Old player recently returned - DDR A has me leaving with mixed feelings...

I also hate how the online system means BEMANI has absolute power to remove a song at any time. I really miss If You Were Here, which was my favorite Dancemania track featured in DDR.
Ah well. You can't win 'em all.
It's not all bad, though; thanks to the guys on this website, pretty much every song from the DDR series has been immortalized in StepMania. I know not everyone is keen about using a simulator instead of a real DDR machine, but it's the next best thing. The only other option is to find an older 'offline' mix that had those same songs.

I haven't regularly played DDR in a while, but I'm really enjoying DDR A. The best part of it for me is playing on an actual DDR cabinet, since I literally do not know where another DDR cab even is in this state anymore. And in an arcade that should probably know how to actually take care of it! Knowing a decent cab is nearby is seriously all I care about.

Also in general Konami has to remove the licensed songs they remove so they'd be gone in the next DDR game anyway... given there will be a next release.

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I'm ok with licensed songs being removed, but I am not ok with Konami Orignals being removed unless if they have a good reason (like Dynamite Rave, BeForU, naguero, and the 2 Silent Hill songs).
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On topic: Have you checked out any other mix after EXTREME but before A?
And what do you like about the newer songlists?

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Also without the updates we would of been stuck with terrible step timing and amongst other problems when A first came out

Kinda like what happened with supernova AC release

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I prefer the newer, lol. More songs, more features, more fun.

As an old-time player myself, I, too prefer the older songs from the pre-SN era. However, I do like the newer, more challenging stepcharts of recent entries. Looking back, I think a lot of pre-SN songs could be given ITG-style new charts, as i've been hearing some 24th and 32nds in certain songs that KONAMI would of never thought of adding in because it would of been "too hard" back then. This was during a time when DDR wouldn't implement anything smaller than a 16th note unless if you're named bag.

I'm glad that when SuperNOVA came along, they finally upped the difficulty and max BPM of boss songs to 400. More non-boss 10 footers came along too (Xepher). Then X came along and practically ruined DDR (urban theme, sh*tty new announcer, cheesy taglines that would embarrass anybody at the arcade, mediocre/generic/forgettable songlist). Shock arrows weren't too bad, but they seemed limited compared to ITG's mines at the time. Then X2 came and it was the best thing to happen to DDR since EXTREME (/opinion). X2 was such a massive upgrade compared to X in every possible/conceivable way. Especially the song list. X3 was kinda meh, and banked too heavily on nostalgia (Dancemania revivals and new remixes based off of older songs) and trying to win back the older crowd.

One thing I don't like about the newer mixes is that they nerfed the "Good" judgment so it can be added to your combo. In the olden days, there used to be two judgments that were "good" (Perfect, Great), and three "bad" (Good, Almost, Boo/Miss). And now it's four (Marvelous, Perfect, Great, Good) and one (Miss). They should of at least kept "Almost" to try and balance out the good/bad judgments, IMO.

I highly doubt that DDR will ever return to it's MAX-EXTREME glory days, but DDR A is a step in the right direction. (again, /opinion) At least it's a vast improvement over X (*shudders*).

Yeah we can all agree that X was the worst game evah lol

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Essentially every BEMANI music game by the release of DDR 2013 had Goods combo, so I think they figured "why not do this in DDR as well?"

Reasons for that aside, I think allowing Goods to add to your combo allowed for more players to attempt (and enjoy) the harder stepcharts Konami has been putting out as of late, especially if something had to be unlocked on EXTRA STAGE. I can definitely see why some players don't like the fact that they did this. I personally like it though because it allows newer players who are struggling with a certain chart to know whether they timed something completely off (and got a Good) or if they missed an arrow entirely, without having to pay really close attention to judgments when they're trying to learn the chart in question itself. I believe the "Almost" judgment (which actually hurts your dance gauge) is one of the more important reasons hardly anyone enjoyed an SN2 boss chart with a lot of jumps in them. I think more people are willing to try them out nowadays since they relaxed the judgments.

