Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA

"Not amazing, but a good buy for DDR veterans."

First off, I'll just say that when SuperNova for the arcade came out, I was really excited. I have been playing DDR since a bit after Extreme arcade came out, so I haven't been in the community for a major arcade release. I was also getting bored of Extreme arcade(and my home mixes) so I was excited to play the arcade and get the home mix when it was released.

So, I played the arcade and had fun with most of the songs. There were some I didnt like, but I pretty much expected that much. Anyway a few months later the CS home version came out and I was excited to buy it because I had heard it was excactly like the arcade version which I had liked. When I had some time to play SuperNova CS, I wasn't amazed, like I had thought, but it turned out to be a solid DDR mix.

GAMEPLAY---10/10

There's nothing different with the gameplay of this compared to 1st mix. You step on the arrows as they come up the screen, and match up with stationary arrows at the top of your screen. This is classic dance sim/rhythm game gameplay, and doesnt deserve anything less than a ten, which is why I keep coming back to DDR/ITG/PIU/BM/DM/GF, hell, whatever rhythm games anywhere has to offer. The gameplay is fun, addicting, and it's a good workout!

GAME MODES/UNLOCK SYSTEM---6/10

In the good old days of DDR, you could play Game/Free Mode, and unlock songs while playing the songs you like. For the past two mixes, it hasn't been like that. It's been alot worse. In extreme2, you progressed across a grid, playing songs with certain mods, and goals to accomplish. Get far enough across, and you earn a new song, or course, or mode, which can be unlocked by spending points at "the shop". Points are earned by playing songs. This mode forced you to play songs you didnt like, with mods you didnt want. All in all, that was pretty bad.

Supernova has the same idea, only I think it's a bit better than what ex2 had. You have to travel across "joints", or planets if you will, hanging on the whole " supernova" "space" theme sorta atmosphere. You had a limited selection of 10 or so songs on each one. You also had a list of goals, say "complete all 9 songs with 8.5 million points or higher" or "complete 3 songs with speedx3 on". When you accomplished these goals, they would be checked off on the goal screen. Complete a certain number of goals, and a showdown opens. Basically what this is is a preset number of goals you have to accomplish, sort of like ex2's dance master as I mentioned above, however you do not choose the order. You may have to complete 4 out of 5 or three out of 5 challenges to complete the showdown. After completeing it, you earn a VIP card for the planet. There are a total of 3 VIP cards (hence 3 showdowns) for each planet.

Generally, after earning the first VIP card, songs playable on that planet are availible for purchase in the shop much like ex2. However, later planets required more VIP cards to unlock songs. After earning a certain amount of cards, new planets are opened.

There's also the return of classic modes like nonstop mode (courses of 4+ songs in a row without stopping, as the name suggests) and oni mode (quite like nonstop, but with a different life bar, which is much stricter). There's also the endless mode, where you play all 75 songs in succesion, and combo challenge, where you have to go without breaking your combo.

In SuperNova, there is online play like extreme2 had. Theres an up-side and downside. The upside is, well, if you don't have any friends that like to play you can play with people across the globe and complare rankings. The downside is, there are 5 online-only songs that people REALLY wished were in the real game, sadly, they're not. There have been many complaints about the online only songs...but honestly I don't have an opinion either way since I can easily play these 5 songs at the arcade(I think maybe 1 you can't but...oh well.) There's also no imformation mode, which means the FAQ makers have to actually hunt for their info on artists, rather than it being on the game ^_^

GRAPHICS---8/10

Most of the graphics in DDR or rhythm games are backgrounds, Konami kicked it up a notch in this game with polygonal-ish 3D stages with selected characters dancing on them in seemingly endless nothingness space....which alot of people despise. Alot of people feel we should get rid of the new backgrounds and replace them with the wierd old backgrounds(those always used to be turned off by me because some distracted me). Also, the menu graphics have been sharpened a bit, modern-looking shapes spinning in the background, new colors, and that bpm counter thing is ub3r c00l ^_^

Anyway, the only reason this category gets docked points is because I'm not really in love with the stage-ish backgrounds, and because there is annoying loading times in between songs and song selection...which there hasnt been in the past.

MUSIC/SOUND---7/10

The thing that can make or break most rhythm games is the music that they feature....if you don't like the music in the games, chances are you won't want to play the game. SuperNova offers a wide variety of music, from hip-hop, ska, j-pop, rock, techno, world, and others. I like some of the songs on supernova, but there are many songs I do not like. Songs like Monkey Punk, Dance Dance, and some other "american" songs, are, well, what americanize the series, which is what most board visitors, and most people in general, do not want, and what teenage girls and newbs do want. This is pretty much wholly a bad thing, but there are some "american" songs I do enjoy. I wish that the game had the selection type MAX offered, but hey, Konami is changing their rhythm game ideas.

There's always the KO's that I do enjoy though....Tino's white horse, xepher, max 300 smmm, gekkou chou, quick master, and innocence of silence, these are all great songs. Another thing hardcore players like about this game is the selection of 6 ten-foot(the highest difficulty) songs featured in this game. Hardcore players also like that Konami kicked up the difficulty with foot ratings, making this almost seem like ITG, a harder dance sim. This is also one of the only home versions to feature a selection close to the arcade mix it's based on, which is a good thing, since I like alot of the arcade songs. Although I'm not ecstatic about SuperNova's song choices, there's worse (extreme home version, anyone...)

FINAL RATING---7/10

Hardcore players will enjoy Supernova because of the increased difficulty and because of the ten footers(I know I like those...^_^). New players might find it difficult to learn and will have a harder time unlocking songs. Honestly, if you're a beginner, go play MAX2, you'll have a lot more fun with it, trust me. If you are a veteran to DDR/ITG, and have all the other games, pick this up, because it's another decent DDR to add to your collection.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/17/06