History of the Japanese DDR Scene/Community

Apparently DDR Universe's song select screen was based on that preliminary 4thMIX screenshot? Didn't know that.
(love the pictures, even if they're small)

Comes from this video, but the audio was removed.
Most likely it's just the edit from the 2ndMIX nonstop megamix.

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Oh, haha. Forgot about that one. Thanks.

Okay, Revision 25 is out now. I will need to add something about Festival and the RIZE tie-in in the next revision. Some more photos added this time.

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Was the Zukin Wars not a big event? It seemed really cool when I read about it on other sites, but I'm surprised its not here.

Maybe in the next revision then.

Also, nice, uhmm, book? I definitely see this one being a book/diary of one persons accounts on the growth of DDR. Once you iron out everything, maybe it will see the light of day officially (as in, from a printing press, not someone's printer) printed as hard copy.

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I'm actually on Zukin wars (from Supernova 2); it should be in the update tonight. It was a fairly big event for its time (something new and different from the usual IR), though the players were placed on one of the three teams at random. There was some concern since just about all of the hardcore players seemed to be on the Red Team, but in the end, every team won once and the Yellow Team won twice (hooray for me on the yellow team)

Yeah, on the ... book?, I wasn't sure how long this would be in the end. By the time I add the Zukin Wars and the home versions (Str!ke and Festival) and then the RIZE movie tie-in, and whatever else I might have forgotten to add, it should be over 100 pages.

Legally, I think Konami could sue the pants off me if I had it officially "published", but there are places that will print up a book from PDF file(s) so I might be able to get away with that.

DJ Tomoe> On the launch of those 2 PS2 games, the launch parties themselves were what people wanted to go to. The games themselves weren't received terribly or anything, but the reason players went to these launch events was for the high profile guests and the party/event itself (there was also a contents at the Festival Launch party for autographed merchandise, which is always a draw). The RIZE cross promotion was a little bit different.

Also, Club Velfarre was a premier club at one time, but it was on the way out popularity-wise. It actually closed down in ... 2007 I think?

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I didn't want to say "writing" (in the sense that you wrote it), because it sounded like vandalism on a wall.

And I know its a different thing, but wasn't there a guide book that talked about being a master at pokemon. The book didn't look like official Nintendo merchandise.Forget I even said that.

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I wasn't going to take offense, anyways. This started as just some essay but I kept writing and writing, and then just kept adding content and now it is getting quite large. It was supposed to be mostly about the community/scene but I ended up putting in game specifics (I wonder where I draw the line at this point).

Anyways, I have some more content in, I'm touching up the part on the Festival launch (I actually have quite a bit to say about this) and then I should be able to get it up tonight.

(I also feel slightly bad for not mentioning the RIZE cross promotion launch in Shibuya, though the movie really wasn't that popular. I actually did see it, though, and for what it is worth, between this movie and "Back Dancers", I'd take this every time.)

If the Revision on the front title page says 26, that is the newest revision

EDIT> Make that revision 27. I added a quick quick blurt on the closing of Club Velfarre

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I read like 30 pages yesterday. From the middle to the end.
I already read the first 15 pages 2-3 days ago, so i have still 1/4 left.

I was dead tired yesterday but couldn't resist to read more and more about all of this.
Sure i knew some random stuff but i learned A LOT.

One exemple of good photo that you added recently, is the first one : Yasu, Take and yoursefl.
Since you're talking about you and those player, it's good to add a picture.
Also, some people might not have ever seen them or you.

I like how you're collecting more and more content (pictures) for this. When i saw Yazu's AAA on Max300, i was... i don't know how to explain this. This picture is just awesome.
And all the story with it, how mind changes ect.

I love what you're are doing with this. Imo, you should ask help on some of your friend for stuff like design.
A good looking book will be perfect will all the information that you putted in it.
But for now it doesn't really matter, since you're still working on writing this.

After i read the 2nd part, i feel a bit less geek. I must have a part of japanease chromosomes somewhere because there is so many thing that you describe that i loved. The way people are with others (checking if nobody was 'in-line" before rushing into the cabinet and put a token), the unlock-race (oh man, THIS must have been awesome), "whoring" songs (is sometimes things that i do) and all sort of other things.
In France, there is not so much hardcore ddr players. And if you want to try to be one, sometimes you can't because of the location of your nearest arcade. But french players have some potential, don't missunderstand me. But for many of them, they plays the same way : mostly the hard songs on DDR and ITG stuff. And oh well, they are 10 times better than me at least on those.
My point is, there is not so much people who try to play all the song in / at the arcade in France.
That's a pretty commum thing in japan but sometimes i'm wondering if people doesn't watch me like this : O_o Because i play all sort of songs and i mak that kind of list : List of song (with scores) that i could only play on DDR Extreme (AC) (i only put link because i don't want to brake the page. Image is only 500ko but it's a bit large.)
What i want to say, is that i'm missing this spirit. Spirit, that i found when i read your essai. Thanks you.

