Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA

"DDRSuperNOVA (Japanese Version)"

Welcome back to the world of Dance Dance Revolution! The dance simulation game series that started it all. This time, the game has been revamped from the previous released games, giving most players and long-time fans a sense of refreshment. This review will be based on the Japanese PS2 version of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA, which was released around 4 months after the American PS2 version.

Now for the review!



Graphics - 9/10
The graphics of DDRSuperNOVA look great. Konami decided to take a more traditional approach with DDRSuperNOVA's graphics, making it reminiscent of the early games. The character models are no longer cell-shaded; they look more realistic and still move at a smooth 60fps. The characters' dancing styles have also been changed, which is VERY refreshing because their dancing styles have been the same old move sets for a long time. The characters' new dance moves are...entertaining to watch this time around, especially with the female dancers, hehehe! The number of playable characters have been greatly reduced however. The shutters, which were in DDR1stMIX~DDR3rdMIX have also made a return in this game, so after you select your song, the shutters will close just like back in the day. In the game, there's a mode called Stellar Master Mode, which the player can unlock and travel to different planets in attempt to conquer them; the graphics and presentation here are nice. The reason why I gave graphics a 9 instead of a 10 is mainly because there are too many simple lines and boxes making up the majority of the graphics. In the older games, things were much more vivid and alive. In DDRSuperNOVA, lines and boxes are used in the majority of the song backgrounds unlike the previous games. Another thing, the little spinning markers that used to be in song banners that show where a song originated (eg. Konami Original REMIX, Dancemania 9, etc.), are now gone since DDRSuperNOVA JP CS was made to be an arcade port.



Gameplay - 8/10
The DDR series has always been given high marks in terms of gameplay, and it still holds true for this game. The game is easy to play, infact, there's even a long, rigorous Tutorial that ensures that the player understands how to play the game. Regular gameplay is just the same as before--Up, Down, Left, Right, and Freeze arrow mechanics are the same except for getting the AA grade...you need 950000+ score for it. The Groove Radar is still in the game. DDRSuperNOVA introduces new modes such as Advanced Mode and Stellar Master Mode. Advanced Mode has extra things for players to do such as Battle, Courses, Endless, etc. Stellar Master Mode, however, is the main gateway to unlocking new things, which can be purchased in the Shop, which is another new addition. The Shop is where you can use your points (which are accumulated by playing songs in just about any mode) to buy new things like songs, modes, courses, etc. Unlike the previous DDR games, unlocking songs on DDRSuperNOVA isn't an easy task as to simply continuously playing the normal game consistently to unlock; in this game, the player is required to play Stellar Master Mode to unlock songs unless you try to time release them. Stellar Master Mode (SMM) consists of planets that you have to conquer in order to move to the next planet, and there are quite a few. On each planet, you must fulfill a certain amount of certain requirements to move on to the next planet; there are also 3 special challenge requirements on each planet, which range from easy to insanely difficult....the bad thing about this is that there are many difficult~insanely difficult special challenge requirements on alot of the planets, making it time-consuming and aggravating to progress and obtain certain unlocks due to consistent failure. Just to let you know, in SMM, you have to beat the first special challenge of the secret true final planet just to get Fascination MAXX ~eternal love mix~ and the original Flow unlocked and purchasable in the shop. In the US version, you only have to beat the default final planet's hardest special challenge to get Fascination MAXX ~eternal love mix~. So, other than SMM, the rest of DDRSuperNOVA is very good in terms of great gameplay unless you count around 30% of Expert/Challenge step charts, which are NOT fun. Another thing, in Game Mode, the setup is almost like "Event Mode" (from older DDR games), so you are not sent back to the title screen after failing a song or clearing all stages.



Sound/Music - 8/10
Ahhh! What's a music game without music? Now we talk about the musical/sound aspects of DDRSuperNOVA. Well, first off, the game is wonderfully presented in Dolby Pro Logic II, so the sound is nice enhanced especially if you have the right speaker system setup. Go buy a cheap speaker system from your local department store, lol. Regular TV speakers are lame unless you got one of those futuristic TVs with interesting sound capabilities. Anyways, there are some new sounds and music in DDRSuperNOVA. Starting with game mode, you are treated to the same theme as DDRSuperNOVA (ArCade). Scrolling through song selection produces a somewhat irritating grinding sound, but it's tolerable as long as you don't scroll too fast. The music selection of this version of DDRSuperNOVA is closest to the arcade version. I personally, think that this game relied on too many crossover songs (songs from other BEMANI games) like Xepher (beatmaniaIIDX), Curus (pop'n music), DanDanDo (pop'n music), rainbow rainbow (beatmaniaIIDX), Centaur (Drummania), Hunting For You (beatmania I), and MANY more that alot of people (Japanese/importers) played already on the respective games. Around 50% of the entire songlist is crossover songs. With alot of those songs came horrible and un-fun steps, kinda disrespecting the original game where the song came from...and of course, the song lengths have been cut to "DDR length". The new DDR songs portion of the songlist are pretty good; the licenses are good (mostly from the arcade), and the new CS songs are really good too like Baby's Tears (Sky Girls Opening Theme). I personally think that there were too many BEMANI crossovers in this DDR game.



Overall - 8/10
Overall, DDRSuperNOVA is a nice addition to the DDR series. It has a few new tweaks here and there, and it introduced some new modes that are sure to carry on to the later releases. It's actually becoming a bit more like the other major BEMANI games with such a big unlock system. DDRMAX2 introduced interesting unlock systems and now DDRSuperNOVA CS has one too. I really don't know what to say for beginner players VS Stellar Master Mode, but Konami should make things less insane...even for high level players such as myself, SMM has knocked me down to my knees many times. The replay value of the game is significantly high due to so much stuff that you can do, so that'll keep the disc in your PS2 for a good while. This version of the game is much closer to the arcade machine than the US version, so most of the licenses are intact as well as the new songs.



BUY OR RENT
I recommend that you buy this game, as renting will do you no good if you have to bring the game back after you've JUST finished unlocking and clearing a whole bunch of songs and features.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/06/08

Game Release: Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA (JP, 01/25/07)