DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution

"Not as Revolutionary as Some had Hoped"

I'd like to start this review by noting that it is based towards the DDR veterans rather than new players. Simply put, if you're a newcomer to the Dancing game genre, then there is no better place to start than here, especially with the deals some stores are giving out with the pad. If you want to start with a dance game, go ahead and start with this one. Feel free to read the review, as it will detail most aspects of the game, but it is geared more towards players who have at least a decent knowledge of the game.

Gameplay: 10/10
Same as ever! You have your 4 panels, and if you're going doubles, your 8 panels. As far as I can tell the game is perfectly synched, so no need to worry there (some of the older Japanese DDR games were not synched, which made for some tough AAA's!). As always the gameplay is different from just about any game out there besides Pump It Up. I can't really fault the score here, but I will say that the gameplay is no longer innovative, Konami long ago seemingly decided that this was the general gameplay of the game, and it was set in stone and would never change. Granted back in the days of Konamix they tried the 6 panel mode, but that never really caught on. And of course, gameplay is always dictated in DDR by the quality of your pad (an issue for many of us home players, I'm sure). So be sure to do your best to get a good one!

Sound:
BGM: 8
SFX: 2
Really a large factor of the game here, the background music, or should I rather just say 'the Music' is good. It's a well mixed group aimed towards a club scene. I'm very pleased to find that included in this mix are several licensed songs by notable techno/trance/dance artists such as Ian van Dahl, and 4 Strings. Returning as always are tons of DDR favorites, comprised mostly of songs from DDRMax, DDRMax2 and DDRExtreme in arcades. The only reason I give it an 8 is that in this type of game based solely on music, you will never be able to please all the people all the time. I think Konami did an admirable job of trying to please all the people some of the time. However, there are some issues I had with the soundtrack. As always, Konami for no reason that I can discern has included some redo songs from Max and Konamix such as AM3P, Afronova, and Celebrate Night. God knows we get few enough DDR mixes here in the US, couldn't they at least try to give us a new list each time? All in all I'm being pretty harsh there, Konami did give us a mainly new list of songs with notable hits that fans had been waiting for for some time (Tsugaru, MaxX Unlimited, Kakumei, Ghosts, So Deep).
The sound effects I have never been a fan of. For all I can think of right now, there are maybe 2 categories of sound effects. First, the beeps and claps in the training to help you learn songs, which I guess are okay, and secondly the announcer. If Konami were to change one thing in DDR, I'd ask that it be the announcer. You're really into this song you're dancing to, and this raucous annoying guy busts in 'Oh No! Combo Stop!' It can really throw you off track. Even when he's saying encouraging things I never find his commentary to be beneficial. And kids miming him in the arcades just make me want to scream. But, I digress. There is nothing to like about the sound effects, hence they get a 2 in my book. If the claps in training weren't as helpful as they are in some off beat songs, sound effects would get a zero.

Controls: 10/10
As I said in the gameplay section, the controls are based around your four panels, up down left and right. You'll probably also have a start and select button somewhere on your pad, but those won't see nearly the action of the arrow keys. You control the game with the 4 directional arrows, which is a pretty simple concept. Where the skill and finesse really come in is when the song you're playing gets going up to around 200 beats per minute (~3 and a half normal steps/notes per second) and you're trying to comprehend which arrow to press as the notes speed down the screen. All in all it's a simple control scheme with a lot of depth, which makes for only the best games.

Plot: 0/10
Who said anything about a plot?

Replay Value: 9/10
The entire game is replay value, so there's no shortage of that here. And if you want to get into the technical aspects of replay value, such as 'how many unlockables are there' I believe there are in the neighborhood of 36 or so. Now from what I can tell each unlock only takes 7 points, and you get 7 points for simply AA'ing one song, so this won't take nearly as long as DDRMax did, with it's 5 songs per unlock. However, as I said the entire game is about replay, and that's only amplified when a friend comes over and wants to see what all the fuss is about and you get to show him your 'Mad Skillz'.

Overall: 7/10
Yeah, 7 is a really low score considering all the high scores I gave above, but if I graded each DDR game as an island in an ocean of standard shooter and action games of course each one would get a 10. So I'm basing this score off of the other US games in the series, and hence this game only gets an average score. It's the exact same game as you played in Konamix and DDRMax, except it has a list of new songs. Nothing new about it, a good songlist, but besides that nothing notable. (And yes, the Japanese DDRMax2 does have a larger songlist). So as the DDR games go, this is strictly average. Not a bad game by any means.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/07/03