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

.. Be on my podcast? ^^;

I'd love to do an episode on the Stillwind DDR games, but it seems very hard to find anyone who has fond memories of them.

"Stillwind DDR games" means...

Ultramix, Universe, SuperNOVA 2 and X.

He obvously shaped DDR X2 and the Hottest Party games into what they are now, but I think those are the quintessential "Stillwind Games", that really stand out from the rest of the series.

Universe and Ultramix definitely stand out for me. Not in a positive way. Please don't crucify me.

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I know, right? I can understand not liking the less-than-optimum game engines, but it also seems like people regard the songlists with a "this is different and therefore terrible" attitude. Dancemania was great, but it's not literally the only valid source of licensed music out there, people. I suppose not everyone's as fanatical about variety as I am, though.

This is, of course, where I reveal the depth of my ignorance by saying, "Podcast? What podcast?"

Since you asked nicely, I'll let you live to see another day.

http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewthread.php?threadid=4357&page=2#p223415
http://zenius-i-vanisher.com/v5.2/viewthread.php?threadid=4357&page=4#p227157

We should get the ball rolling again next week, provided Max comes back from the dead, and the website gets finished, so we can start promoting it, and have something to show.

Bless your heart Jess.

That's me right there. I'm like one of those ravenous Final Fantasy fanboys who scoff at X-2, XII, and XIII, that's how I compare it atleast (for the record, I like X-2, XII, and especially XIII). But I can't say I don't like variety, I'm probably the biggest pop'n music fan in the West Indies and pop'n is all about variety of music. I just find the Xbox brand games, too bizarre for me, in the context of DDR.

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;___;

I'm sowwy, it's just that there's been some stuff that has come up in my life that has kind of hindered my internet/computer time. I've done my research and i am ready for recording whenever you feel like Tyma

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Well, I just recorded a WoW podcast, so the obvious time to talk about dancing to 200BPM music seems RIGHT NOW, MAXY BABY

But it's 11:56pm here...TIME ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONES *rage*

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I just personally never liked songs being split between different consoles. Because I've never bought an Xbox/360 I could never enjoy the Unleashed titles (and Dancing Stage Universe?), and of course this was made worse because I think that Unleashed/Dancing Stage Universe had (at least slightly) different songlists to Ultramix/Universe.

Without Stepmania I would NEVER have had a chance to play any of those songs. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that certain songs/licences are exclusive to each game meaning that you might never get to play a favourite (or for them to become a favourite) because you don't have access to the console it's on. I believe that one of the Unleashed titles had two really good Sugarbabes songs (Push the Button and Hole in the Head if I remember right) while SuperNOVA CS was left with Bruised... a non-single and not a very strong choice.

It's this polarising nature within DDR which has always annoyed me compared to games like Guitar Hero.

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It's just the perks of having one console over the other, I guess. Although I'm personally sad that the HP4 got Never Gonna Give You Up while X2 didn't. That was like the only license I looked forward to that year. xP But nobody's gonna die without their favorite song.

Not that similarity/sharing among consoles is a bad thing... it just costs more, apparently...? Naoki kinda implied it... Maybe just arcade-accurate games should be cross-platform and everything else can just be their own whatever DDRs. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but then the Wii can retain its funky modes while the PS3 and Xbox can do whatever they want on things like 2010.

But when something like II comes out, it does suck to screw everyone else out of a game that is actually good. Part considering that since they also took out the extra Wii modes and that a chunk of people are playing with converters anyway , it doesn't seem to be ridiculously hard to make it for other consoles... alas, I don't know squat about production costs, so...

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But by skimping out on licensing Konami are only watering down the games even more. Surely it would be better to build some kind of standardised brand than just randomly licensing and releasing games and hoping that they sell?

Also II/HP5 is only really so good from the POV of fans. It would seem that critics don't see/review games to the same standard we do.

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Licenses will only move so many copies.

Sales figures are moving up again for the third week

Week 1: 764
Week 2: 1,800
Week 3: 2,648

Hopefully this continues.

DDR II is way better in all respects but Konami still doesn't put effort into home licenses like they used to. They're getting the right idea with full versions of songs and music videos... but if you compare a song that's on both DDR and Just Dance or Dance Central Konami's effort looks stale and boring and kind of an afterthought each and every time.

Critics don't understand or care much about Konami Originals. If it's not on the radio it's not real music. We know better than that but the majority of gamers don't.

Edit: And it's good to see sales steadily rising instead of peaking early and steadily falling.

Also worth pointing out that sales figures are now similar to how Hottest Party 3 was selling in the beginning and that game ended up selling over 400,000 copies worldwide.

Was HOTTEST PARTY 3 also released in the late Summer? I think Thanksgiving in the US and Christmas worldwide is going to help this game a lot. Despite what I said above not everybody has the money for a Kinect so DDR II might look like the next best thing.

HP3 was released in late October while DDR II was released in early October.

So then it'll be interesting to see if DDR II can match HP3's numbers.

So I just got my Mario Mix pad shipped to me.

That thing feels thicker than the Wii mat unless my mind is playing tricks on me...

(Yay Double)