Dance Dance Revolution , abbreviated DDR , and previously known as Dancing Stage in Europe and Australasia, is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, Dance Dance Revolution is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance genre in video games. Players stand on a "dance platform" or stage and hit colored arrows laid out in a cross with their feet to musical and visual cues. Players are judged by how well they time their dance to the patterns presented to them and are allowed to choose more music to play to if they receive a passing score.
Dance Dance Revolution has been given much critical acclaim for its originality and stamina in the video game market. There have been dozens of arcade-based releases across several countries and hundreds of home video game console releases. The series has promoted a unique music library of original songs produced by Konami's in-house artists and an eclectic set of licensed music from many different genres. DDR is viewed as an exercise tool and is in use as such in many gyms and schools. The series has also inspired many clones of its gameplay and a global fan base of millions that have created simulators of the game to which they contribute original music and "simfiles", collections of dance patterns to a specific song. DDR celebrated its 10th anniversary on November 21, 2008.
Gameplay
The core gameplay involves the player moving his or her feet to a set pattern, stepping in time to the general rhythm or beat of a song. Arrows are divided by 1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, and so on (with differing color schemes for each), up to about 1/32 notes. During normal gameplay, arrows scroll upwards from the bottom of the screen and pass over a set of stationary arrows near the top (referred to as the "guide arrows" or "receptors", officially known as the Step Zone). When the scrolling arrows overlap the stationary ones, the player must step on the corresponding arrows on the dance platform, and the player is given a judgement for their accuracy (Marvelous, Perfect, Great, Good, Boo/Almost, Miss/Boo). Longer green and yellow arrows referred to as "freeze arrows" must be held down for their entire length, either producing a "O.K." if successful, or a "N.G." (no good) if not. Dance Dance Revolution X contains songs with Shock Arrows , walls of arrows with lightning effects which must be avoided, which are scored in the same way as Freezes (O.K./N.G.). If they are stepped on, a N.G. is awarded, the lifebar decreases, and the steps become hidden for a short period of time.
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 Judgement on arrows scores less than Great, Combo will break immediately or if the dance gauge drains.) 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). In most of the home versions, there is usually an option for event mode , where an unlimited number of songs can be played. On most DDR games, there is an option to use two pads at once, making it harder to play but increasing the number of moves to incorporate into songs.
Difficulty
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Depending on the version of the game, dance steps are broken into varying levels of difficulty. The main difficulty levels are "Basic/Light/Standard", "Another/Trick/Standard/Difficult" and "Maniac/SSR/Heavy/Expert". Some versions also include "Hard", "Super Maniac", "Beginner" and "Challenge", which typically fall on the lower and higher ends of the difficulty scale, respectively. Songs are also given a "foot rating" (which is represented by a row of colored footprints (Cyan/Blue for Beginner (introduced in DDRMAX2), Yellow for Basic/Light, Fuschia for Difficult/Standard/Another/Trick and Green for Expert/SSR/Maniac/Heavy, and Purple For Challenge (introduced in DDRMAX2).), ranging from one to ten feet to indicate the overall difficulty of the step sequence. Typically, songs with 10 foot ratings are very fast, with one exception being "Bag" on Dance Dance Revolution Extreme , which is rated a 10 due to its low speed and high density of arrows. Extreme also introduced a rating referred to as a "flashing 10" (as it is represented by all 10 feet icons glowing yellow), considered to be tougher than a standard 10.
Exclusive to Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMix , all Maniac routines were split into a different mode of the game called "Step Step Revolution", or SSR, which was accessible by pressing the arrow buttons after inserting coins and before pressing start. The SSR mode was eliminated in 3rdMix Plus, and the Maniac routines were folded back into the regular game.
On Dance Dance Revolution X , the foot rating system was given its first major overhaul, now ranking songs on a scale of 1-20, the first 10 represented by yellow blocks, and the second 10 represented by additional red blocks shown in place on top of yellow blocks. All songs from previous versions were re-rated on the new scale, including the flashing 10s, whose true difficulty in comparison to other flashing 10s is also now known as a result for the first time.
The highest known difficulty on the new scale is 18; challenge charts featuring this rating include Pluto Relinquish, Dead End (Groove Radar Special), Fascination Maxx, Fascination -Eternal Love Mix- (Single), Healing D-Vision, NGO (Single), PARANOiA ~HADES~, PARANOiA MAX ~Dirty Mix~ (SMM Special), Maxx Unlimited -X-Special-, The Legend of Max -X-Special-, and Trigger.
Beginning in 6thMix, a "Groove Radar" was introduced, showing how difficult a particular sequence is in various categories, such as the maximum density of steps, how many jumps are in the steps, etc.
Groove Radar
See also: DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6thMix#Groove RadarThe foot-rating system was completely removed for 6thMix, and replaced by the Groove Radar . The Groove Radar is a graphical representation of the difficulty of a song based in five different areas: Stream, Voltage, Air, Chaos, and Freeze. The Groove Radar was not very popular among seasoned DDR veterans. The foot-rating system would be restored to work with the Groove Radar in the North American home version of the game and in the next arcade version, DDRMAX2 , and almost all future versions (except for versions based on the North American version of Extreme, which only use foot ratings). All of the 6thMix songs on 7thMix received foot-ratings, including the boss song MAX 300 , which was now revealed to be the first "ten-footer".
Due to the removal of songs such as "Follow Me" and "Flash in the Night" from DDRMAX2, these songs have never received foot ratings.
SuperNOVA 2 featured special edits of songs specifically meant to max out specific categories on the radar, culminating with Dead End (Groove Radar Special) , maxing out all 5 categories.
Modifiers
Modifiers are changes that can be made to modify the step routine. Prior to 6thMix, codes were entered with the pad to activate modifiers. 6thMix replaced these pad codes with a new options menu accessed by holding down the start button when selecting a song.
Speed mods can increase or decrease the speed the arrows travel up the screen (sometimes making the arrows easier to read). Modifiers can also make the arrows more difficult to read, by adding effects such as the arrows only appearing when they reach halfway through the screen (or only appearing until halfway), hiding the arrows or the step zone altogether, making them rapidly accelerate as they reach the arrows, or travel up the screen in a "wave". The direction of the arrows can also be changed (moving down the screen rather than up it).
Some modifiers directly effect the stepchart itself. "Left" and "Right" change all the arrows to face 90 degrees left or right. "Mirror" flips the steps and patterns so all left and right arrows swap, and all of the up and down arrows swap. "Shuffle" creates a random swap of all of the arrows in a predetermined but different pattern each time. Some modifiers can remove elements from a chart to make it easier. Notes that are not on quarter beats can be removed (previously known as "Little" until Extreme and now known as "Cut" as of SuperNova), and jumps (two arrows appearing at the same time) and freeze arrows can also be removed.
The color scheme of the arrows can also be changed. "Flat" makes all of the arrows have the same color, regardless of their step fraction. "Rainbow" (or "Solo" before Supernova) changes the colors of all arrows to the brighter colors used in Dance Dance Revolution Solo 2000 (such as orange for 4th notes, blue for 8th notes, and purple for 16th notes). Some versions include a color scheme called "Note", which replaces the cycling color scheme with constant colors such as red, blue, and yellow. Unlockable modifiers on Supernova 2 can also completely change the
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