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

It's not so much worrying about stepcharts than it is preference in what we would want to see in stepcharts.
Imagine this pattern at 200bpm at 8th stream: LDRULDRULDRU and RDLURDLURDLURDLU.

Hi Healing Vision Angelic Mix, one of the most popular charts to ever exist

Yes, there are some charts that use double-stepping/spinning in a very strategic way, but as I have said before, it is easy to tell the difference between strategic arrow placement and someone not knowing anything about arrow placement at all.

I was just pointing out to Aegis a pattern at that speed can be intentional. But yeah, you can tell a chart that was meant to be double stepped as the double stepping is pretty systematic, happening every few measures or so.

Yep, just like Pie said. Jump placement is usually a pretty good indicator of whether or not someone knows about chart flow: Unreal is a pain in the ass, but the jumps make sense given body placement. CRAZY LOVE and SILVER DREAM, on the other hand, have jumps that require weird, wild turns that don't even put you in the right place for the rest of the steps. Same with freeze placement.

I'm not commenting on difficulty here, A Geisha's Dream (Ruffage Remix) just is not fun to play. Love At First Sight is pretty easy, but I love it, it's a riot to play.

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Actually I agree with much of what you say about the first three Hottest Party games Pie-kun. The first was okay, because it was the first after all and teething problems are expected. The licence covers were quite good and I honestly found the charts okay. HP2 had much weaker licences to me, even if I did like a few. I will admit that while I do like remixes, especially quality ones, I think that sticking to original licences or licensed remixes would be best because it appeals more to the casual crowd.

The problem is that after HP1 and maybe 2, rhythm gaming on the Wii really started to take off. Guitar Hero World Tour established the concept of proper game DLC on the system in 2008, and GH5 furthered that with support for up to 32GB, not to mention how much more visually appealing games became. Then Just Dance came along and captured the dancing game market on the system. DDR just got a little left behind.

I personally was expecting for HP3, at least, to start upping the quality level and for Konami to introduce some DLC like what competitors were doing, but it never happened.

I really can't speak a lot about charts, because it's one of those things that tends to differ from person to person. I know how I would chart a song maybe, but what I would do might not be what someone else would do. I do agree on licences generally being rather under-charted at times and that the Expert level for these songs is often way easier than it could be. I don't know why Konami are so scared of making the hardest level genuinely difficult for licensed tracks when they have no problem when it comes to the KO's and boss songs. That's what Expert level is there for: experts.


It always makes me sad when people leave out the Wii when discussing the concept of DLC. You guys do realise that the system has been proven capable of supporting in-game DLC since 2008, right? And with the Wii U coming out next year there's a good chance that if we do get any kind of massive change to the games, releases or DLC then all three main consoles will be able to support it.

I personally do not expect something to RB's degree, but maybe three songs every week maybe. Make the music exportable and each game as more of an update.

Heck, I know that a LOT of people have complaints with disc-swapping these days, and while I like the convenience of having everything in one place, I'm not that lazy, but I always wished that the Wii DDR games could have had a system similar to SingStar on the PS2. Basically from the second game onwards you can press select and then remove the current disc and pop in any other (including the first) and the game will load up that games' songs while retaining the features of the one you started with as a "master disc". I would have loved it if DDR on the Wii could have supported this to some degree, even if it was limited to Free Play or something.

It's convenience like that which is what the DDR series really lacks; it's all so "clunky".

I like the fact that DDR still has some sense of fun and quirks to keep it from becoming the vanilla music player that RB often is, but it'd be nice if we could have more games that balance the fun with convenience and tie all versions together more. I hate to say this, but there's almost too many games and it waters down the series and confuses consumers, not taking into account the lack of proper advertising these days meaning that most people don't even realise that half of these seemingly similar games exist.

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From Xavious: "Heck, I know that a LOT of people have complaints with disc-swapping these days, and while I like the convenience of having everything in one place, I'm not that lazy, but I always wished that the Wii DDR games could have had a system similar to SingStar on the PS2. Basically from the second game onwards you can press select and then remove the current disc and pop in any other (including the first) and the game will load up that games' songs while retaining the features of the one you started with as a "master disc". I would have loved it if DDR on the Wii could have supported this to some degree, even if it was limited to Free Play or something."

It was a feature of the first 3 PSX JP games. I really don't even know why they completely abandoned it after 4th mix and never brought in that feature again.

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Latest word from NAOKI on the matter


I get it.

Anyways, looks like they'll be releasing information little by little by means of the Facebook page. He's also confirmed what had already become pretty clear: there will be only a Wii entry this year.

I'm happy about this. What always frustrates me is when a) they release no information for the game after E3 and just wait till the release date or b) they release all the information from the game at once. It'll be cool to have some steady flow.

NAOKI and U1 are also fielding questions from their Facebook page. I honestly don't know what to ask them, as all the questions I think of I'd just imagine them answering "We are considering it".

I'd rather them focus on one console than spread the talent too thin across them all.


You gonna get considered.

Is what they wrote, but apparently they are only showing off DDR Hottest Party 4 (DDR 2010) at Gamescom. Trollnami strikes again.



Perhaps we can hope for a new trailer or something to come out of the event or perhaps an info announcement from the DDR Facebook page.

I honestly am also aggravated that people are trolling them with "where's ITG" and "why you sue Roxorz?!" questions. You would think after almost 6 years they would drop it.

They'll be releasing info on their Facebook huh? D: I guess I have a good reason to log in now.

Konami's download site just got updated with gamescom stuff and nothing was put up for DDR. Guess that puts the final nail in the gamescom coffin, looks like no new DDR info's coming out of it.

Hopefully the DDR Facebook page will start revealing info soon though...They're also a few thousand "likes" from 200,000, so maybe they'll release something when they hit that.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Wow, 6 years? I never thought about that, they really should just forget about it and go play their custom songs then... or better, Re-Rave. Besides, if they want to complain about Konami, they can go discuss it on the ITG Facebook page. People are morons!!!!!!!

It's actually been only 5 years but still.

People are still mad because A) It was a game by fans for fans and today still has a powerful community based around it (And a few game series that spun from its success). B) Konami essentially threw money at lawyers until RoXoR was too broke to defend itself (They didn't really have a legitimate claim against RoXoR or In The Groove, they just don't like competition).

I also don't know why we're surprised that the new DDR game isn't going to be shown. This is what, the third year in a row that they've had a DDR booth with only the previous year's games in it?

Just ignore them. They're just trying to get a rise out of people.

They DID have a legitimate claim against Roxor. It would be like Coca Cola selling kits that modified a Pepsi vending machine to look like a Coca Cola machine, removing its logo, infringing on its existing vending machine technology. Konami didn't sue Roxor for the idea of ITG or that it was a 4 panel dancing game, there have been several of these that never touched Konami's radar and Konami has never went after Stepmania. No, Konami said Roxor created kits that covered up existing Konami logo to pass off the arcade cabinet as their own, using their existing monitors and input hardware, which is very illegal.

So all in all, Roxor knew what they were doing and they got sued for that. Had they created their own dedicabs right out of the box without the ability to retro-fit Konami cabs, they would still be around.

[was going to write a point by point going into details, but I decided not to]

The way you see it is not the way it was, and the details of the whole fiasco are nothing that hasn't been said before by others. Look it up, there's a lot of things you and most others don't know about the death of ITG and how Konami deals with games similar to DDR. It's sad.

/off topic

We really don't need this to devolve into another tired DDR vs. ITG discussion, so let's end that here.

So...DDR II...