DanceDanceRevolution FREEDOM (iOS) (North America)

I'm afraid eddie begs to differ when it comes to the US fanbase with Bemani. They don't hate us, it's the lack of support from the fanbase that makes them think that we don't care, but we do care, deep down. And EX CS and IIDX US CS were way back when, so idk why your bringing that up. And IIDX and Pop'n for the PS2 don't need to be released here when there are tons of ways to import them here. And speaking of pop'n, CS releases are done in japan. But please, Konami and Bemani DO NOT hate us. Don't base your beliefs on past releases. If konami really hated the US fanbase, they wouldn't have released X2 here with an awesome cabinet that actually has perfect pads and timing. Also please consult eddie here about the US bemani scene, he can tell you more.

BM US was the most selfless and awesome thing Konami has ever done. The game is fantastic, the controller is fantastic, and the fact that there are people who didn't buy it because it "wasn't good enough", or didn't have particular songs on it is just appalling.

I wish they would realize that the US players actually cared. I'd give them my support, and I know many other players would.



1) Those games were so much nicer in Japan
2) Importing requires an imported PS2 (which are expensive) or a modded PS2 (which I don't trust myself doing)



And like BM US, I think they should give pop'n a chance in the US.



That's a good point.



I bought BM US about a month ago, and I loved it. I do wish the song list could have been a bit nicer and maybe have a bit more to it, but all in all, it was great. I just wish KONAMI had continued giving us releases.

Blame all the bad reviews it got from people who didn't know anything about the series (G4)

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This.

Well, they're going better as you guys complains here and there , the good thing is THEY DO LISTEN! Don't they?

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No, the fanbase shat all over that game the moment Gamespot announced that Konami's next US Bemani game would be called "Beatmania To The X".

Everyone went ballistic, conjuring up nightmare scenarios about a mainstream-focused Beatmania game, and wailing about how Konami didn't listen to them, and they should just release a IIDX game instead, and "wah wah wah!" etc. For 3 months, nobody considered that the journalists interviewing the Konami guy didn't understand what he was saying when he said "Beatmania IIDX", and assumed it was "Beatmania To The X" instead.

It turns out Konami just wanted to make Beatmania accessible to US fans, by making a straight port of IIDX 9, with an oldskool songlist that spanned the entire 5-key and IIDX series... Oh, and they threw in an ASC-quality controller for free. If this game was released in Japan as "IIDX Best hits", it would have sold as well as any other CS game, and they would have gone crazy for the new controller.

Sometimes Konami can do some really stupid things, like Beat 'n' Groovy, Guitar Hero AC, and DDR Freedom. These games are shoddy and embarassing, but for the most part, everything Konami do is with the intention of making their fans happy, and growing their series, by also attracting new fans.

The idea that Konami maliciously "hate" anyone is absurd.

The most evident lesson we've learnt from this right now (as I've said multiple times, sorry :{ ) is that each division within Konami is completely seperate. Naoki didn't know about this game until someone asked him on his Facebook, and even then, he hasn't been able to find and play DDR Freedom, despite being in a Konami office somewhere. We can't write everything off as "Konami did this" or "Konami did that". There are completely different people, working on completely different things, and those things do not cross over very often.

The people who made DDR Freedom did dumb things, the people who made the PS3 port of Hottest Party 4 did dumb things. The people who made DDR X2 did an awesome job. This doesn't mean "Konami did good!" or "Konami did bad!", people need to stop generalising the company as some single entity.



They listen to people like Eddie and Chi, who can sperate actual shortcomings from opinions, and constructively inform them of the concerns of individuals, as well as the feelings of the community as a whole.

They don't listen to Random Guy #12, who makes an angry post on a message board, and expects to be aknowledged.

It's a fixed version of the standard Japanese controller, nothing more than that. You're referring to it as if it's like the ASC-style controller which costs around $500...

Oh wow. I didn't think those would be that expensive.
They are nice though

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@someone: To Extreme US' merit, it had songs that Japan would never see return, such as the DDR Solo licenses and such. True, the KO's eventually made it to Japan, but for once you guys got something first.

The JP releases aren't always good (DDR STR!KE), so look on the bright side.

Thanks to Arctic Wolves (was it?), who opened my eyes with that statement.

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Isn't EX2 basically the US version of STR!KE?

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They sold a 50 dollar game and a 100 dollar controller for 79 bucks. That was pretty sweet of them. I had a friend with an import PS2 controller and the American kit was just as good and never broke down. He used the Japanese and American controller side by side for some 14 key action and they played with perfect parity. In some ways the American controller felt nicer. Sorry to kind of derail but I understand Tyma in this example PERFECTLY. Konami tries to do a lot with very little, if one thing has been a constant in DDR is that the series has been operating on a shoestring budget since it was created. Way less that what other Bemani series seem to get. I think Konami does pretty well considering. I also think they make some pretty funny mistakes as a result BETSON.

