DDR II & hottest party 5 (Wii) (International)

People have bracketed Uh La La La and Paranoia Evolution since the dawn of time.

HP1's hands were hard because the way it was setup there was that the beginning of your swing was when it gave you your judgment. HP2 alleviated this a bit by holding off on your judgment until the end of your theoretical thrust. The only problem with HP2's method was that the timing of those was just ever so slightly different than the foot timing. Aside from that I was actually pretty cool with it in most instances. Granted, HP2 still had some major charting issues. Some songs had to be played with hands in order for certain turns and sections to make sense, and others were better with them turned off for the exact same reason.

HP3 put it in it's own two modes, one which was great once you got accustomed to how it works, and the other that was boring as hell since they only ever really gave you quarter foot notes with some directional hands sprinkled in there. HP3 was probably the most strict with hands (it almost breaks The Space Dance balance board chart) but also worked the best of the three.

Balance Board/Choreography mode was probably the one thing DDR2010 did right, which was unfortunate as they so mangled quite a few of the charts in the main mode.

While I know some folks are going to definitely miss those Wii exclusive modes and such, I sorta had a hunch that everything was eventually leading to this release. The removal of hands from normal gameplay in HP3, getting charts done by the arcade crew, bigger songlist, getting the precursor to the new arcade interface, and the sharing of songs with X2US CS was all a major departure from HP1 and 2 for a reason. Then DDR2010 had the "growing up" of the characters along with a slight bump in the difficulty (though much of it was due to stupid charting). And now we get this game which is basically brings home the remainder of X2 and serves as the preview title for X3. With HP3, DDR2010, and DDRII, barring the doubles charts for the former two and some of the licenses from the AC, we essentially have DDRX2 and a portion of X3 at home. If DDRIII follows this same pattern, it'll probably get the remainder of X3.

I hope so. It'll be the closest we'll ever get to the early-mid PS2 days again.

Pretty much every US console release after Universe 3 was just...awful, from the sound of things, until this? I never played DDR2010 because ~50 is just unacceptable in this day and age. So, I guess I'll consider it impressive that this game caught my attention after a couple years of just plain not really caring about DDR anymore! Yeah, as nearly everyone else has mentioned, some of CS exclusive charts are pretty iffy and the license list is mostly one-note, but the song count is great and it's about time we get most of the delicious X2 content.

Now, if only they'd stop using that goofy-looking font they've been using all over on the Wii games since HP1. Maybe it's just me (well, PROBABLY it's just me), but it's the sort of font that really drives home that feeling of low-budget amateurishness. It's especially a shame here, because the interface is pretty sexy otherwise.

I wish I didn't get the feeling that DDRIII won't bring over most of the X3 content, but I'm basically just treating DDRII as a happy fluke until Konami proves otherwise. It's hard to really put my faith in them by this point, but I'd love nothing more than to be proven wrong.

...and if they DON'T repeat the success of this release next time, I'd still get a weird sense of amusement out of them continuing to force Osamu Migitera to do unwelcome collaborations with an increasingly weird assortment of washed-up has-beens. Des-ROW feat. Fab Morvan? If the game's gonna end up sucking, at least make it suck in an interesting way!

Maybe it's because I started with the Wii games, but I still don't see the big deal about the PS2 games. oAo; The only ones I thought were any good were X and Extreme 2.

They were arcade ports (6th, 7th, EXTREME, SuperNOVA, SuperNOVA 2, X). You can make edit steps and play double on all of them. The art design was better (I miss song banners). Even the Japanese versions accounted for, the Wii games apart from this one are really second rate compared to the PS2, and even Japanese PS1 versions.

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I actually thought this myself. It's quite bad when comparing it to other rhythm games and very user-unfriendly.


This about sums up my overall feelings.


Obviously it's very YMMV and dependant on region.

In Europe our AC and CS releases were all over the place making for very polarised games.

I mean our AC releases went something like: Dancing Stage/1.5 -> Dancing Stage EuroMIX -> Dancing Stage EuroMIX2 -> Dancing Stage Fusion -> Dancing Stage SuperNOVA and Dance Dance Revolution X.

While our PS CS releases were: Dancing Stage EuroMIX (PS1) -> Dancing Stage Party Edition (PS1) -> Dancing Stage MegaMIX (PS2) -> Dancing Stage Fever (PS1/2) -> Dancing Stage Fusion (PS1/2) -> Dancing Stage Max (PS2) -> Dancing Stage SuperNOVA (PS2) and DancingStage SuperNOVA2 (PS2).

I've bolded what I would consider to be our series peak in both cases.

