Post Your Controversial Bemani Opinions

This is kinda how I feel about StepmaniaX: a good combination of songs past and present, but it has an aftertaste of they can't let go of the past. Doesn't help that some of the cuts are too similar to when they were featured in DDR/ITG but somehow seem less impactful (Ghosts, for example, and I love that song).

On that subject, it's kinda weird how much DDR lived (and possibly dies) by its licenses (read: Dancemania). Given when A20 announced "Legendary Licenses" I don't recall too many considerations from players for licenses that appeared in SuperNOVA or later, but maybe I was the only one to like more than three in any mix since then. I guess the thought of anything better after EXTREME was discarded once a large portion of players fled to other 4|5 panel games. Now it's at the point where enough don't want what we had and enough don't want what we have. How does DDR overcome this?

Also, U.M.U × BEMANI was fine, some people just didn't take their allergy medicine.

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I’m aware of what songs are in the game as I owned it for over a decade before I sold all my imports. I just wasn’t aware of the timeline.

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I think, regarding the Dancemania licenses, the issue is that those songs are well over 20 years old now. We can have all the nostalgia in the world for the Dancemania licenses, but the difference between then and now is that, when they were released, those licenses sounded relatively fresh, and I think regardless of familiarity, there's something exciting about playing new music. (The Fantasia songs in particular come to mind here.) Even with nostalgia, I don't think the revivals could ever be as exciting as when they were new and contemporary. (I'm not even going to touch the Legend Licenses because, newly produced or not, that anybody could make SAIFAM covers sound worse is a feat unto itself.)

But working exclusively with the Dancemania licenses also meant a certain sort of cohesion in the songlist. I absolutely can't stand the Happy Paradise songs, but a mix like DDRMAX has a distinct... vibe, for lack of a better word, where newer mixes take a more mixed bag approach. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think it could play into people not romanticizing the new licenses the same way they do the old ones. You might have a favorite song here or there now, but I think there's definitely a reason people discuss the Dancemania licenses as a collective. Regardless of their individual quality, the relative consistency made them greater than the sum of their parts and they felt like a complete package that would literally define the game. That doesn't mean everything needs to come from the same label to be cohesive. MAX2 US and the Ultramixes also came with collections of western licenses that balanced familiar songs and decent dance music, and they worked together as a solid collection of songs. I can't particularly explain why, they just work together and build upon the AC licenses to make a complete package in a way that, say, Extreme US just... doesn't. (So Deep, Love At First Sight, and Busy Child can sound like they all came from the same collection of music. Extreme is a hodge podge of intriguing and strange AC deep cuts watered down with Karaoke Revolution covers and YMCA? Category is: Bemani fan service at a terrible wedding reception.)

It's hard to compare licenses to what came relatively soon after; the new X2 licenses were trash, and there simply weren't any through 2014, so it feels kind of disingenuous to say A/20 attempts to remedy this by the merit of including licenses at all. Those efforts remind me of the worst of the US console games, with songs that are pop songs first and dance music second, if at all. I am absolutely not someone with any feelings of "eww top 40 trash," and I think some of those licenses could have been improved by using remixes instead. Like, I think New Rules is one of the worst offenders here--it's tediously boring, and it feels like it was chosen for recognizability without much consideration for chart potential--but I can think of at least 5 songs from Future Nostalgia that would probably work really well in DDR. (I know that album was released years after the fact, just work with me.) The insistence on the familiar also deprives the joy of discovering new songs in the game. I think anyone who was playing those first mixes can name at least a handful of licensed songs they've enjoyed and never would have come across otherwise, and I don't think new and/or casual players are averse to playing songs they've never heard. (I mean, we were all there at one point, yeah?)

I get that the line between pop and dance is way blurrier than it was 20 years ago, but there had been a wealth of house and disco and trance in the game that just isn't present now. Those genres have fluidity in their rhythms and structure that invite a number of different interpretations for charting beyond 'just follow the topline.' I guess now we have... :checks notes: LMFAO? The Chainsmokers? That ain't it.

