DanceDanceRevolution WORLD (AC)

Here's the translation in case someone can't pull it up

Notice]
We have confirmed that DanceDanceRevolution WORLD, which was updated today, is experiencing an issue where play data is not being transferred under certain conditions, and we are currently investigating the cause.
Online updates have been temporarily suspended until the cause of this issue has been identified and fixed.

Pros:
- Ranking system is cool, finally got an in-game one
- Unlock system doesn't require you to dedicate your fucking life to the game. Yet. (Now that I've said that, prepare for an unlock event which combines Extra Savior and the head-shit-fuck-ass stuff where you have to play games that aren't DDR.)
- QoL improvements like better sorting and speed mods are a huge welcome change
- I'm sorry guys but the 3D dancers looked like shit and I don't know why we're pretending they didn't for the sake of saying "it was part of the game's identity". Get them out of here.
- All the menu music gets a thumbs up from me, especially the results screen tune.
- Character redesigns are cool

Cons:
- SHAME THERE'S ONLY FUCKING TWO OF THEM. Seriously, I thought it was cool that you got a big pop up of your character on the song select screen and they appeared in your playfield like how you had character specific playfields in the Guitar Hero games. That's because I was expecting there to be MORE characters with MORE cool redesigns and that you'd have the option to, like, choose your favourite character or something! That's a beta test-ass choice.
- Why is there not an option to fullscreen the BGAs? Sure, have it as a modifier that can be set to, like "FULL/MINI/OFF", but it being either tiny or nothing is just stupid.
- New announcer! Thank Christ! ... shame he's not very good. I mean, I'll take it at this point, I can't lie. I'd take Microsoft Sam. But it's not good.
- The sound that plays when you move around on the song select screen sounds like when your smoke alarm beeps to let you know when it's on low battery. No. Bad.

???:
- Will people actually want to play with the Hou Sudden modifier, like, at all?
- Still amused by the fact the combo counter defaults to four digits, even though there's an entire one (1) chart in the game that goes to a thousand.

Basically, the functionality and playability of the game are good, and the new ranking system is rad. But on the presentation front it's kinda like every single step forward they took they had some kind of internal mandate to take a different step back. Character redesigns are awesome - why do we only have two characters? The 3D dancers were horribly outdated and often even their animations looked completely stupid at high-BPM songs, which we're only getting more and more of - why have they not been replaced with, uh, ANYTHING? New announcer! Finally! Almost everyone has wanted this for probably a decade at this point! ... Why is he just reading the exact same lines, and why is he not even that much of an improvement?

Bizarre launch for a game, but even though I think the presentation is a huge mixed bag, remember: DDR A3's presentation also got improved post-launch. So, who knows. Ever since new mixes came via online update instead of actually buying a new game, new mixes on day one have always been borderline tests/demos anyway. So I'm not going to throw a fit and scream "DDR ruined! Again! For the 67th time!" or anything.

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Shame there seems to be so much wrong with World. Still wanna play for myself to judge it, but sounds like Bemani/Konami decided to rush it out for whatever reason

I mean there's a reason I was saying "I hope this is a change from when they rush out mixes", aren't pretty much all new mixes from Konami rushjobs? And I think they have been for years and years at this point. They keep doing this thing where they announce a game and then 17 seconds later whoa it's out. No time in the oven for actual feedback or anything. I guess since there are just automatic updates, they don't really consider it worth the time - who needs testing and feedback when you can just immediately put the game on every cabinet and then the first month or two of the game being out IS the testing and feedback period? Online updates are a blessing, but they're definitely also a burden.

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I totally agree with you. I never liked the characters dancing in the background, so I'm fine with this

Good point. The dancing animations were not well animated for 2023. But it doesn't mean there should be nothing in it's place. I wouldn't mind if dancing characters were removed if there was literally anything adding visual excitement in it's place. The dance screen looks so dull.

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KONAMI. I WAS JOKING.

The announcer sounds a bit suspect I agree, but I highly doubt it's AI
The original X voices were starting to show their age in terms of audio quality & the announcer lines are too iconic to replace in Konami's eyes I suppose? Very glad they incorporated the Wii series announcer elements in some way tho, always felt like HP's announcer was a suitable successor to the MAX-SN announcer instead of Ozomati, also glad they got new crowd noises FINALLY + new scoring noises too (they've been using the old score sounds since EXTREME US jeez)

basically I agree with quick :3c

also rip ddr selection (oct 2018- june 2024)

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Been watching a stream of the game, and this is pretty much the same opinion I have.

The new announcer kinda sounds like if Sonic the Hedgehog tried to imitate a little bit like the X-A3 announcers. At least all cabs are getting this, day one, so no more FOMO for the remaining R1 locations that don't have a gold cab.

I really hope they change the static backgrounds in future patches, because that would kinda suck not at least being able to fullscreen the unique BGAs, if we're not gonna get any modern Max-Extreme-esque videos. >>;

Regarding videos, I can't help but speculate that the reason for its small size is to prevent the flashy videos from taking away players and viewers' viewing experiences and possibly cause seizures. Eon Break's video stands out to me because of that.

For characters, I find it odd that Baby-Lon was just given a whole event in A3 only for him and the other characters that were given events before like Yuni and Rinon to disappear to give just Emi and Rage the main focus. It would be nice if those characters had designs in the future.

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This is definitely something major (in my opinion) that I agree with, and I'll elaborate on that in a minute.