FYI these games are based off the following Japanese/American games:

Dancing Stage = DDR 1st Mix
Dancing Stage EuroMIX = DDR 3rd Mix
Dancing Stage Party Edition = DDR Konamix
Dancing Stage Fever (PS2) = DDR MAX
Dancing Stage EuroMIX2/Dancing Stage MegaMIX = DDR MAX2
Dancing Stage Fusion (PS2) = DDR Extreme US
Dancing Stage Max = DDR Extreme2

As you can see ours lacked proper AC equivalents most of the time or otherwise were all over the place in regards to series progression. Bare in mind our exclusives weren't always handled well and towards the end became pretty rubbish; DancingStage SuperNOVA2 is pretty much the US version with half the licences and one added EU licence.

In fact some of the best EU games were ones with no AC or CS equivalent to split the licences or songlist.

I'm curious: When US PS2 games began being released were PS1 versions still continued for a while like ours?

Conversely, while the Wii games weren't amazing they were decent at least because of how unique they were and the US and EU releases were largely comparable. Essentially, it was nice to have some releases that didn't feel so polarising depending on your region. In other words, at least they were consistent.

I think that I didn't mind HP1 and 2 at the time because it was like 2007/08 and most rhythm games on the system weren't amazing at that point (even RB1 largely sucked compared to the HD versions and most people accepted it as "the Wii can't do decent games"). Then Guitar Hero World Tour and 5 came along and the bar was raised. With Just Dance's rising popularity it feels like Konami have been playing catch-up ever since.

I'm afraid to say that DDRII/HP5 just doesn't seem enough. I know that saying that seems horrible, and I expect a lot of hate for it, but it really feels like Konami are just lost in their old ways and are unable to modernise and re-capture whatever magic they used to have. I think that people have just come to expect better from rhythm games in recent years.

When you have games offering 50-93 full-length licences, on disc, often with regular DLC, it's understandable if people might feel polarised by Konami's efforts when their recent licence list screams "casual" while the amount of them and the KO's scream "hardcore". I'm afraid to say that Konami might have to start pushing Motion/Move/Kinetic support if they want to remain competitive and relevant. I don't want them to lose what made the game so popular to begin with, but they might have to consider really reworking the franchise if they want DDR to be anywhere as near as popular as it used to be.

Multi-platform, better world-wide releases, DLC and motions control might help a lot.

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♫ come closer cara cara mia / cara cara mia / love is all you need / I swear I'm never gonna leave you / cara cara mia / you're the one for me ♪

In the US, the Playstation DDR games continued on to the Playstation 2. We did not have PS DDR games being released on the two systems simultaneously.

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Pretty much, here's the progression of ours:

Dance Dance Revolution = ~2nd Mix in a 3rd Mix interface, with some 3rd Mix KOs.
DDR Disney Mix = 20 song Disney's Rave with some 4th Mix KOs like B4U and Midnite Blaze.
DDR KONAMIX = 4th-5th Mix in the 4th Mix interface, but 100% KO's through the PS1 era, and our PS1s ended with this. (Also: Enter EDIT MODE.)
DDRMAX = For the most part, this was PS2 5th Mix. It had ORDINARY WORLD and a few select MAX/MAX 2 titles, and some IIDX crossovers that wouldn't hit arcades until SuperNOVA; but mostly this had 4th Plus/5th Mix written all over it.

At this point, KCET stepped in and took over PS2 system production, KCEA was stifled into X-Box only territory, but was allowed to chart/influence the final PS2 product somewhat, like where US licenses were concerned.

DDRMAX 2 = Sort of a weird blend between DDRMAX and DDRMAX 2.
ULTRAMIX = From the looks of it, basically an X-Box redux of KONAMIX, but with some more DDRMAX influence. Series started it's own semi-exclusive track collection, mostly around BEMANI crossovers. But most importantly, a focus on Online Play.

EXTREME = Completely random mix. Had about 10-15 songs from EXTREME, but also seemed to feature at least 2 songs from every mix prior to it, along with some late-to-the-game MAX 2 songs. Most of our 3rd/4th/5th Mix license-ports came here and in MAX 2. It's interface was kind of clunky, but going straight from songwheel to courses kicked ass; and looking at it now, it may have been a way-before-it's-time precursor to the modern Uni3/X2 interface.
ULTRAMIX 2 = A bit of EXTREME influence can be found here, and enter the underground label "A Different Drum." ADD's influence led to one of the sexiest USA releases to this day. The iconic Ultramix/Universe game modes such as "Battle" began here.

