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

Your opinion doesn't change the fact that the quality has gone downhill.

^ Was that directed at me?

---

Yes.

Didn't Konami hint at the Wii being the sole console for CS releases, or was I dreaming that part up?

---

If by hint you mean stop releasing console DDR games on every other platform...

That's exactly it, AeronPeryton. That's exactly it.

They'll be releasing games on whatever system that has been shown to be profitable for DDR. So far, the Wii has likely been the most profitable system of this generation of consoles for them as, despite whatever reservations many in the community have about them, the Wii games have sold very well.

The Universe series sold moderately well, nothing amazing, but enough to keep the series chugging alone until DDR 2010 came about and killed any momentum that the series on the Xbox 360 had. Same story on the PS3. There was legitimate demand on the PS3, but no one wanted what they chugged out.

I don't think that they've given up on other systems, but I do think that they are sticking to just the Wii this year in order to step back and see what works. This year they're mixing in more hard songs and more KOs that are not traditional Wii DDR songs (X2 KOs) to see if they can find a balance between offering a game that casual gamers will enjoy and that hardcore DDR gamers can also have fun on.

I thought A Geisha's Dream and On The Night Of A Still Wind had good charts too. /late response.


The arcades seem quite overrated to me. D8 I don't see any pluses about having more songs to choose from. That's really the only difference I see between console and arcade DDRs. That, and arcades cost money (tokens) to play, with a certain number of songs per tokens. So limiting! D8; I'd rather play all the songs I want, for free. If I feel like trying different songs, I'll change games. Simple.

And I may not have been in DDR since way back when, but I first played around 2008, with Hottest Party as my first game. 4 years isn't much, but in that time I've come to really love how the Wii games turned out. I didn't think I would stick around for the next game, but each game always showed a major improvement over the previous one, so I kept staying. So far, I haven't been disappointed.

I don't feel like looking through the POV of a "veteran arcade player" if their definition of a good game is one that is EXACTLY like the arcades, instead of something new like the Wii games did. o.o;

In which case I'm confused. You are responding as if I have been shown to disagree with your sentiment, when in fact it was my question of current game quality that garnered so many responses disagreeing with what I said, and bring people out of the woodwork to raise their own points.

It seems strange that you'd respond that way when we seem to be very much in agreement.

---

The Ruffage Remix? On Expert? I'm glad it wasn't a complete waste and someone enjoys it, but honestly it's one of the worst charts in all DDR history.

---

The Ruffage remix on expert had to be the worst thing in that mix.

But there shows how different our views are.

You poor child. Playing at the arcade is a COMPLETELY different experience than playing at home, even on a metal pad.

The Wii games have always gotten an undeserved bad rap in the DDR community as they are clearly geared towards an audience that is NOT the hardcore DDR community, but they are really pretty enjoyable once you actually pop in and play them.

HP1 I think might be the most underrated CS game in the history of DDR. Some of the covers are really well done and many of them try to do something with the song other than "try to make it sound as close to the original as possible" (Look at the original Call on Me and the cover from HP1).

The KOs were very "cutesy", even by DDR standards. But they're catchy and for the most part have pretty good vocalists. The charts in the game are...well, variable. You've got some good, some OK, and some iffy ones. But there's really not any HORRIBLE ones (Like a SILVER DREAM/CRAZY LOVE kind of horrible).

HP2 actually improved the tracklist from HP1, mainly because the KO artists were a little more diverse rather than having almost everything done by NAOKI. Personally, I felt the license list was a bit worse than HP1s though. Obviously what killed HP2 was the stepcharts with their horrendous rhythms and/or awkward step placements.

HP3 has probably been the best of the Wii series thus far. All the licenses got changed to master tracks (which has good points and bad points), and overall the licenses were fairly good fits for DDR. Unfortunately, many of the licenses suffered from severe understepping (I swear, some charts look like they used to be harder charts, but just had a lot of the steps taken out). Unfortunately, this started a trend where Konami started to absolutely hate making licenses 8s and absolutely refused to make any 9s. IIRC, HP3 had a total TWO licenses that were rated 8s and one of them (So What) was clearly a 7. But the KOs were pretty good and they had some pretty good steps and it had a larger songlist than HP1 and HP2.

DDR 2010 was a disaster of a game. It was basically HP2 without the good songlist. Licenses were very strange choices for DDR and many of the KOs simply felt like rejects from HP3/X2. Stepcharts were just as atrocious as HP2.

