DanceDanceRevolution A20 PLUS (AC)

I would agree that most of the debate on whether a song is under- or overcharted would've been sort of blown over, had the difficulty been used at a greater capacity. If I remember correctly, not a single song that has been released after the announcement of A20 plus has ever received one, despite the fact that several of them sound like they needed it. So much so, that I kind of started developing a catchphrase: "This song NACS! (Needs A Challenge Stepchart)"

---

Hyper Twist is the only A20plus song that got a challenge chart so far, I think.


I'm all for making DDR more accessible through some shifting around of the chart difficulties. Songs like Boss Rush or Splash Gold can absolutely have an 18 for a challenge chart, but songs like like Drop The Bounce or Poseidon (kors k mix) could have the expert charts bumped up to challenge to fit in an 11 or 12 for a new expert chart. Too bad this will never happen because it would take more work and attention than this series ever gets anymore.

An 11-15 on and a 13-18 on would work for a lot of songs. Not every song needs a challenge chart - especially now with the 14-16's on Expert being more common - but it would be nice to see some use of the Challenge difficulty.

---

My personal thoughts are that the difficulty is now treated as something akin to REFLEC's WHITE HARD difficulty (e.g. a secret or special difficulty) rather than just being a difficulty above . That's probably why we barely see any charts nowadays.

I think that the difficulty should be used more, but not in the usual "chart that's harder than " like most people want it to be. I would like for this difficulty to be used more like how CHAOS Terror-Tech Mix uses it and allow for extra gimmicks, interesting tech, and other unique chart design elements. Make this difficulty reserved for truly special and different charts rather than keep it limited to just being "a step above difficulty". I also think a problem arises from having this difficulty be named "CHALLENGE" rather than something like "SPECIAL" or "ANOTHER" but that's just me.

---

In IIDX Another started just being a difficulty harder than Hyper a long time ago though, and in DDR Another was the medium difficulty (Basic, Another, Maniac in the first few games). Utilizing the challenge difficulty is literally the answer to any and all complaints about expert charts that are too hard or too easy.

---

I think you completely missed my point. I'm aware the medium difficulty in DDR was called "another" at some point in time but that's irrelevant as I wasn't focused on the naming. I was getting at the fact that CHALLENGE seems to be used as a special difficulty level akin to Glitch charts in Cytus II, for example, a difficulty level that exists for only some songs and offer either a harder challenge over the existing EXPERT chart or adds unique gameplay mechanics solely for that chart (e.g. shock arrows or alternate gimmicks). The issue is that in the past CHALLENGE was used differently, so now that they may be moving away from using it as such there's a problem. I suggested a name change in order to make it seem more like a difficulty level that accomplishes what they've been using it as lately.

I also don't think that the usage of the CHALLENGE difficulty would solve any and all problems with EXPERT charts being too hard/easy. You'd then have people complain about said CHALLENGE chart not doing this or that. It won't stop.

---

the issue is that there's only 5 slots allocated for charts on every song. i don't play PIU much but they got the right idea having as many charts for a song they want. makes for a more smooth overall balance of difficulty, gives the chart makers a chance to try something different with a song if they see fit. some songs will have more charts than others? oh no.

---

The shock arrow idea seems to have been dropped a long time ago though. When was the last time a new chart had them? They basically exist in A20 Plus because there’s no reason to delete the existing charts. When you say “try something different” I think of a chart like Habanera1 Expert Doubles in ITG2. It tried something radically different from what had been seen in a a DDR style dancing game (the half double idea from old PIU games). And it would be cool to see new ideas like that out of Challenge charts, but none of the challenge charts that I’ve seen are trying anything new. It’s tech and ideas that have been around for years. Even Chaos Terror-Tech Mix challenge wasn’t a new idea. Ace For Aces has that on every difficulty, so it’s not even a challenge exclusive idea. So I guess at least on singles I don’t even know what unique idea they could come up with for this to be viable.

---

Firestorm got a Shock Arrow chart in A20+ early on (August 2020). A20 added two with DOWNER & UPPER and Possession 20th. Ace also had two, New Century and Ishtar. They're pretty rare these days, but they do still happen.

But I completely disagree with the notion that CHALLENGE charts are supposed to be special. This may have been the case back on MAX2 when they were introduced (and only playable under special conditions), but that dropped almost immediately after with a handful of Extreme challenge charts simply being a harder chart.

Damn that's way more recent than I thought. I didn't realize any were added in Ace or later.

But yeah MAX2 and Extreme were a long time ago, people tend to forget that in the arcade version of 7th Mix those remixes were basically "Anothers" that used the same song title, banner, and background as the original song, and outside of KAKUMEI OMES, Challenge charts were not playable in the regular game mode at all. That didn't start until Extreme (where they got their names and art updated) and that carried over to 7th Mix CS and MAX2 US. And even then, at least until DDRX all Challenge charts were used in Challenge courses. I don't know about X2, but in X3 vs 2ndMIX this stopped being the case.

Challenge charts really only feel "special" because the difficulty is so under utilized, not because they're actually special anymore. If they actually utilized Challenge mode this way anymore I could see that argument.

---

Then we'd have an issue where there is no unique difficulty level that only certain songs have access to, which was the point of CHALLENGE charts in the first place.

I think the only real solution is what Sigrev2 suggested. PIU set a standard for itself that a song can have however many charts that the developers want to give it. I believe DDR should start doing the same at some point in the future.

---

But it wasn't just a unique difficulty level that only certain songs had access to. It was a unique difficulty level that only a certain mode had access to and I definitely don't think we should return to that. I don't think the idea of having a unique difficulty level like that works with the idea of a song just having as many charts as the developers want to give it. I do like the idea though, it can even kind of be done in Stepmania already using edit data, Pulsen toyed around with this idea calling them "bonus" charts.

Either way, more charts isn't a bad thing. It can only serve to make the game more accessible to new players and give the upper echelon of players more to do.

---

get rid of challenge and beginner entirely. while we're at it, get rid of ddr. pop'n was always better anyway.

---

I'll agree on the condition that we get to keep other 4 panel dancing games. It's not like Konami is actually using this one anyway. They're just playing Weekend At Bernies with it's corpse.

---

no panel dancing games except for the glorious revival of pop'n stage

---

---

The video's out already

What do you know? The video's in the same format as IIDX's (as always). IIDX really should transition to widescreen videos this time. That was not DDR-related lol.

Also, side note xRGTMx. The video in your original post was actually the "Dance Evolution" version with the stationary camera angle. The IIDX video's the more music video-looking with its camera angles.

---

In unrelated news, some shit's going down....

Interesting how it's not the A20 PLUS logo at the top right. Probably teasing a new version?

---

That's my best guess too . Twitter comments also suggest they'll FINALLY add Edit Mode like they promised in the Ichika event, or possibly a third installment of the 'Replicant' series