EXTREME 2 = Best of 3rd Mix meets best of EXTREME (AC) meets best of ULTRAMIX in arguably the sexist DDR ever. Terrific exclusives at the time with awesome charts that aren't dummied down for sake of "accessibility," and they aren't too hard. It's also where Dance Master Mode took over the unlocking system, and where tons of players started getting "miraculous amounts" of AAAs in arcade mixes. Could be a coincidence. *shrugs*
ULTRAMIX 3 = Went for a very strange, hit-and-miss vibe here, with lots of poppy stuff like butterfly and TOGETHER & FOREVER, and folksy tunes. Had some good songs, but was lacking overall impact. The hiphop songs were arguably it's high point, and the cool sounding ADD remixes in this were mostly given pitifully easy charts. Plus, it was being compared to Extreme 2!! No contest.

SuperNOVA = Hit about half of the relevant DDR SuperNOVA stuff, along with some UM2 surprises. Not arcade-perfect, but some players actually preferred this version over the more AC-relevant Jap version. It's focus on "global" connectivity also resulted in several decent song ports from Dancing Stage games, and the best stuff from DDR STR!KE (Japan's equal of Extreme2/DS MAX).
ULTRAMIX 4 = Some light SuperNOVA influence and full-charted MAX 2 Oni Remix stages, but mostly KCEA/KDEA's original works; and a very good selection of stuff, and the game introduces Power Mode/Mixes. It's a shame it's so overlooked!
UNIVERSE = Here, KDEA was bridging between X-Box and 360. This title shared about 20 songs with Ultramix 4, on an unpolished/imperfect engine they'd built from scratch, and at times it shows. UM4, underappreciated as it is, often outshines this because it was actually at it's MOST polished, and with DLC available through the UM series, brought that title to nearly 120 songs total!! Uni did have a completely different set of Power Mixes, as well.

SuperNOVA 2 = Halfway between "SuperNOVA 1, part 2," and "SuperNOVA 2, part 1." It also had a good variety of exclusive licenses with good charts, but not as technical or challenging as Extreme 2s or SuperNOVAs. Even though many of us have cleared PARANOiA ~HADES~ in it, there's still a rumor from Konami that nobody's actually "completed" Hyper Master Mode.
UNIVERSE 2 = KDEA released this version entirely within their own material, with maybe around 10-15 arcade ported songs from past mixes. Stuff like ON THE JAZZ and Spin the disc; there wasn't really anything tying this to SuperNOVA 2 at all. What it DID do was debug the Uni 1 engine, and horribly over-offset the Quest Mode advantages to "impenetrable" status.
Disney Channel Edition = A second, supplimental KDEA release for PS2; this featured about 30 pop songs from Disney's "Pop Star Princesses," along with an intentional Konami Original poke at every version to this date, for systems on both sides; like Bongo from Ultramix 4/Universe and Danca De Yuka from Ultramix 3. Pretty lazy graphically, but this WAS a kid's game. Arcade songs on there include BRILLIANT 2U, strangest was was "P.N. MAX," the laziest-titled iteration of PARANOiA MAX ~DiRTY MiX~ ever. To their credit, they also revived exotic ethnic, CANDY*, and SAKURA in it, although IIRC, unlocking conditions for those were ridiculous.
HOTTEST PARTY = Wii gets it's first DDR game, mostly of covers; I'd imagine because learning to use Nintendo's sound system is like learning how to handwalk on eggshells. Features some cool remixes of 1998, B4U, LvS, and CANDY, and kicks off the now-relevant EVOLVED and "boss jun" song series. Japan's got Pluto The First instead of tokyoEVOLVED, which became instantly infamous for how ridiculous it is.

DDR X = Quite possibly the most arcade-accurate release ever, and incredibly relevant. It mostly just sacrificed the J-pop licenses in it to make up for the SuperNOVA 2 content that was lacking; IE: the planet songs and some of the commissions like Why not and Shades of Grey. All things considered, that stuff probably made this version BETTER. Street Master Mode was the players' new love. Also, the ADD influence spreads to the main arcade series, hence the appearance of Alien Six, harmony machine, OR-IF-IS, etc. In fact, aside from SABER WING's, ADD's artists did the KO remixes you see in this mix (IIRC, harmony machine DID do their own). Also, enter TAG. They also made Xmixes for DDR X, rather than Power Mixes for Uni 3.
UNIVERSE 3 = Again, sticking to their independent guns and featuring just a selection of archaic arcade ports like Kind Lady, MOBO*MOGA, MATSURI JAPAN, and PARANOiA Rebirth - KDEA stomped the living shit out of DDR X with this version. It's super-polished, pretty well charted through and through, and they finally tapped into the delightful interface and kors k/DM Ashura goodness that makes X2 the delightful breath of fresh air that it is. No Power Mixes in this one, but they did put the classic-standard "Course Mode" into the design in it's place.
HOTTEST PARTY 2 = KCET finally figures out a bitrate where licensed music works with the Wii, although it's still mostly covers and originals; and this mix kicks off it's third lasting staple: past HP megamixes! Call me crazy, but I love that shit. Song selection was pretty solid. But somebody started writing stepcharts on LSD or something.