I think the closest we've gotten to the 'magic' of past licenses is seen in Dancerush, which (in my limited experience with it) seems to prioritize gameplay over familiarity in its song selections, and those songs could fit comfortably together on the same playlist. It's a vibe and, even though I just said the fix doesn't need to be a partnership with a label, maybe the licenses in DDR could be more interesting with a similar Spinnin' Records or (insert any number of other dance labels here) collaboration.

don't let this sweet songlist distract you from the fact that unlocking it all is a fucking tedious chore. EX2's DMM was nowhere near this mind-numbing to get through, probably because it had more than 55 songs total. playing the same set of licenses over and over again isn't worth the hassle. if you can manage to afford SN JP, get it purely to unlock everything here through System Data. fuck.

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Reminds me of people showing off that they can do a 9, then plays My Summer Love, a song that's probably only a nine in the last 2/3rds of the song. On a lesser extent are the kids who will play Under The Sky and show off as well that they can clear a song on Expert Difficulty. Afterwards, me and my fat butt will go and do stuff like DoLL or Time after Time on DDR X2. I may not walk away with a good score for the song, but I can pass them, especially if its on SN2 and its shitty Progressive Lifebar Difficulty.


What exactly is QMA (is it Quiz Magic Academy?)? I imagine it to be an arcade game where you answer quizzes, because why the hell would it not be? Some games like Boon-Ga Boon-Ga probably have their reasons for existing, but if it is what is above, I don't get it.


Story of most DDR X and X2 machines that I used to play in. All of the edits saved on the machines were the hardtype OMG SO H4RD stream edit charts (the DARQS charts I saw the most). Shout outs to that good Samaritan who saved official edit charts like Ecstacy on them.


This one is hard, but I propose that they instead "hide" the songs that other people don't want to hear. 4thMix did this best with their categories, with a little bit of clever tagging, you can have a personal songlist of songs that you prefer, with none of the moe, generic soundbyte Bemani transplant song or the bland R&Bs and ballads that are unfitting for the arcade. Outright rmving songs will always elicit a reaction from anyone who played the game more than once, I've had players swearing off X2 because Your Rain and the BeForU songs (this was Asian version, so no pad codes) weren't on it, despite the fact that I feel what X and X2's initial songlist has added after the removals from X2 are just as fun.

Any hot takes from me? Never liked DJ Yoshitaka. He already had his name treading on DJ Taka. Couldn't he have chosen a better pseudonym? Also that beatnation performance for captivate ~chikai~? A DJ who spent the entire song with his hands up. David Guetta may not be pumping in soundbites every few notes like what they do in Bemani, but at least he makes it looks like he's playing the music and not letting the speakers do the work. I think Marshmello of all DJs is the one who seemed like he would do stuff in a Bemani way by not just put out a looping beat with layers like a mainstream music composer. Zedd ain't half bad, but I don't think soundbites aren't his thing.

I also hate how Konami has consistently missed the boat on licensing good music. I really really wanted "Get This Party Started" and "Lose Control" to be in a DDR game.

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First of all, the elitist shit is why there is no more casual scene for this game. People complain that we don't get new home versions but when you treat someone like shit because you're tired of seeing the song they want to play or putting down their scores they aren't going to want to play so they aren't going to buy the game. It's part of why we don't get new games to play. Knock it off.

Second, if you're getting a low score on a 9 like DoLL oni maybe don't talk shit about someone playing My Summer Love. If you're aware that you're only passing because a game has a lenient life bar maybe don't talk shit about someone playing My Summer Love.

Third, maybe if shit like this wasn't posted people wouldn't feel compelled to show that they can play on Expert or pass 9s. It boils down to "I'm tired of seeing people who aren't good at the game" which makes them want to show that they are "good".

And like, I know what my post history looks like. I was a fucking tool when I was 22 in 2007. I'm 35 now. We're all older now. We shouldn't still be acting like that. We should have all grown up. Maybe if I wasn't a dick to everyone I talked to in 2007 more people would be playing today, so if you want people to still be playing in a couple years I suggest knocking this stuff off. Some people play more often than others, some people just started playing, some people might have not played in 5 years and see a machine and decide to hop on. Regardless of why they aren't "good", just let them play. You don't have to be good to play this game. That's why it has 5 difficulties and a 1-20 rating scale. And this kind of crap is why I bought an LTEK instead of finding a quality machine near me, because I didn't want to deal with people like you when my 300 pound ass decided to start playing again after years of not working out at all.

