I have to thank Konami for the excellent physical condition that I’m currently in. Two years ago I was 230 pounds. Now I’m 190 pounds. The 40 pounds that I lost in about three quarters of a year really made me feel great and gave me more confidence with the ladies (If you know what I mean). I remember going back to school and my friends saying, “Wow, Sergio you look great!” Of course they were saying that anyway. But now, I looked 40 times better; it was just unfreakingbelievable how much better I could possibly look. And every year I always get the newest Playstation 2 DDR game just because I want to.

“The Road to Becoming a Dancing Master!”

One thing that I just hate about the latest DDR games is the pointless story modes. They try to make the player do all these pointless tasks and try to say that they’re one step closer to becoming a master. In this game the story mode is called “Stellar Master Mode.” This mode consists of thirteen planets in which the player tries to become a stellar dancer. Each planet has three VIP cards, which once acquired, unlock a song that can be bought with points. But before you can even go for these VIP cards you need to accomplish pointless and ancillary goals. Some of these goals will be to pass any song with a barely passing grade, to get a perfect grade, or play the song in reverse. You actually don’t have to do this to unlock all the songs in the game, but it’s quicker than having to play a minimum of 60 hours. I just hate how it’s practically forced upon you.

If you’re getting sick of the “Stellar Dancing Mode,” then you have the option to play any song that is unlocked in the “Game Mode.” When you buy this game you only have 32 songs unlocked and the last 42 need to be unlocked by acquiring these VIP cards or playing for a really long time. Once you get the card, the corresponding song for that card appears in the store. Like any other store, you need to pay. Anytime you play a song and pass you get points separate from the score. These points are like props you get for doing well in a song. You basically just play until you buy all the songs. You can even buy funky shaped arrows. Some are shaped like birds and others like bees. There is also “Endless Mode” where you play songs nonstop; the second a song ends another starts right up. It’s excellent for building stamina.

“Is It Easy to Become a Dancing Master?”

First of all, all you’re going to be doing is hitting arrows according to rhythm; it doesn’t mean you’re dancing. All you’re doing is looking at the screen and you attempt to hit the arrow once it reaches a certain area. The people who practice doing freestyles are the only dancers here. I will say that this game is an excellent workout for anyone who doesn’t have lower body pains, especially in the feet.

Right of the bat, you shouldn’t even play this game if you don’t have a proper pad to play on. The DDR pad has four directional arrows that will be used for game play (up, down left, and right). Depending on the songs you choose to play, you may have to learn some different steps. On easier difficulties you might see one arrow at a time. Once you begin playing on the harder difficulties, the arrows are much closer and more numerous; I used to get scared because then I would just step randomly and hope I hit most the arrows. Sometimes you might have to step on two arrows at the same time, and these are called jumps; you might have to jump on the up and down arrows at the same time but if you missed on of them, then it counts as a complete miss. You might even see arrows that are extended meaning you have to hold your foot there until they're completely gone; these are called freeze arrows. They might not sound like much but wait until you play a song that is fast paced has plenty of beats, and tries to use every single step combination.

Remember getting mostly failing grades in school? Of course you do, because you were… um never mind. But anyway, you get grades on how well you play the songs in the game. You get an A if you did really well, a E if you failed a song, and every other grade in between that you would see in your report card. If you feel that playing a certain song is boring you can try some modifications. One would be reverse, instead of having arrows go up on your screen, you can have them scroll downward which is tricky for people who never did such a thing. You can even multiply the speed at which the arrows appear on the screen. They will still be on beat but now they scroll faster and are further apart.

“Yeah… Jenny’s Hot!”

You really don’t need excellent graphics for a game like DDR, but I wish that they hadn’t changed a few things. In the older versions of DDR more than half of the songs had their own video that would be displayed during game play. Now, about three quarters of them have these really cheap videos; were you too lazy Konami?! I missed playing different songs and seeing different background videos. Everything is now just bland and uninspired; I hate it. Now every video has a floating platform where a dancer gets his/her groove on. They usually had the dancer floating around upside down and sideways doing some sort of dance. The only difference is that the harder songs have a red background compared to easier songs with blue and green backgrounds. The licensed songs like Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and some others have the real music video. The arrows that you need to hit look good but you really can’t mess that up anyway. All the menus are all nice and shiny too and mainly consist of the color red. I just wish Konami put some effort into making different videos.

“Let’s Dance!”

One thing that makes or breaks a game like DDR is the music. Luckily, I like about 40 of the 74 songs in this game. This game includes licensed songs like Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Dance, Dance from Fall Out Boys, Jerk It Out, Funkytown, Video Killed the Radio Star, and one I really liked Let’s Dance. These are probably the only songs that people who aren’t familiar with the game know. One of the newer songs for this game is Xepher which is just so epic sounding (it’s also one of the few songs with an original anime video). There are many different speeds for many of the songs. Xepher is one of the faster songs with an orchestral sound; you are constantly twisting your body when playing this song which works out your abs like crazy. One song called Tino's White Horse has a beat that makes you gallop; the steps also make you gallop too. However, prefer to play the slower songs; you need some patience to play some of them. Some constantly pause as you play making you miss steps when the song continues playing. One would be Funkytown and I like singing along with it too. Some of these songs are real heavy and have metallic sounds to them and others are just bouncy-fun-happy kind of stuff or Japanese Pop. Let’s not forget the announcers who are always commenting on how you’re doing. They’ll say things like, “You move smoothly” or if you’re doing bad, “There’s always a tomorrrrroow!” I believe that everyone who is interested enough will find a favorite song.

“Sergio, Is it really better Than Waiting in Line?”

I recommend that you pick this up for anyone interested no matter what age or experience they’ve had with this game. There are difficulties for all people and it’s different than sitting down and playing shooting games all day. You actually get a workout if you play long enough.

Random Information:

Only On PS2
Player(s): 1 - 2
Genre: Rhythm/Dancing
Release Date: Sep 26, 2006
Online-Play: Broadband Only
Developed By: Konami
Published By: Konami
Memory Card: 191 KB
Disc(s): 1
E for Teen (10yrs)

Sergio’s Numerical Rating: 8.4567 / 10

Other Dancing Titles:

Dance Dance Revolution: Ultramix (Xbox)
Dance Dance Revolution: Ultramix 2 (Xbox)
Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme (PS2)
Dance Dance Revolution: Extreme 2 (PS2)

Recommended: Yes