2005 & 2006 was the best years for Bemani in America. If Konami wants advice on how to run the series, they should look back at likes of DDR EXTREME 2.


STR!KE is the Japanese version of EXTREME 2. We got that engine first.

Ah, I see. I though STR!KE had been out before EX2. Seems I was wrong.

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A-fucking-men to that. If there is one thing I can't stand is people who attribute a internationally large company with emotions and or feelings. 'Konami hates us', 'Konami is just being greedy', 'Konami doesn't care anymore'. Konami is a BUSINESS. Konami has employees it has to pay. Konami is obviously in it for the money and there's NOTHING wrong with that. If you have a job, I will bet you that 90% of your reasoning for your job is for the MONEY.

Konami will make more money by making quality products, but like every other company, they realized that the same old thing will become stale and boring and that in order to innovate, they have to move away from the largely vocal group who dislikes change. When it comes to the US market, most "fans" basically want what Japan gets. It's not even a matter of what Japan gets is better, it's more of a matter of "we don't have it and they do". Entitlement sense. Don't believe me? How many times will you see the word "unfair" when we get a new game that's different from Japan? Japan's last DDR game was DDR X and DDR X was an arcade port that revived nearly PARANOiA and Trip Machine remix. Woopty freaking do! The US got DDR X CS first, then we got DDR X2 and DDR 2010. Japan hasn't had a CS game in a long time now and we complain assuming that Japan will get DDR X2 CS as an AC port (which they won't, they'll get what we have). As has been said before, Konami's bemani division has its own separate divisions: the CS developers don't really work with the AC developers or the phone game developers. Each team may borrow ideas and aspects, but the days of seeing AC perfect CS ports will probably be over.

Konami wants to please their fans and they want to innovate the series. The last thing Konami wants to do is kill off their series by releasing cookie cutter mixes with nothing new. We saw what happened with the Guitar Hero series and with the Kinect, DDR can no longer ride off it's name to keep it moving forward. Konami is treading new territory and is taking big risks yet what you will see mostly on Facebook comments is: "We want the same thing fed to us over the past 11 years. How dare you attempt to push the series forward."

I still hold the theory that DDR became insanely popular around DDR Extreme's release. Thus, people want to relive the experiences they got with that mix, including the people they played with. However, the newer mixes have long since moved away from the Max-Extreme era and people are still stuck trying to relive their experiences from 5 years ago when DDR was more popular. It's not going to happen, move forward. Most new players today who enter into DDR on a post Extreme machine look forward to new mixes (on both AC and CS platforms) and don't stick to the same 20 song list that they're comfortable with.

tl;dr; People hate change and think they are entitled to Konami's games.

When I said "ASC-quality", I mean that in terms of playability, it's way better than the japanese controller, and on-par with the japanese ASC controllers. The point I tried (really hard!) to make is that most japanese players would have bought the package without a second thought, in order to upgrade their controller, and/or get a pretty awesome "Best Hits" style IIDX game, with a ton of new stuff thrown in.

You have to remember that none of this discussion happened at the time of the game's release, because all you could see on forums was "OMG NO IIDX 10 SONGS I WILL NOT BUY!" or " Konami hates US players, and that's why The Safari isn't in this game.". A lot of people genuinly haven't played it, and think of it as being vastly inferior to the Japanese CS releases, because of the inclusion or lack of a specific song.


I'm really fucking scared to say any of this, because I love a lot of the positive discussion on ZIV, but certain things like this really scare me. ZIV is so much friendlier than most of the old Bemani forums, but I still expect my points to drop by 50, any minute now :{

I'm glad someone understands the same frustration

Well, you guys get a really good game engine first, but it also has more licenses Japan will never get to see.

I think what DDR needs is a competitor that will shake them up. DDR Extreme 2 was influenced by ITG, It brought the best out of Konami (though not probably enough to include Bambee, Bus Stop and Papaya songs, lol). It's just too bad that Konami screamed "infringement" instead of continuing a friendly competition.

EDIT: Didn't BM US have songs JP hasn't had in ages?

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Too bad Mungyodance couldn't have been a big commercial project. I think that might have actually given KONAMI some good competition.

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Guys, back on topic please.

Well, we need to figure out why NAOKI didn't know about FREEDOM in the first place. That's quite confusing.

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FREEDOM is still piss-poor though. Being in it for the money is no excuse for releasing shit.

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Yet, companies continue to do so.

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Just as stated elsewhere, this would make more sense if the app wasn't free.