Jump to content

Dance Dance Revolution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Goawayfast (talk | contribs) at 08:14, 18 February 2007 (Changed "TV plug-n-play" information). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Dance Dance Revolution
DDR arcade machine
Developer(s)Konami
Publisher(s)Konami
Platform(s)Arcade, Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, GameCube, Nintendo 64, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox
ReleaseOctober, 1998 (JP)
August 12, 1998 (NA)
January 13, 1999 (AU)
Genre(s)Music
Mode(s)Multiple one to four player modes
File:DDR(bag).jpg
The main gameplay screen of Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME.

Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR (known as 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 and Europe. 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. Including the arcade release of SuperNOVA, there are exactly 950 songs released among all official arcade and console versions.

The game is played on a dance pad with four arrow panels: left, down, up, and right, or 6 arrows (the 4 main directions plus right and left 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.

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, he or she 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).

DDR is often criticized as being rigid and bearing little resemblance to actual dancing. Many 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. However, there are those who prefer style over accuracy, and may incorporate complex or flashy techniques into their play movements. Some dedicated "freestyle" players will even develop intricate dance routines to perform during a song. Technical players will often practice the most difficult songs for extended periods of time, while freestyle players will choose songs on lower difficulty levels, as to accommodate their desires for easier movement.

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. The player chooses a particular Nonstop course to play, each course containing a predetermined order of songs. In 3rdMIX, the number of songs played is dependent on operator settings, but the mode later reappeared in DDR EXTREME with a fixed number of four songs.
  • DDRMAX2 introduced a more challenging variant of Nonstop mode, known as Challenge Mode or "Oni" Mode (referring to "democtaic" or "ogre" in the Japanese language). In Challenge Mode, a player chooses a predetermined set of songs, similar to Nonstop mode. These courses range from five to ten songs in arcade versions, and can reach upwards of twenty in home releases. Unlike Nonstop mode, a Dance Gauge is not used to determine whether the player continues to the next song. Instead, 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" Challenge 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. For example, some challenges may require the player to not hit Up and Down arrows, play one set of steps with the wrong song playing, or play with the music reduced to half speed. Challenges are grouped into several sets within each game, depending on their difficulty. This mode was renamed "Mission Mode" in later console releases in Japan, and "Dance Master" mode in the US. It is also called 'Steller Master Mode' in Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova.
  • Endless Mode is also exclusive to home versions, and similar to Nonstop 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. The player may also choose to have a break stage appear after a certain number of completed songs. After Konami was forced to cease their arcade operations, all later DDR releases had the Endless Mode added by default into all mixes.
  • Event Mode is another where there is no set number of stages. After a person completes or fails a song, the game goes back to the song selection screen. (Standard game mode in all the Xbox versions of the DDR games is set to Event Mode.) In the arcade versions of the game, Event Mode must be activated in the operator's menu, and functions somewhat differently. When Event Mode is active in the arcade releases of the game, the "Extra Stage" is no longer available, and players are still limited to a set number of songs per play. However, a player will no longer fail a song instantly if his dance gauge drops to zero, and the timer on the results screen is deactivated. This is primarily used in tournaments so an accurate tally of the players' Dance Points can be achieved.
  • Extra Stage, introduced in DDR "Max" and appearing on subsequent arcade versions of DDR, rewards a player for recieving a grade of "AA" or higher on the final stage. The player is consequenced with the opportunity to play a free extra song, which is often a very difficult song with difficult song modifiers, such as 1.5x, Reverse, Dark, and No Recovery (The Dance Gauge starts out full except that it cannot be refilled). 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 such as "Dark" and "Sudden Death" (which, a single mistake will cause the player to fail the song).
  • Dance Magic is a competitive mode introduced in Dancing Stage: Mickey's Rave (a version of DDR featuring popular Disney songs). In this mode, the dance gauge is replaced by a single bar that starts evenly divided between the two players. As one player performs better than the other, that player will take over more of the bar. In addition, each player has an "attack gauge" that fills as the player hits their arrows and achieves streaks. When this gauge fills, a random attack is sent to the other player, usually causing a temporary change to their step pattern (a speed change, adding arrows not normally in the song, causing all steps to become jumps, enforcing Sudden or Hidden mode, etc.) and thus making their steps more difficult. Regardless of the technical accuracy of a player's performance, the player who holds the majority of the bar at the end of the song wins the round. This mode appears again in the arcade and PS2 versions of DDR SuperNOVA (renamed "Battle"), and also appears in the derivative game In The Groove as "Battle Mode" and in StepMania as Magic Dance.
  • 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.
  • Unison is a two-player cooperative dance mode introduced in DDR 3rd Mix. Both players play a special set of steps on a single set of merged guide arrows. Players must hit the dance arrows according to their color: Yellow arrows must be hit by both players simultaneously, while red arrows are for the left player only and blue arrows are for the right.
  • Solo Mode is a mode unique to the DDR Solo series, in which two corner panels (top-left and top-right) are added to the standard orthogonal panels. The player must read and step according to six columns of arrows instead of the usual four.