So...there's clearly a mixed bag when it comes to the Wii games, but there's definitely some good stuff out there if you look for it. We've not seen enough of DDR II to know where it's headed, but I'm excited about the return of hh.com artists and the license choices so far don't seem to be horrible (Goldfrapp and Spice Girls? Yes please!).

The main problem that I have with the Wii games is this, pretty much. The DDR community doesn't take DDR Wii that seriously and, therefore, Konami thinks that DDR Wii isn't a "serious" series. It's a vicious cycle. Personally, I like seeing a more arcade port-y game coming to the Wii because it's breaking that trend. Sure, the Wii is getting getting a very "cutesy" theme like it always has, but the game itself isn't just about aesthetics. While the bells and whistles of a DDR game is nice to toy around with from time to time, the main meat of the game is in the songlist and stepcharts, which is (one of the places) where DDR2010 went wrong. Sure. It might not have the dancers that you want. And sure. It might have a few things that not everyone can agree on. But just give it a chance, it won't turn out to be a terrible game if we already having things like Possession and Sky Is The Limit on and are promised more.

(Also, I don't know why HP2 gets such hate... While there are a few stepcharts that do suck, a good number of them are personal favorites of mine. Reach the Sky, I Want Your Love, Silver Dream...)

I don't see why Konami can't just make two separate mixes each year - a Wii mix much in line with what HP1 was (a large license list, some interesting KOs and remixes, and maybe a few revivals like what they did with 2010) and an arcade port like Japan gets with a full songlist, a few of the Hottest Part licenses/KOs to throw Americans a bone, some revivals, and DLC. This can't take too much effort. Harmonix made a game every year for a few years with MUCH MORE CONTENT than what DDR gets for about 5 years. They've kept up weekly DLC and provided us with quality charts. Why can't Konami attempt to do the same? :/

The Wii mixes aren't a bad thing in the slightest. They're just bad as a replacement for legitimate arcade ports :/

---

Absolutely.

DDR2010 was the first game in an era where veteran DDR players didn't have a PS2 game that was obviously aimed at them. Instead, we got that PS3 abomination, but with the song packs it's easy to see that it was meant to fill that void. Now, DDR II is the only release, so it needs to, for the first time, appeal to all, as lofty a goal that is. I hope they succeed, I haven't had anything to play since X2, and even then it was more of a weak send-off to the strong PS2 series (which, in retrospect, I look very fondly upon, though they were always enjoyable).

---

I would dispute that. Considering that many songs from HP1 and HP2 have been ported to the AC as well as almost all the KOs from HP3/DDR 2010 being ported, I'd say they take it pretty seriously. Stuff like Disney Grooves and Winx Club on the other hand...


Well for one, Rock Band is much more popular than DDR is right now, as DDR has already peaked its popularity (Although there's nothing saying it couldn't come back and start its life cycle over again, like the HP series did to DDR). Thus, they can spend a lot of money on their games because they can expect big sales.

That being said, I really would like to see them release a proper PS3/360 game with proper DLC. For as bad as DDR PS3 was, it did have a pretty nice DLC selection and judging by the CD covers we found on the disc, they planned a lot more.

But what stopped them from releasing more? They're KOs, I assume they're a lot more easier and cheaper to use as DLC than licenses.
How much does it cost to put DLC for a game in PS3/360, anyway?

---

DLC has to be submitted to Sony/Microsoft for testing to ensure that the DLC doesn't mess up with the game or system in any way. After the testing is done by the first party systems, they give the "ok" to release the DLC.

I'm not even sure if there is a cost to put up DLC. I only know that games that support DLC are only given a certain amount of "slots" on a week by week(?) basis. Popularity of the game can also play a factor. In Harmonix' case, they are given about 9-10 slots per week, and only because it's guaranteed profit, I think. I wouldn't know how many slots Sony/Microsoft would give to a DDR game. I'd guess 4, if anything.

---

Am I the only one out there who's not picky about charts? D8; It doesn't matter to me, the song and how fun the chart is matters more to me than difficulty and whatever else "matters". OTL I guess it's why I haven't improved much, the not-worrying-about-stepcharts bit...sigh. D8; I guess that's why people want an Edit in the DDR Wii games, I know I dabbled on DDR X's Edit Mode.