DDR W…ishlist for 2026

I disagree with the lack of variety, or at least with the past few games' KOs. It does get monotone with the same otogecore songs being added a lot of the time, but A20/+ has plenty of nice house tracks and eurobeat. A3 does lean heavier on the otogecore but Not Alone & stellar rain, plus some of the HP transplants with new charts bring some life to the songlist. Trying to point towards IIDX as a beacon of diversity seems baffling when it's one of the few rhythm games that's setting the trends in other rhythm games (even outside of BEMANI). The past few mixes are predominantly 160+ BPM & prominently featuring EDM/bass elements. You also have to understand how these games are primarily made for a Japanese rhythm game audience, as that's where the majority of the revenue (especially in PASELI revenue since that's what matters to KONAMI too) comes from. So, naturally, the direction of these games reflects their wants. I do wish more Western players understand this, and personally I've grown to love some of the vocaloid & touhou licenses (Cirno songs can burn & rot though)
That being said, you don't have to agree with the JP rhythm game audiences. I personally think they bow down to KONAMI way too much. Remember when some players got flak from Japanese players on Twitter for clearing A4A using yuisin's upload even though that event dragged on for way too long? Not to mention the number of complaints about Western scores showing up on their screens, when it's more of KONAMI cutting corners with their localization for recent mixes.

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Fair points as well. I’ve come to terms with how these are primarily geared towards a Japanese audience, hence why the overall sound is the way it across across the majority of BEMANI. For me it’s a case of coming across different kinds of music throughout the years crafted by Japanese artists that don’t fall into the typical vocaloid, touhou, denpa type stuff, which is why I feel like there really is no excuse why they can’t continue to branch out more genre-wise.

As for the IIDX argument, I should’ve clarified which era I was talking about because I definitely don’t disagree how it’s been guilty of setting these trends. 9 times out of 10 whenever I mention the potential of IIDX crossovers into DDR, I’m referring to songs from tricoro and earlier. Tricoro was definitely a starting point to the era it’s currently in but, for me personally, I’ve been genuinely disappointed with every release, in one way or another, since SPADA came out. I still follow and play IIDX since I still have access to older songs that I’d rather play, plus I know (or hope) that there will be at least 5 or 6 songs from each new installment that I’ll end up really liking, plus it may also introduce me to an artist and/or style of music I’m not familiar with. That’s what made me fall in love with BEMANI in the first place years ago. It exposed me to SO many sounds I have never heard before! Now, so much of it just blends together and isn’t even surprising anymore.

I know nothing about what you’ve mentioned regarding Twitter; I’ve always been a super casual DDR/IIDX player and never cared about stuff like that. Why people choose to be that petty over something like that, I’ll never understand. But at the end of the day, I fully realize that we’re in a completely different era with BEMANI as a whole and what its target audience is. I just feel like, when you know you have the ability to provide a truly wide range of musical expression, but just choose not to, it makes absolutely no sense.

Some of my points were more general speaking too tbf, not aimed towards you in particular.
Also yeah, KONAMI chooses to homogenize the song direction for every BEMANI game to follow their best performing. Plus they want to compete with SEGA's rhythm games so that doesn't help either with the abundance of vocaloid licenses

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I gotcha. I definitely thought some of what you said was directed towards me lol, so my bad for making that assumption. Even still, though, I only viewed it as healthy debate. I don’t know too much about SEGA’s music games but from what I DO know? They do seem to be HEAVY with vocaloid stuff.

Seconding 1, 3 and 4 from this post earlier in the thread. And maybe 5 and 6, too.

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No SEGA or Konami game will ever come close to the AMAZING (and I can't stress this enough) song selection we got in the WACCA games.... It just felt so fresh, so modern, so polished.... Gosh I miss WACCA so much!