But first, just giving my initial response to the live vids I just started watching. We do have a new announcer, so that's great!
As for other stuff, sorry, but I truly can't get past how much I do NOT like the UI: song selection screen, gameplay screen, etc. HOWEVER, I actually do like the initial song select option of choosing pop music, anime & game, all music, etc. I also like the flip animation when going through songs. But, I still think the better idea was keeping songs in their version folders to make them easier to find. If someone wants to play songs from DDR Extreme, then gimme an Extreme folder. Maybe there is a way and I just haven't seen it, but right now, that song select screen is all over the place.

As I was looking at people play and select or sort songs, my face was really frowned the entire time.... Like, yeah I see the songs, but I don't understand where things are. And song jackets and title being in a big white rectangle at the top of the screen seems very last minute thought. Hate to sound so negative, but DDR World right now, looks like a beta game that is not complete and things were just thrown together to get it out. This is the first DDR I'm confused by on looks alone and may deter me from playing (if one was close by), or take a long time finding where songs are in-game.

Okay, as for the quote above about the dancers and background movies. This also reiterates me saying the game looks just put together and very beta-like. DDR of course is a game for the players who focus on the songs, the steps, the challenge, the fun, etc. However, for all intents and purposes, DDR is ALSO a spectator game -- it's fun to watch as well as play. I've never been a fan of the dancing characters going back to earlier DDRs so I'll stay out of the discussion regarding them (though I have always said that it woulda been really cool if the dancers had actual on-beat choreography for every song kinda how early Hottest Party games were).

I always preferred the bgvids from MAX to EXTREME, and of course loved the dedicated vids from like EXTREME2. Players are listening to the music and paying attention to the arrows. But here, relegating songs that have dedicated vids to a little box in the lower middle of the screen.....really...what is the point of this? Spectators can't really see that, so there's nothing really to entertain them on screen. Having no dancers, and then a wee little box on screen for vids? That's just odd. Again, that's why this seems like an unfinished game still being fleshing out stuff. I could be wrong -- probably am. But overall, the game looks very unappealing and sloppy. I truly do not understand why they would make such a decision about the background visuals.

While there are many extremely bizarre and baffling graphic design choices, I gotta say it’s pretty refreshing being able to clearly read the onscreen notes against the background and actually be able to hear the song being played without having to tune out an onslaught of crowd noises and a loud obnoxious announcer for the first time since like 2009.

I think they looked at their competition (PUMP IT UP) and copied things that are really appreciated, in pump everything is with tags, by game edition, musical style, artist, difficulty, even nationality haha ​​it is quite specific, I think that with updates will separate them in that way, because of the bgas I think that in the end eliminating dancing bgas and all that is more of a money decision than a creative one, DDR is not the most popular game I think Konami realized that they couldn't spend so much money on a arcade game that really isn't like it generates that much money, that's why they had to bet on 2D illustrations and animations more of the FLAT style that are inspired by smartphone rhythm games. In the end I only see a nice DDR that is very cheap to make and also to update, I fully trust that the events will be the key to Konami from now on, but knowing them I could bet that they will screw up, as always.

Just hopping in to say I absolutely love the new announcer! The voice actually makes me want to play the game. Can't wait to try out the new features, but the UI looks super clean and the gameplay looks polished. Good stuff.

Don't worry. We won't.

Not everybody has the same taste in style.

This drastic change isn't for me but I don't think it's gonna stop me for playing it though.

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What was changed besides the combo font size?


Yoooo I just got my first full combo on a 16!

A couple of the other notable rating changes aside from the 18s:
-- Draw The Savage CSP 16 -> 15 and CDP 16 -> 14
-- Breaking The Future DSP 14 -> 15
-- Candy UFO ESP 14 -> 15
-- Programmed Universe ESP 15 -> 16
-- Samurai Shogun ESP 14 -> 15
-- A bunch of the boss song DSP 15s got bumped to 16s

Apparently Breaking the Future bSP was bumped too, so I'm assuming there are also some lowers changes that have gone unnoticed.

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Guess I was wrong. Sad!

Also, I've only been skimming this thread so apologies if I missed it, but it looks like they're playing more with Shock Arrows on charts besides after the Undertale songs did that in A3 - 人マニア has them on and and does NOT have a chart.

In my opinion.

DDR world seems like a videogame console from XBOX, idk but it remembers me DDR Ultramix and Universe.
Finally we have a new announcer, but X and the previous one showed energy when they speak to incitate to dance but the new one seems announcing in his bedroom watching his computer.

About charactes and dance stages, i'm dissapoiting they remove them. DDR always was with dancers and announcers, it's not stepmania, ITG or PIU. DDR always was representated with their dancers and stages, DDR MAX was not characters because it was starting to implement DDR in PS2 and the same for DDR 2010 in PS3. DDR world have only a gif bg behind the gameplay.

And bg movies in little scale is horrible, it is not wii, it's not DDR II; which have short space of memory that had been reduced all. Why not make an option to play with no BG movie like DDR 3 4 extramix or 5th mix, for player which don't like bg movie, it would be better.

Finally the new game it's simple comparing previous version but it's not boring at all. I only hope in the future fix and change those things to improve. I HOPE, because it would be dissapoiting to keep with this version in this way

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The announcer is still better by a mile than the StepManiaX announcer. I guess Konami wants to make the game simple and flat as possible as the theme. And I also like the menu music and OST to the results screen etc. It’s not that obnoxious dubstep EDM music playing anymore. But for someone who uses Simply Love theme all the time I don’t mind this at all. It’s a lot less busy and messy looking than Ace’s ui. But I hope in the future they make an option where you can make the Jackets as backgrounds and the bgvideos full screen. That would be a decent compromise to appease both sides of the community. It’s not like we had much variety before with the 3d dancestages when they would cycle through the same few ones. The dancers would get repetitive and pretty stale fast in my opinion. Yes I guess more than we have now but it wasn’t the best thing before.

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