"Pretty poor effort by Konami's American Arcade Division"

Back some time ago, a video game revolution took place when PaRappa the Rapper came out for Sony Playstation. It was pretty much unlike anything that had ever come out before. Instead of blasting aliens, saving the world from whatever threat video game devs. had come up with, trying to win a sports competition, or running and jumping through fictional worlds, PaRappa involved you using rhythm to follow the raps of various Rap masters. This game has spawned a most likely endless stream of spin-offs and knockoffs, one of them being Konami's Bemani, short for Beatmania series. Konami's Bemani series took a much more serious approach to the rhythm game, with games that involved you becoming a disc jockey complete with two turntables, becoming a guitarist, drummer, keyboardist, and even a dancer. These games have been unbelievably popular in Japan for years, and while fans have been importing them for just as long a time, the demand is growing for American releases of these games. That's where Dance Dance Revolution USA comes in. Dance Dance Revolution's controls consist of nothing more than 4 arrows (up, down, left, right) that you step on in reaction to on-screen cues (arrows scrolling up the screen to static arrow outlines at the top of the screen).In Japan, there are more than a dozen versions of this game, from the standard mixes from 1st to 5th, to versions with hit J-Pop artists providing the music, remixed versions of Disney songs, versions where only one player plays but has 6 panels, etc. Konami has tried to make an America-friendly version of this game, but it has disappointed long-time fans, as well as me. Now, the review
(Scores are on a 0-10)
Gameplay-6
It's Dance Dance Revolution! It would be pretty hard for Konami of America to mess this up, but in some ways they sort of did. How? Well, the engine has been SEVERLY dumbed-down. How? First of all, many of the game's elements have been changed. For example, Dance Dance Revolution rates your step timing with 5 phrases: ''Perfect!!, Great!!, Good!, Boo!, Miss..''. In DDR USA, these have changed to ''Perfect!!, Great!, Good!, _Almost!_, and Boo!'' Second, the grading is horribly easy. In the Japanese DDRs, a perfect song, one where the player gets no Goods, Boos, or Misses, it's and SS grade. Miss a couple steps and you get an A. Miss a few more, and it's a B, miss more, and throw in some more Goods and Boos and you get a D. Just barely pass, and you'll get a D. In DDR USA, it didn't seem to matter whether I got one Good or 22 Misses, I always seemed to get A's. These might seem like minor things to people who haven't played the game, but they bother me a lot.

Sound-4
Man, this is where the game really falls apart. The entire game consists of Konami original songs except for songs by European dance groups JS16 and Me & My, and a couple others. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some of the song choices are good, but Konami chose some really bad songs in terms of the remaining selection, and left out some better ones. There are some REALLY good Konami originals, so why those were left out in favor of some of these songs. Plus, this game is newer than DDR 4th Mix, but doesn't even have 30 songs! Japan's DDR 3rd Mix Plus and 4th Mix have over 50 and over 120 respectively!!

Graphics-6
Bleh, these 2nd-generation PS One graphics are getting old, although the colorful patterns flying by in the background look nice.

Control-9

You step on an arrow, and it registers. Not much to it. The only thing is some people, like me, may get disoriented on the platform. Also, the controls can take a lot of abuse, but if they take too much, the panels may break and stop responding.

This game is ok. It's Dance Dance Revolution, and I love the series, and there's no really ridiculous changes to the formula, so it's not a bad game on its own. However, compared to its Japanese counterparts, it falls apart.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/01, Updated 06/16/01