Now, changing the scoring system so that Goods add to your score, and Greats still add more than they did before? I can see how why some of us complained about that (Score tracker, incomparability, etc.). Some of us made another account just to keep track of scores separately. From a newer player's gaming perspective, though, I can also see how it could encourage someone new to the game to at least keep trying to hit the arrows (if anything) rather than be completely discouraged when they can't time something at first, since Goods award some points now. Of course, this is nothing more than my opinion, but I guess a game I prefer is one that fosters learning for newer players.

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Plus it feels weird for such a postive judgement like GOOD to break your combo

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Yeah, I always found 1-life funny in that manner:

[attempt begins]
Good-FAILED.
[attempt ends]
Yeah, that was good.

As funny as that was, it's partially responsible for making things horrendously hard on any chart which requires difficult foot movements, as some of them are hard to perform with perfect precision. Unless your name is FEFEMZ (i.e. unless you're a machine) hard charts would become near-impossible to combo.

Arcade-wise, no. Extreme JP was the last one I ever played before I stopped playing DDR, or toned it way down. I moved to Korea and had to live in an apartment, and on top of that, PIU was and is all over the place.

Console-wise, I played around with DDR Party Collection for PS2, and that one is more of a compilation/best hits kind of home mix.

As for what I like about the newer songs...keep in mind that to me, "new" means just about everything from Supernova (I think?) all the way up to A. One of the first songs I instantly fell in love with was Brilliant 2U AKBK Mix - I love that remix and if DDR ever had some kind of play count statistic, that song would easily be in my top 10 most played.

When it comes to music for DDR, I tend to go for EDM-style or happy hardcore-type songs. A bunch of Ryu's and kors-k's music falls in that category easily. I'm definitely not a fan of the songs with the cutesy female vocals. Right now, I'm trying to unlock "Poochie" by kors-k via the Extra Savior event, and failing miserably still. The BPM changes still catch me off guard.

If you're struggling to unlock Poochie, you can keep playing other songs and wait until you get to EXTRA STAGE Level 3, so that you are guaranteed to unlock it even if you fail. It's so much less stressful to practice it once unlocked.

Unless, of course, you like the challenge of trying to pass it on LIFE4 and are willing to keep trying. Then more power to you.

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Erm, for trivia's sake and to emphasize how meaningless the word "literally" has become, it's more like...

- Remote updating: Somewhere in the X series? DDR 2013 at the latest.
- Goods keeping your combo: pretty sure this was 2013, earlier if we count console versions
- Shock arrows: X shock arrows that were actually fun: X2
- e-Amusement: forever ago

Strictly gameplay-wise, I'm actually not sure what was new in DDR A. Scoring and charts aside, the big changes were the song list interface interface being bulldozed, a bucket of shiny new songs (well, as with any mix), and DUDE IT'S FINALLY OVERSEAS AGAIN.

Unless your criteria was "for the first time overseas" then yeah, most of that is new... legitimately, anyway.

Also, welcome to the X scale. Glad this release inspired someone to play again and that you're having fun. :3

also BG dancers are more lovely, but you missed the cut ins that half of the players didn't like

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As far as the list of features that are new to DDR A goes if you've never seen anything in between EXTREME and A:

-eAMUSEMENT support: Added in SN, though never overseas until A
-Marvelous Timing used regularly instead of only in courses: SN2
-Difficulty curves that go kind of nuts, you have SN and SN2 to blame
-The "out of 1,000,000 points" scoring system, with grades being entirely dependent on score: SN2
-Combo medals for whenever you get a full combo: SN2
-The new 20-foot scale (of which the highest is still 19), introduced in DDR X
-Shock Arrows: DDR X
-Fast/Slow markers on arrows: DDR X2
-Removal of course mode (one thing I'm disappointed by): DDR 2013
-Goods keeping combo: DDR 2013
-Scoring system total rework (grades all have + and - now): DDR A