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I’m one of the few casual players left, I guess. I do absolutely agree with what you said about the elitist behavior, n00b_saib0t. I remember when i started to discover more about BEMANI outside of DDR and eventually learned how there’s a community of music/rhythm gaming and I thought, “wow, this is really great! It might be fun to get to know more people who love these games the way I do!” But then...I learned more about how a lot of people in this community act, treat one another, suck the fun out of the games and realized, “well...it might be more fun if I just keep to myself and enjoy these games.”

Well, those are certainly some eye-opening statements. I don't consider myself a hardcore player, because what do they do? Maybe collect MFC clear lamps, or say what speed mod is best for each song (I heard someone say that 2.5x is best for "i feel..."), post around they latest AA or AAA achievements. I am neither of those. I just want to talk about DDR in a non-competitive way, like talk about its music, etc.

I don't mean to come off as an elitist, certainly because I don't have the skills then, and especially now to back them up, but I apologize if I came of that way. I've done my part of sharing gameplay credits with a group of newbies who wanted to try out the machine and I typically don't go out of my way and badly react to whatever song a player is playing at the time. Those were ten year old memories and just like you, my DDR skill has certainly taken several notches down when I was at my peak, which was at 2011-2012 or so before I left for Qatar.

We've been in this forum together for a long time now. I didn't think that you're posts were elitist in a way, but what flows by me doesn't necessarily how it flows for other people. And hey, I thought this thread was about Controversial Bemani opinions.

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I remember Capcom made some quiz games for arcades in the 90s and there have even been arcade games that crossed "dating sim" with "quiz game". Maybe just one of those bizare things only the Japanese get.


well actually it's because all fads die eventually and also DDR is wildly inaccesible in today's age of "what the fuck is an arcade"

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A lot of the other "fads" are doing alright today. People pay good money for a fight stick to play Street Fighter on after arcades died out, so yeah I'm sure if the community in general was better back then DDR would still be kicking today getting home versions.

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I'm not really sure about that. You don't really need an arcade stick to play a fighting game, you can totally just buy one and immediately jump in. DDR completely requires specialist equipment. The entire reason games like Osu and Stepmania are constantly popular are because they're free and you need literally nothing but the device you're using to read this to play. The barrier of entry is just too high for dance games - you either need specialist equipment and to get into the ITG scene, or you need to have hit the location jackpot to be close enough to be an up-to-date DDR cab. It has very little to do with the communities, it's really all about how gaming itself has changed.

(And let's be real, if toxic and irritating communities were reasons for games dying, games that I love like Tekken probably wouldn't be in its currently most popular era.)

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They dump obscene amounts of credits into the machine to play the same song 25 times in a row until they reduce their previous high score by one marvelous. This does not seem like a fun way to play DDR to me.

If I go to an arcade to play DDR, I rarely play the same song twice while I'm there. I want to play all my favorites, or whatever songs are new, and have fun.

I would like to talk about the music as well. I like imagining what kind of music I would put into the game if I had the chance.

That was cringe as well. I remember being at the mall at 9 am and do a little bit of my set, and then this guy comes up, clad in workout shirt and shorts, gym duffel bag in hand and then would proceed to pump the machine with a lot of credits and play all of those sets back to back to back until the late afternoon or so (despite there being a sign saying "Two credit plays per player. Give chance to other players."). It's technically water under the bridge since that's been talked about in my local community, but I guess I never got over that.

In my final years of college, I would literally book my classes to be in the evening (6 pm onwards), and then go to the arcades right after lunch, dressed in my PE uniform. I have the machine pretty much to myself until I go to school at 4 to 5 pm (with a change of shirt and powder plus perfume).


