the scrolling arrows overlap the stationary ones, the player must step on the corresponding arrows on the dance platform. Successfully hitting the arrows in time with the music fills the "Dance Gauge", or life bar, while failure to do so drains it. If the Dance Gauge is fully depleted during gameplay, the player fails the song, usually resulting in a game over. Otherwise, the player is taken to the Results Screen, which rates the player's performance with a letter grade and a numerical score, among other statistics. The player may then be given a chance to play again, depending on the settings of the particular machine (the limit is usually 3-5 songs per game).

Depending on the version of the game, dance steps are broken into varying levels of difficulty. The main difficulty levels are "Basic/Light"（Japanese: 楽 raku, "ease"）, "Trick/Standard/difficult" （Japanese: 踊 yō, "dance"）and "Maniac/Heavy/expert"（Japanese: 激 geki, "violent"）, and some versions also include "Beginner" (Japanese: 習 shũ, "learning") and "Oni/Challenge"（Japanese: 鬼 oni, "devil") difficulty levels, usually with extremely easy and difficult sequences, respectively. Songs are also given a "foot rating", ranging from one to ten feet to indicate the overall difficulty of the step sequence. Beginning in DDRMAX, a "dance gauge" known as the "Groove Radar" also shows how difficult a particular sequence is in various categories, such as the maximum density of steps, how many jumps are in the steps, etc.

Other modes

Several other gameplay modes have appeared throughout the DDR series.

• Nonstop Mode, introduced in Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX, allows the player to play several songs in a row, with no rest period in between.

• DDRMAX2 introduced a more challenging variant of Nonstop mode, known as Challenging Mode or "Oni" Mode （Japanese:鬼). In arcade versions of the game, these courses range from five to ten predetermined songs in length, and can reach upwards of twenty in home releases. Unlike Nonstop mode, a battery divided into three segments is displayed at the top of the screen, with one segment disappearing every time the player scores less than a "Great" judgment, or receives an "N.G." on a freeze arrow. If one of these errors is made while the battery is empty, the player immediately fails the course. The battery is replenished upon successful completion of each song, although the amount given back is dependent on the unique settings of each course.

• Another "Challenge Mode", unrelated to the "Oni" Challenging Mode, is only featured in certain home releases. Gameplay consists of several "challenges" that may be attempted one at a time. In each challenge, the player must complete a certain song or section of a song while meeting certain conditions, sometimes with various gameplay modifiers applied to the song.

• Endless Mode is another mode exclusive to home versions. Similar to Nonstop Mode, this mode allows the player to play through numerous songs one after another. However, Endless Mode continues to queue up songs indefinitely, until the player quits or the Dance Gauge is depleted. The song order is random, but options are available to limit the songs to a certain difficulty or category.

• Event Mode is a game option whose function differs between arcade and home versions of DDR. On arcade machines, Event Mode is an operator setting that disables all menu timers, and not cause a player to fail a song immediately even when their dance gauge drops to zero. This setting is used primarily in tournaments, to give judges more time to take an accurate tally of the players' Dance Points.

• Extra Stage, introduced in DDRMAX and appearing in subsequent arcade versions, rewards a player for receiving a grade of "AA" or higher on either Heavy or Challenge difficulties on the final stage. The player receives the opportunity to play a free extra song, which is often a very difficult song with difficult song modifiers. Originally, the song for the extra stage was predetermined (MAX300 for DDRMAX, MAXX Unlimited for DDRMAX2). The option of choosing any song was not available until DDR Extreme. A player who attains a grade of "AA" on the Extra Stage is invited to play "One More Extra Stage," which is usually a somewhat easier song, but with much more difficult modifiers, and a single mistake will cause the player to fail the song.

• A different mode appears in DDR 4th Mix, in which both players must dance to a special set of steps for a song. Steps are a single color (usually green) and fly out from the bottom-center of the screen to each player's guide arrows. Players are not necessarily guaranteed to have the same set of steps.

Versions

Main article: List of Dance Dance Revolution games

Dance Dance Revolution has been released in many forms, in arcades and on various video game consoles. Although the majority of these releases have been limited to Japan, localized versions of the game have been released in Europe, North America, South America, Korea, and other areas of Asia, to varying degrees of success. Japanese versions have also found their way outside the country through importing and bootlegging, especially in North America. According to popular fansite "DDRFreak", as of September 2005, more than 2100 arcade DDR machines exist in the United States, with over 25% of them located in California.