DDR X2 = This mix made me (and a lot of us here) completely (WTF?!!) ourselves. Don't get me wrong, it IS arcade-relevant, but compared to it's arcade counterpart, it was basically raped of most of it's upper-half of difficulty range, and replaced with a lot of missed KO's from the past series (including X), the SuperNOVA 2 X-Specials (Without their originals? But people use EDIT MODE for that now anyways. Still weird considering they DID feature OTHER songs for edit-porting though...) and MY SUMMER LOVE (Tommy's Smile Mix) and about 10 revival songs from the PS1-2 eras (one apiece) for sake of Edit-Linking. Practically ZERO of the IIDX crossovers were featured (IE: it was the only one), although most of the non-Uni 3 KOs were, and it's arcade-relevant boss songs consisted of KIMONOvPRINCESS, roppongiEVOLVED (the ONLY PS2 game with an "EVOLVED"), and Pluto The First (BOO!!).
HOTTEST PARTY 3 = Basically, a Wii port of X2 without Dice Master Mode, and with a few song swaps. Probably Konami's easiest/laziest year ever. You can tell something's amiss here, and I'm guessing it's around here where they lost Stillwind. Another giveaway: No Universe/X360 title, either.

DDR 2010 = A single, multiplatform version of last year's... whatever THAT was. I'm inclined to believe that DDR's team was not prepared/used to a multi-console release, especially considering that with the branches merged; they still got a product I can only refer to as "rushed." Having played DDR since 2000, I can tell this was released specifically because there was a firm release date, and they had to produce something saleable. And I believe there were plans to make more DLC, until the nuclear tsunamivolcanoquake last year starting really effing them over.

DDR II = So they only had time to polish a single console's release this year, and now the team is REALLY HURTING for the cash. Time to put their hand on the table and hope to God it pays off. US pop stars are probably also the most generous where it comes to advertising money and helping those in need, especially when they produce kickass stuff like DDR. Does that tie in with the trip to L.A., perhaps? Either way, they produced the other most arguably kickass version of DDR ever. And here we are.


EDIT: Some people may think we've been playing "catch-up" with Japan since SuperNOVA, and that's complete hogwash. The fact is, WE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN. But at the same time, we're a step ahead of them with the KDEA songs and charts too, and many of those have never been released THERE, either. You ever wonder what maybe they think about that? Gitadora fans, especially.

Oh yeah, there's a MARIO MIX lost in there somewhere, too. Around SN/Uni/UM4, was it?

Japan's releases are pretty arcade-consistent, although the end up skipping over a few songs here and there. But also, they don't often see stuff outside of that too often, with the exception of maybe ULTRAMIX's songs appearing in DDR FESTIVAL, and UM2's in STR!KE.

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After some more play, I don't touch the long versions anymore. Same reason they never worked in the past, they're just too long and copy/paste. There's really no way for them not to be though, that's the nature of full length songs. Also, it results in awful short cuts; I can't believe Get Back Up's short cut, it's terrible. I love the song, but I can't believe they're putting that cut on AC. HEARTBREAK's cut is also not amazing. The other KOs for the most part have good short cuts though.

The sync of the licenses seems a little inconsistent, but the X2 stuff is spot on, it feels to me. I dislike the music videos being off to the side in a little corner; I'd actually prefer the full-screen dancers over that, and full-screen videos would be the best situation.

The game does seem a little rushed as if they were going to make another DDR 2010 and then at the last minute turned it into X2+, because things here and there seem to lack polish. Having said all these negatives though, everything I haven't mentioned is a positive, and that's a lot. I'm really having a great time with this game, and am really happy to have it in my DDR collection. There's some lessons to learn for next year, and I miss my beloved WH1TE RO5E, but overall, DDR II is great.

EDIT: Also wanted to point out I'm not a fan of Becca Hossany. I find her vocals really whiny and nasally. On the other side, I actually like Jasmine Nii a lot.

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Brilliant description of all the past US mixes.