I wanted to talk to fellow players about that. I would try to say stuff like Sota F. having a new song and boss song on X2 or gush about the Dancemania revivals ("Did you know the singers of Butterfy collab-ed with the composer of Dynamite Rave?" or "Hey, the singers of Golden Sky has one of their other songs on x machine at y mall."), or talk about home version stuff, but they can never relate to me. When the location test for DDR X3 came out, the "hardcore players" were touting Crazy Love as the latest dance craze after Kimono Princess. I just rolled my eyes and said "Eh, played the song loads of times on DDR 2010. I could even do the choreography in Expert (stealth) difficulty.".

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Yikes, that's dickish. I wasn't even thinking about people hogging a single machine like that. At the Round 1 I used to go to (it's now closed permanently) there were 3 machines, so I would frequently notice someone coming along and playing the same song repeatedly on the machine next to me. They weren't bothering anyone else, it's just...that doesn't seem like a fun way to spend my time. I like trying to top my high scores too, but I'm not going to get that obsessed with it.

I'm a hardcore DDR player and I've started keeping most of my scores to myself too and distancing myself from the rest of the community, which I agree can be just as toxic as any other gaming community. Funny enough, I've also been hesitant to post in this thread for this same reason, but I thought I'd break my silence just this once.

Although, I wouldn't say I'm just a hardcore player either, because I can appreciate/embrace the casual side of the game as well, and can enjoy every new chart that comes out regardless of difficulty. In fact, I'm also probably the only hardcore player who wants DDR charts overall to be easier, not harder.

At this point, I just feel sad for all of the elitist players who lost the ability to enjoy the easier charts. Limiting yourself to only playing boss-level charts not only sounds like a nightmare to play (especially without any warm-up), but you're also literally missing out on 80-90% of all the available content in the game (even more so if you just play singles).


I do still think "practice makes perfect" is important if you want to improve your skills, though; that being said, there is a limit to how much grinding I can handle myself before I move on to something else, take a break, or try again another session/day.

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This concept seems to surprise a lot of people, but what’s fun for you isn’t the same as what’s fun for everyone. The game fundamentally changes once you’re getting PFCs and the chase is a blast with a satisfying reward at the end. You seem to think the person grinding for a better score isn’t having fun while you are, and nah, that’s just not the case.

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Sure, I believe that. I wasn't trying to sound like I'm accusing anyone of having fun the wrong way.

How is only wanting to play stuff relative to your skill level "elitist"? Like, that's kind of a silly thing to say.

Even more so confusing is saying "I want the game to be easier", like there aren't three difficulty levels between the two where the game gets hard.

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Technically, the 17s/18s/19s are appropriate for my skill level too, but I rarely play them because they're quick stamina drainers/session enders, not to mention health hazards without a proper warmup on easier charts.

All difficulties need a drop in difficulty if DDR is going to have a chance of gaining popularity again (even on , I don't think there are enough 1s in the game given how many songs there are now). It doesn't matter to me how "easy" or "hard" these charts might be because I can play and enjoy all of them. I'm mainly looking out for all the potential new players whom I want to see turn into new, lifelong fans. At that point, the line where the game is perceived to get "hard" can be very, very low.

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Yeah, when one actually takes a look at lower level charts it is obvious that there has been a lot of difficulty power creep within Beginner & Basic charts when you compare new songs with stuff from 7+ years ago. At this point maybe there should even be a whole difficulty BELOW Beginner where practically every song (except extra stage/boss stuff) has a 1-2 chart, so that literally every person can play (almost) every song, because there's for sure people that are new to DDR, stop the song wheel at some song like Evans, would like to try that out as their first song but fail because the lowest chart is a goddamn 5.

Though I guess that's what they tried to improve a bit with the "Let's check your Level!" feature but there's still a lot more that could be done.

Regarding the whole "elitist" debacle I think there's nothing wrong with just liking harder charts and sticking to them, but I very heavily dislike when a new song releases, the hardest chart is a 12-14 and some certain people just outright dismiss them because it's too easy/boring/whatever. I also very heavily agree with led with regards to how these people are actually missing most of the content of the game, especially with regards to doubles. I couldn't imagine just playing every Single Expert/challenge chart, getting a good score and then thinking "yep, not touching this anymore" as if the song doesn't have at least 6 whole other charts with their own characteristics & quirks. With how Konami has been really improving with their creativity on lower level charts recently these people are actually really missing out. :x

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