The first game in the series was simply titled Dance Dance Revolution. Subsequent versions in the main line were released as "mixes" — for example, Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix — and each release typically introduced new game modes (see above), a new main interface, and/or a new selection of songs. After 5th Mix, a sub-name was added to the DDR title — for example, Dance Dance Revolution MAX 2 — but was also referred to by its mix number (7th Mix in this case) but numerical installment was omitted on EXTREME onwards. The most recent version of the game is titled Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party.

During DDR's arcade span, several spin-off versions have also been released: Dancing Stage is the name of the series in Europe and Australia, and includes Dancing Stage: Mickey's Rave, a special version that includes techno and Eurobeat versions of popular Disney songs. A special single-player version titled Dance Dance Revolution Solo includes a modified dance stage with six pads (including pads on the upper-left and upper-right corners), and features gameplay with six arrows rather than the standard four. Before recently, only two versions of Dance Dance Revolution have been officially released in North America: Dance Dance Revolution USA, essentially a localized version of DDR 3rd Mix, and Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA. Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA2 is currently being tested and is expected to be released in both Japan and North America.

Arcade machines

A standard Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine consists of two parts, the cabinet and the dance platform. The cabinet has a wide bottom section, which houses large floor speakers and glowing neon lamps. Above this sits a narrower section that contains the monitor, and on top is a lighted marquee graphic, with two small speakers and flashing lights on either side. Below the monitor are two sets of buttons (one for each player), each consisting of two triangular selection buttons and a center rectangular button, used mainly to confirm a selection or start the game. The dance stage is a raised metal platform divided into two "pads". Each pad houses a set of four arrow panels arranged and pointing in the orthogonal directions (left, up, down and right), separated by metal squares. Each "arrow" is a thick sheet of acrylic glass that sits atop four pressure switches, one at each edge, and a software-controlled cold cathode lamp. A metal safety bar in the shape of an upside-down "U" is mounted to the pad behind each player. More advanced players frequently make use of this safety bar, to help maintain proper balance, and to relieve weight from the legs so that arrows can be pressed with greater speed and accuracy.

Some DDR cabinets are equipped with Sony PlayStation memory card slots, allowing the player to insert a compatible memory card before starting a game and save their high scores to the card. Additionally, the equivalent home versions of DDR allow players to create and save custom step patterns (edits) to their memory card — the player can then play those steps on the arcade machine if the same song exists on that machine. This feature is supported in DDR 2ndMIX through DDR EXTREME. It was expected that DDR SuperNOVA would include memory card support. However, the division of Konami which handled the production of the memory card slots shut down, causing Konami to pull memory card support out at the last minute.

The DDR Solo arcade cabinet is smaller and contains only one dance pad, modified to include six arrow panels instead of four (the additional panels are "upper-left" and "upper-right"). These pads generally don't come with a safety bar, but include the option for one to be installed at a later date. The Solo pad also lacks some of the metal plating that the standard pad has, which can make stepping difficult for players who are used to playing on standard machines. Additionally Solo machines only incorporate two sensors, located horizontally in the center of the arrow, instead of four sensors (one on each edge).

Home releases

DDR has been released on PC, as well as a number of video game consoles, including the PlayStation, Dreamcast, PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Xbox 360 and Wii. Home versions are commonly bundled with soft plastic dance pads that are similar in appearance and function to the Nintendo Power Pad. Some third-party manufacturers produce hard metal pads at a higher price.

DDR has even reached Nintendo's Game Boy Color, with five versions of Dance Dance Revolution GB released in Japan; these included a series of three mainstream DDR games, a Disney Mix, and an Oha Sta! mix. The games come with a small thumb pad that fits over the Game Boy Color's controls to simulate the dance pad.

A version of DDR was also produced for the PC in North America. It uses the interface of DDR 4thMix, and contains around 40 songs from the first six mainstream arcade releases. It has not been as well received as the console versions.

The most common criticism of DDR home console versions is that they tend to provide a more limited selection of songs than in the arcade, despite the increased capacity of DVD storage media in more recent releases. In addition, many fan-favorite songs don't make it to the home versions, usually due to licensing restrictions. This is especially true of North American home versions of DDR. Another common criticism points to the relatively poor quality of most home dance pads, though dedicated fans of the series can find high-quality pads from third-party manufacturers. Some also build their own pads from raw parts (see the dance pad article for more information).