However, the information on JP HP was off. They didnt get Pluto the First instead of tokyoEVOLVED, they got the song on top of it. Which was fine because it was complete crap.

A few things I'd like to add to Nightime's worthwhile ramblings...

DDR ULTRAMIX 3 - Specifically, I think they ill-advisedly tried to give the remixes similar charts to the originals (at least on Heavy, from what I recall), completely ignoring the fact that they're musically complex enough for much more. That Balalaika remix could've easily been an 8! And the Colors remix....they COULD'VE justifiably made it a 9 by that logic, but I suspect they didn't just because the original didn't feature the Oni chart in the first Ultramix.

Still, it contained my favorite non-dancey license ever - Istanbul (Not Constantinople).

DDR ULTRAMIX 4 - I would absolutely LOVE to see more hard-but-also-fun songs like Stompin' at the Gotham. Not to knock hardcore techno or anything because those kinds of songs definitely have their well-established place - but there's something oddly grin-inducing about being murdered by something that sounds as non-murderous as SatG or, later, Horatio.

DDR UNIVERSE 3 - The only truly negative things I can remember about Uni3 were text-related. I haven't played its Quest Mode equivalent or whatever in ages (as evidenced by the fact that I can't remember its name!), but I seem to recall the dialogue within being pretty lame and grammatically iffy. And then some weird typos in the lyrics. "Like SNK said, get up'n move!" But, if I have to nitpick to criticise a mix, I'd say that's a good sign!

DDR X2 - Don't forget the limited scope of the revivals, too - most of them were either abstractly "Latin" (Baile Le Samba, La Señorita Virtual, La Bamba, TIERRA BUENA) or "urban" (HYSTERIA, Let the beat hit 'em!). And you could say the same about a chunk of the new songs. So, not only was this mix pathetically small, but around a third of it was decidedly one-note, in a lazily pandering sort of way.

DDR 2010 - Haven't actually played it, but looking over the songlist....there are a few things I would've liked to see in a better mix. Like, um, its sequel. New OR-IF-IS? New Jena Rose? New, um....no, wait, those are literally the only two things DDR2010 had that I wish DDRII did. SO glad I was too broke last year to give this a try.

...okay, now that I think about it, DDR2010's new Bill Hamel song was probably less awkward than In the Air. It's not even that I mind weird nasallish vocals - again, the Istanbul thing - but there was definitely a little something off here. You can kinda hear the last-minute-ness of it all, which is a shame because he usually does really, really good work.

Of course, I wouldn't be nitpicking in the first place if DDRII wasn't awesome enough to hold my interest in the first place.

DDR II Wii is screaming for a Greatest Hits (even though nothing really gets changed in this version, IIRC) or a GOTY version. There's a lot that needed fixing and cleaning up.

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I appreciate all the information Nightime.

I was mainly talking about the main PS (playstation) series up till it moved over to the Wii, but the extra information is appreciated. It's quite interesting hearing a persons personal feelings on each game as well.


I hate to seem dense, but what exactly do you mean by this? Surely even if the game went platinum/chosen for special re-release they wouldn't usually fix anything?

In fact, I'm curious, what do you feel needed fixing mageman17, if you haven't said so somewhere already (if so, please point me in the right direction)?

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^ lol

It kinda has to BECOME "GotY" to get a GotY edition, you know. I'm just hoping for a late-to-the-ballpark PS3 + 360 version, or at least songpack DLCs from it for DDR 2010.

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Uh let's see, from what I've glimpsed (haven't crawled this yet), DDR II has the following quirks.

1. Dummied-out data for at least 4 DDR 2010 songs (In The Zone, Private Eye, ????, ????).
2. The songwheel's default sort is not alphabetically correct (but it does give off the X2 AC vibe, which didn't have the X2 songs on alphabetical order).
3. The fact that only jun, Naoki and U1 can fly in the flying stage, with solid back-up dancers to boot. The stage itself didn't exactly change alot.
4. In the disc, there are two sets of music. One for long version and another for short version. Both versions however, are of the long version. when the short version is chosen, the game simply seeks (if the steps don't start at the beginning of the song) and fades-out at the end.
5. Full-screen videos weren't really impossible, they just had to make things fit the way things are.

I'm pretty sure those who have played the game may provide other quirks.

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What do you mean by Greatest hits? or GOTY?

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I think he means the million-seller thing that gets special packaging and pricing. Maybe it's because he wants it for $20.

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Very excellent storyline nighttime. I would have personally added that Scott Dolph left Konami in 2007. He had a major influence over the US CS, in particular the Ultramix series.