I should point out that you should definitely take advantage of the new foot rating scale to more precisely determine your most appropriate difficulty range. Try and see how high the scale could go in a song before you can't for the life of you clear a song, then sort by difficulty and play songs that are around 3-5 levels lower than that and practice those until you can consistently clear them with an AA+ or over 95% in score, and then slowly work your way up past the levels improving your scores. This means it's now much easier to know which songs push you to your limits, which ones help you warm up, and which ones slowly help you improve your accuracy and score. I personally have cleared as hard as 17, gotten a AA+ as hard as 15, AAA'd a 12 and PFC'd an 8. Knowing this helps me determine which difficulty levels to shoot for depending on what I am aiming for.

My opinion of DDR A: I never played it, but it's kinda nothing more than just an arcade game, just like the last few arcade games that were released. I'm actually quite shocked that Bad Apple and Night of Nights made it in the game. I wouldn't be surprised of Luka Luka Night Fever makes it in this game either. Also can someone tell me what the Extra Stage is in DDR A?

My opinion of the WHOLE DDR series: It downfalled since DDR X2. It doesn't help that there hasn't been a console release since 2011. Then again, DDR X came after DDR SuperNOVA which was probably my FAVORITE era of DDR. SuperNOVA 1 and 2 were spectacular song lists. Then in 2008, DDR X comes out with this new foot scale ratings. At first, I was like "What the hell? Is there a lot of actual 10-footers in the game?!" Then I realized it's no longer the classic scale. Anyways, that's besides the point, yeah the SuperNOVA series were my favorites, but I'll admit DDR X1 was a good song list too. This was the last DDR to have some great house music and dancemania licenses ON the licenses. Also Nadeshiko Rock and Horatio debuted here too. Then comes DDR X2 (the arcade one), where J-pop and revived DDR 2nd-3rd mix songs were the licenses. I'm not calling the music bad, but "it was at that moment where Konami knew....they fucked up." In my opinion, the Replicant D-Action was a stupid fucking idea. I'm sorry. Why not just have all songs playable, maybe except for the Extra and Encore Extra Stages? Then DDR X3, DDR '13, DDR '14, and DDR A are just arcade games because yeah. No more console releases, which honestly pisses me off. I'd love to play Elemental Creation and Chinese Snowy Dance in my living room, but nope. Anyways, cutting this paragraph short, DDR is still my favorite franchise (along with Sonic and WWE), and I'll always love its games, but at the same time, DDR at its best was the mid 2000's.

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Er...DDR X has J-pop as well.......
And DDR X2 also has some new western songs if you did not like the J-pop.

But anyways yeah I see your problems.
I agree with you on 2013 and 2014.

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When you are selecting the song for your extra stage, you'll see "Extra Exclusive" songs and "Extra Savior" songs. The songs in the Extra Exclusive folder can only be played on extra stage, as the title suggests. Songs in the "Extra Savior" folders are from past BEMANI events, and if you are able to pass them on extra stage, you can unlock them for normal play. However, if you're unable to make it through the whole song with only 4 lives, you can still unlock it by playing it multiple times on extra stage because each attempt you make fills a progress bar towards unlocking the song, and if you play it enough, you'll fill the progress bar and unlock it. Additionally, if you play enough times in a single session (7 rounds or more), for any round you play after that, you will automatically fully fill the progress bar of any Extra Savior song you play regardless of whether you pass or not, so it's a free unlock at that point.

That song in Standard mode is definitely unlockable for me at my level, I'm sure. I want to save the Level 3 unlock for a different song - either S!ck or TECH-NOID

Sure thing then! Keep in mind you'll only get , and if you do that. If you ever want to unlock and play Poochie on though (either mode), Level 3 EXTRA STAGE is your best friend! You will have to unlock both modes separately as well.

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