Question about EXTREME

The arcade I just recently started going to has 2 DDR EXTREME machines and when I got there I noticed neither game was unlocked. I unlocked one but I can't for the life of me get to the secret menu for the second machine. I did everything it told me. I held the 1P down arrow, I hold the service button and press the 1P start button on Game Options. Am I doing anything wrong? The machine that this worked on has memory card slots and the one I can't get to work doesn't, I don't know if it's a different generation of machines that may work differently. Any help would be great as the one that's still locked up has much better pads and just a better quality machine. Any help would be greatly appreciated. As you can see the people who work there are so chill and let me go into it whenever I want. It's awesome!

---

Follow the FAQ here and it should be ok =)

http://www.ddrfreak.com/versions/faqs-arcade.php?version=80

That's the one I did follow and I'm just wondering what I'm doing wrong cause what it says just doesn't work for one of the machines.

---

It could be a weird bootleg that omits that part of the code, or can't change the values in the RAM or ROM, when you put the code in?

Does the machine have a different colour title screen, or anything weird like that?

Physical cabinet and memory slots make no difference to the unlock process - my Korean crappy-cab unlocks in the same way as the better Japanese ones.

As Tyma said, it's probably a bad bootleg (the odds are that both your EXTREME machines are bootlegs by the way, even the Japanese cab with the memory card slots), some bootlegged EXTREMEs had dubious behaviour - one in particular would even crash and reboot when you accessed the "Game Options" ops menu. There were literally dozens of different bootlegged EXTREME versions - not including the crappy ones like Megamix and Extreme Plus that pretended to be different games...

FWIW, you are describing the correct procedure for accessing the SECRET(tm) menu.

---

If you all had noticed he said he unlocked one already and just the menu wont open, so on that assumption either

A) The service button isnt working

or

B) its a weird bootleg that has the unlocks ommitted,

those are the two most logical options anyway. You can always try swapping the two 573's around and then trying it on the one that isnt unlocked to see if it still works just as an alternative but really as Chi said theres a huge number of different ways that could be stopping you.

My best bet is that the Service button is not working. I'm going to check that next time I go. I don't think either of them are bootleg cabs. The one the won't work is an upgraded 5th Mix cab. It even still has the pictures on the top and sides of it. Well, anyway. Thanks for the help I got some good ideas. If anyone else has any other ideas, feel free to throw them out.

---

Not being rude, but I highly doubt you'd be able to tell without looking at the System 573 motherboard closely (and possibly opening it up) - it's not the cab that would be bootleg, it's the software. Almost every DDR Extreme outside of Japan (and a fair few inside Japan) were bootlegs - it's the most bootlegged DDR mix ever. I bet you £1 that at least one of those cabs is running a bootlegged version of Extreme.

However, good idea to check the service button first - it might well just be that - it's also worth just checking in the Input Test menu that the down arrow is working ok too, especially when you are pressing it at the weird-ass angle needed to press the other buttons at the same time

---

Actually I was asking someone else to stand on the down arrow 'cause I thought that might be the problem. Even if I can't get it unlocked, it's not the biggest deal. Plus, I really don't trust myself going into the machine to check the mother board, I know I would screw something up.

---

Pretty hard to screw up, even I did that right on my ddr machine (I managed to mess up in plenty of other ways though ), just take out the 573, unscrew the screws, take a couple pictures, and reverse.

Aye. Just make sure you plug in the 10-pin lights connectors in the right order (White goes top left, orange bottom left, red top right).

And if you are opening the 573 (to see if you have a bootleg EPROM/mod board installed), remove the memory card first (else you can't open it), and make sure it goes back in the right slot (there are two).

The main thing to focus on if you want to know if you have a bootleg is the blue T-shaped security cassette.

---

This is strange.

One of my local gamecentre (TimeZone) has DDR Extreme upgraded from DDR 3rd Mix but....

Missing almost 99% videos BG.

And playing on that DDR Extreme = playing Stepmania.

How could it be ?

---

A. They've stuck a PC running Stepmania in the cab...? Do the lights work (pad lights, spotlights)?

---