Dance Dance Revolution Extreme

"DDR's best mix, but just doesn't compare to ITG"

If you've played Dance Dance Revolution in an American arcade, chances are that you've played this version of the game. This game has the largest game library of any DDR game and in my opinion is the best DDR arcade mix.

There are approximately two hundred and thirty different songs on this mix. Some of the more popular songs include Captain Jack, Cartoon Heroes, Butterfly, and all of the level ten songs except for Max(period). This mix was originally released with two pads, so that one person can play by himself or on double mode, or two people can play at the same time. There are six different difficulty levels on this game. Four of the difficulties, Beginner, Light, Standard, and Heavy, are the most popular and allow you to pick your own songs and modifiers for each song individually. Any of these difficulties will offer you three to five songs depending on the machine. If you fail any song, you will get a game over. It also depends on the machines settings whether or not the song will end if you fail at any time during it, or if you will play the whole song through regardless if you are failing or not. If you are playing on heavy and you AA your final stage, you will unlock the extra stage. If you AA the default extra stage, you will unlock one more extra stage. Regardless of your score on this song, the game is over. The other two difficulty modes are Non-stop mode and Oni mode. Both of these modes have a list of songs that you must play one after another without stopping. In non-stop mode, you can choose whatever modifiers you want, however in Oni mode you can't, which is why it is considered the hardest difficulty in the game. While playing Oni mode, you can only have three non-combo steps or you will fail the course. During any mode, your life bar determines whether you fail a song or not. The life bar is located at the top of the screen. If you miss steps the bar will go down, and if you get combo steps, the bar will increase. Once the bar turns completely red, you have failed the song.

Everything in this game is pretty much the same as any other DDR mix. There is an announcer who will cheer or boo you, there are Perfect, Great, Good, Boo, Miss, and O.K. steps.

Song Library/Sounds
Obviously the song list will make or break a DDR game. This one being one of the last major DDR arcade releases, the songs were mostly from other DDR games. The song library is very large and had quite a few difficult songs. When you first start the game however, only a small fraction of the songs will appear in the roulette wheel in which you choose them. This was a major downfall of DDR Extreme because most casual players do not know how to access the other songs. However, for those who do, the song library is a good one, better than any other released to date. The music and sounds outside of the music was pretty much the same as DDR 7th mix. The announcers voice didn't change at all.

Graphics
The graphics aren't a very important part in DDR, but they were still pretty good. Most of the songs have unique backgrounds, however some of them were reused in multiple songs. Other than that everything was pretty colorful and well drawn. I especially liked features like the groove radar which was well done and also the roulette wheel of songs looked good in this game.

Replay Value
Because of the massive amount of songs on this mix of DDR, the replay value is much higher than most DDR games. The perfect window is just as tight as previous DDR mixes, so AAA'ing this entire mix is something that few people have accomplished, so this game will definitely provide you with many hours of game play if you are a hardcore DDR player, and for more casual players, since this game is relatively cheap to play and has a good song list, this will also provide a good amount of replay value.

Final Words
Though this is the best DDR arcade mix to date, I'm still only giving it an eight as a final score. This game has a lot of challenging songs like Paranoia Survivor Max and Legend of Max, but the challenge level just doesn't compare with the king of all dancing games, In the Groove. If you are a hardcore dancer trying to choose between playing ITG or DDR, ITG is definitely a better choice, but for casual dancing, I'd go with DDR. Either way, if you can find a well working machine in a good environment, it is worth trying out.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/06