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

The third game is a huge step up from the second game, and therefore not entirely terrible.

I've played the first and third, and have the second and Summer Party (DLC) what I can say is:
First to second: While similar, major improvements with the gameplay.
Second to third: OMG. Actually, it differed so much that it's like you're playing another game. The interface is drastically improved, scoring is different, and different modes (including unlockables).

Although we should use the JD 3 thread for more discussion on this topic.
http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewthread.php?threadid=4358&page=1

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Having a play around with the string file with a hex editor and I found these:



Seems like those two songs were part of mix but were axed for some reason.

I wonder if the few X2 KOs they excluded will end up showing up on DDRIII (if it's even financially viable to make), or if Konami just still gets off on picking a few from each mix that they'll adamantly refuse to give us. Everyone needs a hobby to get them by, I guess, even when they're otherwise doing a relatively kickass job this year.

I meant long-term. I was referring to the previous couple years of really tiny mixes. I guess it makes far more sense if you change "even worse" to, um, something obviously more correct like "again". I've already mentioned my approval of DDRII's songlist! </delayed reaction>

I'm American and yet I actually prefer British English, which probably makes me look all kinds of weird to people sometimes.

Konami don't own the rights to the lyrics of Shining, and both songs were japan-produced commissions that they might not own outright. It probably wasn't financially viable to include those songs in an international release, since they might be paying money to use them.

I like the HP5 cover, but maybe they shouldn't have derped up her face so much. Haha. I like that art style, though.

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I'd actually take the subtly terrifying HP5 cover art over the almost-indistinguishable-from-any-other-recent-US-mix DDRII cover. At least it's, y'know, interesting. Relatively.

And you can't really blame the chick for looking so derpy. Wouldn't ANYONE look a bit off if they had a gigantic arrow stuck in the top of their head? Honestly, given the circumstances, she's holding it together better than any of you probably would!

I was gonna make some asshole joke like, "I guess that money was better spent on Vanilla Ice", but who am I kidding, I can't even pretend to go along with the premise that he was anything but dirt cheap.

I was kind of hoping for Wh1te Ro5e, so I'm glad it got into the game in some form. Not a form that's playable, mind you, but still. Wonder why it and Shining were scrapped?

Probably because of lack of disc space.

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The game only takes up 3.9 GB, there's plenty of space left for more data.

¯\(º o)/¯

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So white rose was going to be in DDR II?

There's room for about 100 more songs, if they wanted them.

I'm pretty sure it was licensing issues like what Tyma said. Although I am still a bit surprised Wh1te Ro5e did not make it in. Though I am really glad to see that they were at least planning to put these in.

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Too many inclusion of unnecessary junk/dummy files in DDR II disc is what makes it lack of space, and they mostly are found in sound folder. If they are not included, they could have added at least 40 songs.

Are all DDR X2 characters present in DDR II?

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Rinon (as well as her sisters) and Geisha-Zukin among others are absent in DDR II.

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Oh, how controversial. You call yourself a patriot man?

Most Americans I know seem to resent the fact that people from the UK would like their games translated into British English as though we find their variation of the language inferior or something. I just like having game text in my own language whenever possible, is that really such an insult?


I really doubt this. Heck, even Kingdom Hearts II could fit between 100-200 songs in a specialised compression format on a PS2 disc, and that's not counting all the other game data. Granted, Konami want to retain better audio quality, but these discs are rarely ever completely full.

That's not even counting the option for dual-layer discs if Konami needed to. I doubt that they ever would, but still.

Why do you think that Konami always used to put minutes of music? It sounds more impressive that way as though "over 90 minutes of music" is somehow incredibly massive.

Heck, taking Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock, for example, if we say that every song was four minutes on average then all 93 songs would total out at 372 minutes of music, if my calculations are correct.

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I don't know why Konami can't just pad out the songlist with KOs (with considerations to KOs that are licensed in a way, ala Dynamite Rave). We've seen them do this on two Japanese Console releases (SN2 and it's bigger than usual revival list, and also DDR X), why can't they have bigger revival lists for American games (we're talking revivals since it's very unlikely Konami would license a lot of songs for a DDR game nowadays).

But then again, we don't even know how much space all the other assets (like the stepcharts, banners, announcer files and whatnot) take up, but I don't think they'd consume a lot.

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Or just get with the times and offer proper DLC for all?

The best way I can see DDR competing is maybe going for £20-30 game instead and including around 40 licensed tracks (with short and long versions) and 30 KO's (with possible long versions), then offer DLC between games including licenses and revivals. Then advertise like CRAZY. 40 licences would be enough to keep the casual crowd happy and would offer more of a chance to include what they might like and the KO's can pad out the rest of the songlist and keep us "hardcore" fans happy. The DLC could keep up ALL happy.

It would just be nice to have a more centralised experience rather than Konami's random whims, but I feel like a broken record now since I've probably repeated this far too much already.

Of course none of this will change the fact that DDR being tied to a extra peripheral while Just Dance (on the Wii at least which is its main platform anyway) uses the Wii's own technology. DDR is going to struggle either way; everyone who bought DDR to fill that "fun dance game" space have moved over to Just Dance because it's easier and cheaper. It's going to be hard to win them back now.

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