Oh btw, i have a random question : Is there still a language barrier beetween japanease/rest of the world. I mean, the game still seems really popular in japan, so japanease players must have some forums/sites. I'd love to see more of those players on a place like ZIv and talk with them

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Aaron, are you going to develop more about the removed licenses from AC, or it's just going to be that tiny tidbit of info?

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Aaron, I'm not entirely sure how the 4th Mix AC engine works when it comes to song selection. I think that you were given a portion of the entire song list depending on the character that you chose. I'm not even sure if this was on 4th Mix, 4th Mix Plus, or a CS. Do you think it would be appropriate to add that kind of information into your paper? I would love to learn more about the game play in its early days.

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At the start of the game, you choose a "genre" of music to play from :

Covers & Classics
Pops Side A
Pops Side B
Euro / Speed / Rave
Konami Original A
Konami Original B
Special Selection
Players' Best

The game then limits you to choosing from 30 songs for that credit. The songs (and characters you play as) are based on what genre you choose.

4th Mix Plus handily adds an "All Music" genre at the bottom of the list, which contains every song in the game.

Ooooh, that's a pretty neat system. I guess they tried reviving that type of sorting in SuperNova AC, which would have been interesting to see how the current songlist would be sorted.

Was it also the same for 3rd Mix, or did 3rd Mix simply have a select a song interface that we currently have?

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Also, 4thMIX CS has an option to turn All Music mode on

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3rd Mix only let you select from the 50ish new songs, on either Basic or Trick mode.

On the title screen, you could enter a code to either enter one of two secret modes :

Step Step Revolution
Can only choose from the 50ish new songs, and play them all on Maniac. You can't change the difficilty to Basic or Trick.

2nd Mix Mode (I think it's called this)
You can select all of the songs on 1st Mix or 2nd Mix, on Basic, Trick or Maniac. You can't select any of the new songs.

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I some more to update anyways since I made a few small mistakes and need to add something to the Zukin Wars part anyways

PanStyle> Thanks so much for that feedback. That's interesting on the French player habits. There are Japanese players that venture into English forums, but they are rare as I mentioned in the essay. KK (kkmax) is about the most adventurous of them all. Yasu tried years ago, but got discouraged easily when he couldn't keep up with anything. Oh, and yes, I will need help with the design once all the details are hammered out.

DJ Tomoe> I don't know that much about the removed licenses, actually, except for "Money". I didn't want to make the specifics of each DDR mix the focus of the essay, but I can add what I do know (or can find out) where I can. Do you have any information to add on that in the meantime or should I just poke around until I find someone that knows more on this?

silenttype> Again, I don't want to focus too much on the specifics of the game engine for each mix, but the part about splitting up the song list into categories (and having the player only able to select from that group) until 4th+ (or the home version) is a valid point. I'll add something about that.

Everyone else> Thanks for the info. and feedback. I'm working away at this.

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Since there seems to be a demand about very tangentially related things, perhaps those can be side-projects/new documents for if you ever feel like writing about them.

There are a few Japanese players who have signed up but most of them rarely post. It's very brave of them though, I'd be totally lost on a Japanese forum, especially when I'm sure English to Japanese translations are as sketchy as Japanese to English. BROSONI has an account here and I think he posted once, back in the SuperNOVA2 days, but that's it.

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Would the banner wheel be replaced by the "CD Jukebox" when this happens? I really really miss the CDs.

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In 4th plus? Arcade? It was still the banners. I think the home version went with the CDs in that mode actually, but I'll have to pop the game in my PS1 to find out.

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Nope, it's the exact same interface as 4th Mix.

I think either 4th CS or Extra Mix had some weird CD thing if you turned Event Mode on, or something? Or was that Konamix? I can't remember CS mixes very well :{

In Wales, there's a DDR 4th Mix and a DDR 4th Mix Plus machine within 20 minutes of each other. When you play one after the other, you really start to notice how small the song selections actually were.