Versions

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). The most recent version of the game is titled Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA.

During DDR's arcade span, several spin-off versions have also been released: Dancing Stage is the name of the series in Europe, 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. Dance Dance Revolution USA was the only version of DDR officially released in the United States until the release of SuperNOVA, and was essentially a localized version of DDR 3rd Mix.

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. Some arcade cabinets also contain two slots for PlayStation memory cards, which allow the player to store his/her high scores and to play "edits" (custom-created step patterns created on the PS1/PS2 home versions of the game). This feature is only supported in the Japanese versions of DDR.

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 sensors, one at each edge, and a software-controlled neon light. A metal safety bar in the shape of an upside-down "U" is mounted to the pad behind each player. Use of this bar by more advanced players is generally frowned upon by the Dance Dance Revolution community. People who do make regular use of the "U" bar have been deemed bar huggers.

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.

The rare Dance Dance Revolution Karaoke Mix also has one dance pad, as well as a smaller screen, and a microphone to allow the player to dance and sing simultaneously. Similar functionality is available in Karaoke Revolution Party, released on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox.

The promotional materials and cardboard signs that shipped with DDR EXTREME (8th Mix) suggested that it would be the last release of DDR in the Japanese arcades. While Konami never made an official statement, fans were led to believe this was the case by statements such as "We're Starting Over!" and "Thank you to all DDR Fans!", as well as the unusually comprehensive set of songs and features in this release. However, on January 25, 2006, Konami announced Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA, a new arcade release for North America. The previous day, a version for Europe, Dancing Stage SuperNOVA, had already been premiered at the Amusement Trade Exhibition International in London, England. More recently, DDR SuperNOVA premiered at the All-Nippon Amusement Machine Operators' Union (AOU) show in Japan, making this version the first worldwide arcade release in the series. The game was released in Europe on April 28, 2006, followed by the U.S. release on May 15 and the Japanese release on July 12.

Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2 is slated to be released in Japan in Summer 2007

Arcade releases

Dance Dance Revolution machines are listed by country then order of release.

Japan

Note: Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX was updated after its initial release with a few new songs and to allow it to be connected to and play along side Konami's DJ simulator games; beatmaniaIIDX.[1] While the official name of that version of the DDR cabinet when standing alone was "LINK VERSION"[2], when connected to the two beatmaniaIIDX cabinets that were compatible it was referred to by two other unique names.[3] Below all three names are listed in the order they were released.

Asia

Korea

Europe

North America

Note: These are the versions of DDR that were officially released in North America. The majority of DDR machines in the United States are imported from Japan or are bootlegs.[4]

Home releases

DDR has been released on a number of video game consoles, including the PlayStation, PlayStation 2, GameCube and Xbox. 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).

Japan

North America

Simulators and Clones

File:Stepmania spin-the-disk.jpg
Screenshot of StepMania, an open-source DDR simulator for personal computers

There are several simulators of DDR available for personal computers. These games use their own music and step files, and a variety of both are widely available. The obvious advantage these programs hold is the ability to create a step pattern for any song in a digital audio format (typically an MP3 file). 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.[5]

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

A few others include Flow: Urban Dance Uprising by UbiSoft which has a Hip-Hop dance theme to it. A PC game is also coming out entitled Dance! which, like StepMania, will be able to have many homemade tracks for it.

A partial list of DDR simulators and competing products follows:

The DDR phenomenon

DDR is a phenomenon around which subcultures of fans and enthusiasts have gathered. 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.

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.[1] It is argued, however, that the cases of significant weight loss have all been stories where a significantly overweight player loses a few pounds, and then becomes motivated to take action to lose weight, including dieting and regular gym attendance. Although reports of weight loss have not been scientifically measured, many schools use DDR as a physical education activity in gym, and in Norway, DDR has even been registered as an official sport.

DDR's usefulness for weight loss is helped in that many home versions of the game have a function to estimate calories burned if 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.

The exercise benefits of DDR have inspired Dance Revolution, a new children's television series, which first aired on KOL's Saturday Morning Secret Slumber Party on CBS, on September 16, 2006.