Similar games

The success of the DDR franchise has spawned many games with similar game play, for many different systems, such as personal computers and video game consoles. Most of these games use their own music and step files, and a variety of both are widely available. Many of these programs hold the ability to create a step pattern for any song. An example of such a program is StepMania.

In the Groove is an arcade dance game based on the aforementioned StepMania engine, developed by Roxor Games. ITG features a number of gameplay mechanics used in Dance Dance Revolution, but also introduces new concepts and mechanics that generally appeal to the experienced player. In 2005, Konami filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Roxor, claiming that the ITG conversion kit, which enables arcade machine owners to install ITG in existing DDR cabinets, violated Konami's intellectual property rights. This lawsuit resulted in a settlement in which Konami acquired all intellectual property rights to In the Groove.^[1]

One other noteworthy competing product is Dance Factory, a PlayStation 2 program from Codemasters that converts music from any CD into dance steps.

Flow: Urban Dance Uprising by UbiSoft has a Hip-Hop dance theme. A PC game is also coming out entitled Dance! which, like StepMania, will allow the player to create homemade tracks.

A partial list of DDR simulators and competing products follows:

• Nintendo GameCube
  • MC Groovz Dance Craze
• Wii
  • Dance Factory
  • Dancing with the Stars
• PlayStation
  • Superstar Dance Club
• PlayStation 2
  • Dance Factory
  • Dancing with the Stars
  • Flow: Urban Dance Uprising
  • In The Groove
  • Pump It Up (Exceed SE)
• Xbox
  • Pump It Up (Exceed SE)
• Dreamcast
  • Feet of Fury (Homebrew)
• PC
  • Audition Online
  • DANCE! Online
  • StepMania
  • In The Groove
  • Dance With Intensity
  • Delight Delight Reduplication
  • Flash Flash Revolution
  • Dance Praise
  • Pump It Up
• Arcade
  • Technomotion
  • In The Groove
  • Pump It Up
    • Pump It Up Pro

The DDR phenomenon

Tournaments are held worldwide, with participants usually competing for higher scores or number of Perfects (referred to as "Perfect Attack" tournaments). Less common are "freestyle" tournaments, where players develop actual dance routines to perform while following the steps in the game.

Playing styles

Many DDR players, in order to better focus on timing and pattern reading, will minimize any extraneous body movement during gameplay. These players are commonly referred to as "technical", "tech" or "perfect attack" (PA) players. These technical players usually play the most difficult songs on the highest difficulty levels in an attempt to perfect their scores.

Other DDR players choose to incorporate complex or flashy techniques into their play movements, and some of these "freestyle" players develop intricate dance routines to perform during a song. Freestyle players tend to choose songs on lower difficulty levels, so that the player is not restricted in their movements by large quantities of required steps. Some players can even dance facing away from the screen.

As exercise

Many news outlets have reported how playing DDR can be good aerobic exercise; some regular players have reported weight loss of 10–50 pounds (5–20 kg). In one example, a player found that including DDR in her day-to-day life resulted in a loss of 95 pounds.^[2] Although the quantity of calories burned by playing DDR have not been measured, the amount of active movement required to play implies that DDR provides at least some degree of healthy exercise.

Many schools use DDR as a physical education activity in gym,^[3] and in Norway, DDR has even been registered as an official sport.^[4]

Many home versions of the game have a function to estimate calories burned, given a player's weight. Also, players can use "workout mode" to make a diary of calories burned playing DDR and any self-reported changes in the player's weight.

Use in schools

At the start of 2006, Konami announced that the DDR games would be used as part of a fitness program to be phased into West Virginia's 756 state schools, starting with its 103 middle schools, over the next two years.^[5] The program was conceived by a researcher at West Virginia University's Motor Development Center.

Caltech allows its students to use DDR to fulfill its physical education requirements, as students may design their own fitness program. ^[6]

See also

• Comparison of video games using a dance pad
• Dance Dance Immolation
• Dance pad
• Dance Revolution, a television series inspired by the video game series
• Dancing Stage (European version of Dance Dance Revolution)
• DDRFreak
• Exertainment
• In The Groove Rhythm Game (based on Dance Dance Revolution)
• StepMania

References