The addition of punches simultaneously synchronized with each dance step has led to another form of exercise originating from New York City by Luis Gerardo Moreno - Editor in Chief of LaMusica.com in 2006. This exercise which involved punches commonly practiced in Korean Martial Arts Taekwondo during any session of game play on any Dance Dance Revolution Game is referred to as DDR Kwon Do or “Dance Dance Kwon Do” (In Korean, kwon means "to strike or smash with the hand"; and do means "way," "art," or "path". Hence, DDR kwon do is loosely translated as "the art of dancing on DDR and punching") *MORE INFO on DDR Kwon Do

Internet fandom

Dozens of fan websites have been created in response to the popularity of DDR. In the United States, one of the most popular is DDR Freak, which was originally formed in 2000 to promote DDR in the San Francisco Bay Area. It has since become an international player resource, featuring DDR-related news coverage, codes and "step charts" for the various games, a database of machine locations, Internet forums, an internet radio station and an IRC channel. DDR Freak's forums are heavily trafficked, and boast over 55,000 members as of July 2005.

Aaron In Japan is another popular website, and is geared more towards "tech" players. The site's forums tend to discuss specific DDR issues, such as technique and timing on specific songs or mixes, or reverse engineering of scoring and grading systems. A large section of the website is dedicated to storing photographic records of "AAA" grades accomplished by DDR players worldwide. Several sites have also been created where players can track their high scores in an organized fashion. The most popular of these, NNR, is now defunct, but more recent websites such as DD:Recall have filled its place.

StepMania [2] is a popular open source DDR simulator for the PC, Mac, and Linux that works with dance pads or the keyboard. It allows players to create their own stepfiles manually or automatically (via Dancing Monkeys), and download many more user-created files at websites such as BemaniStyle.

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.[6] 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. [7]

Brandeis University also has a physical education class based on DDR. Some schools, like Churchville-Chili High School located in Churchville, New York, as well as Hollidaysburg High School in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, have also added DDR as a choice in physical education for the students, although other schools, while initially offering the program, abandoned it due to lack of interest.

In popular culture

With its increase in popularity over the past few years, Dance Dance Revolution has been featured in many instances of popular culture, including movies, music videos and television shows. DDR has made appearances in the movies Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen starring Lindsay Lohan, Grandma's Boy and the Spanish movie La Máquina de Bailar, whose entire plot revolves around DDR. In music, DDR appeared prominently in Madonna's music video Hung Up. DDR has also appeared on several major TV shows, including King of the Hill, South Park, Malcolm in the Middle, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Robot Chicken, Will & Grace, Metalocalypse and Drawn Together. Most recently, DDR was featured prominently on the primetime TV show Master of Champions, with juggler/dancer William Matsumoto demonstrating his DDR skills while juggling three flaming torches, earning the show's top honors. Matsumoto was subsequently invited on to The Ellen DeGeneres Show to demonstrate his act.

Lingo

Aside from its huge impact on culture, Dance Dance Revolution also has attached to it many many terms and expressions. These are just a few of the many different expressions commonly used by DDR players.

Bar-Raper / Bar-Hugger - A mostly negative term about a player using the support/balance bar behind the machine as support in order to limit their upper-body movement,and therefore use less stamina/concentrate more on step grading. Some players frown down upon these players, usually either because they don't look like they are dancing, or they are purely playing for grades.

Bunny - A player who plays Basic songs. This is often used in a negative way to describe players who jump excessive amounts while playing.

Free styler - A player who uses dance-moves mixed in with normal game play.

Tech Player - A term used to describe a player who plays mostly for scoring high grades, rather than the actual "dance" play.

Matrix Walk - A freestyle move that involves jumping onto the face of the DDR machine and kicking off, usually in a spin. This is now frowned upon by mostly arcade operators because it can potentially damage the machine.

Spammer - A player who just randomly spams the panels when they reach sections of a song they can't do properly.

I baked it! - Used when you clear or perfectly clear a song which you didn't expect to. Can also be used when you play a song for the first time and score a good score.

It's a trap! - A term used when either on extra stage or when you select random and are forced to play an extremely difficult song.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatmania_IIDX
  2. ^ http://www.konami.jp/bemani/ddr/jp/am/ddr2nd/linkkit.html
  3. ^ http://www.konami.jp/am/bm2dx/club/
  4. ^ http://www.ddrfreak.com/locations/locations.php
  5. ^ "Publisher acquires rights to Roxor game". GamesIndustry.biz. 2006-10-20. Retrieved 2006-10-20. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "West Virginia Adds 'Dance Dance Revolution' to Gym Class". MTV News. MTV. Retrieved 2007-02-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ "Dancing video game helps kids avoid weight gain". Yahoo! News. Yahoo!. 2007-02-01. Retrieved 2007-02-02. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dance_Dance_Revolution&oldid=109032293"