Dance Dance Revolution Extreme

"Best home version of ddr for the US? ....yes!"

You and I both were expecting it: another US ddr release, doomed to be only mediocre at best and leaving every ddr nerd who plays it crying for more features and better songs. Well, we were all wrong. I was pleasantly surprised by DDR Extreme US. In fact, I almost wet my pants. At first, looking at preliminary songlists and seeing screenshots of the new interface made me nauseated, but (and I know everyone says this), until you've actually played it, you can't really tell that it's a bad thing. And in terms of songs, this is really an amazing mix. Here, I'll break it down.

Songs: 9/10

This is what most surprised me. Almost anyone who looks at the songlist, especially experts like myself, frowns at the sight of very, very few hard songs. There's only one 10 foot, The Legend of Max. Several 9 foot songs. The rest are below. Before actually playing this game, I thought to myself "Man this is going to be another version where I play all 10 of the hard songs and then I'm done for the day". But I was wrong. Almost all these songs are amazing. You can see that there are an extremely high amount of orignal songs, more than any other mix, Japanese, American, or European.

New Originals

This is the best part of the game. Undoubtedly. You'll mostly see songs from another of Konami's Bemani games, Karaoke Revolution. Old favorites such as Like a Virgin, Ladies' Night, Y.M.C.A., Bizarre Love Triangle, and Believe debut. Now you're asking: Why are these the best part of the game? New original songs are generally stereotyped as having bland, easy steps, and that's pretty much the truth. But not in this mix. These songs have amazing steps. They're very innovative, and HARD. The 8 footers really play like 8 foot songs. The 7 foot songs are hard 7 foot songs. There's no 9 foot songs in this category to my knowledge, but that's not necessary anyway, because these steps were done so well that it makes up for all Konami's mistakes in the past. Also, it's worth mentioning that these aren't the original versions of the songs. Nor are they covers. They're DANCE remixes! Yay! Not crappy dance remixes either. Like a Virgin almost qualifies as trance. I'm a huge electronica fan and I have to say that these songs are just amazing. The only song I don't like is Waiting For Tonight. I believe this was originally sung by Jennifer Lopez, but the remix on Extreme is like some jazz fusion crap. It sounds really bad. Also, I think the doubles steps for most the originals could have been better. They seem awfully generic, but they're alright.

Also I'd like to point out a couple other New Originals. Your Rain (Rage Mix) by Akira Yamaoka is really cool. First of all, if you don't know who Akira Yamaoka is, then kill yourself. Ok. So this song has like 80s electronica chillout sounds along with a very slow breakbeat rhythm and it transforms into a powerful, sorrowful disco kind of groove. I can't really describe it but it's a really great song. And it comes with a FULL MOTION background video, much like they started doing in DDRMAX2. However, it's completely computer generated animation. And it looks amazing.

Finally, the last New Original that really stands out is MAXIMIZER. This is supposed to be the new "max" song I guess. It's by CLI-MAX S., so I'm guessing it's built from a combination of talents from Atsushi Sato (Caramel S.) and Naoki Maeda. Anyway, MAXIMIZER is the best song on the game. Maybe not in terms of steps, but it certainly is the best sounding. It's hardcore techno, however it's very melodic also. It's impossible to describe how good it sounds. You have to hear it for yourself. The steps are only 8 feet, but the singles steps play almost like a 9 foot. Very fun.

Konami originals

Of course, most the songlist is composed of Konami original songs. This is what makes DDR Extreme even better. There's a huge array of songs, varying from Love Love Sugar to Drop Out to Neverending Story to V. Yes, plenty of DDR Extreme songs made it into this mix. V, A, The Legend of Max, Pink Rose, Frozen Ray, and 321 Stars are just a few examples. The REALLY cool thing about the originals though is the debut of a few, GOOD, older songs. Wonderland (UKS Mix), DO ME (H.I.G.E.O Mix), and Kick the Can made their way onto this mix. Also, there are many Oni-only songs that make their first American appearance, such as B4U (B4ZA mix), Higher (Next Morning Mix), Tsugaru (Apple Mix), and Ecstasy (Midnight Blue Mix). Combining all the songs together, ddr extreme sports an "extreme"ly diverse and entertaining songlist. No doubt.

Modes: 10/10

Ahh, this is the part that people usually complain about. You can't complain this time. Konami has include the normal gameplay mode, along with Challenge Mode, Nonstop Mode, Endless mode, and two new modes: Party and Mission. Party mode is the new mode which is compatible with Sony's Eyetoy. I haven't had the chance to play it because I don't own an eyetoy, but there are two games you can play even if you don't have one. The first is a dash game, where you hit left and right repeatedly and try to beat another person in a race. The person in second place can hit down to send some sort of missile that blows up the ground in front of the other player, and they have to hit up in response to jump over it. The second is a game where you have to feed animals as they come up on the screen. Different arrows correspond to different animals, so it's kind of like a different version of ddr. Mission mode challenges you to complete 100 various missions that Konami's sick mind has conjured. These range from clearing a portion of a song (normal or oni-mode style), full comboing a portion, hitting only jumps, hitting all but the left arrow or getting more than 20 goods, greats, and perfects. These range in difficulty from really stupid to impossible. Many of the missions have insane modifiers, like .25x, switching up the order of the step zone, reverse, brake, wave, and basically anything else that could incite a homicidal rage. Some of the later missions will literally take you hundreds of tries to complete. Once you complete it though, you unlock EVERYTHING in the game, along with another secret that I can't tell you ;-). You'll have to complete it yourself to find out.

Interface/Design: 10/10

Like I said, screenshots of the game may not look appealing at first, but it's all for the better. The songwheel is actually very similar to the previous one, except it goes left-right instead of up-down. The reason I say it's better is because you can see all the difficulties at one glance. When actually playing the song, you'll see that the top and bottom of the screen were completely cut out, and the remaining score display is almost transparent. letting you see more of the background than you could before. The lifebar is an actual bar instead of the silly squigly juicifier it was before. I miss the old lifebar, but oh well. Also there's a couple subtle changes. In Oni mode the score is displayed in the top corner of the screen, making it a bit easier to read while you're playing. And once you're done with an Oni course, it shows you a circle and it kind of lights up to show you what percent of the dance points you achieved (I'd compare it to a pie graph). Anyway, overall I can't say anything bad about the interface.

Gameplay/Mechanics: 9/10

Gameplay is the same as always. Four arrows, left down up right, hit em when they get to the step zone. The thing that I have a problem with though is the grading system. I don't understand it. It still calculates the score based on the DDRMAX2/Extreme system, but you seem to get bonuses for doing good on a song... Also, I think the grading system is different. I've cleared a song, perhaps I missed one step, and I have a very low great count, and I'm almost positive it's above 93%, but I receive an A. I'll have to check it for proof later but it does seem harsher than it should be. Also, they've changed the requirements to achieve the extra stage. I think you still have to play a heavy song as your final stage, but it must be 8 feet or higher. Sure, I think if you can't AA an 8 foot song you probably don't deserve an extra stage, but still that gives you limited options for your final stage.

Graphics: 10/10

The graphics are absolutely amazing. The background videos are crisp, clean, and look good, as well as the background pictures. But mostly, the full motion videos really make some of the songs fun. Go West, Highs Off U, Kids In America, Move Your Feet, Only You (Captain Jack video, you know it has to be good), You're Not Here, and Your Rain all have fmvs. That's a lot. And that just reminded me that Move Your Feet by Junior Senior is on this mix too. I love this song, and the video is indeed the actual music video (very cool). But aside from Captain Jack partying in a pimped out airplane, realistic computer-generated animated videos, music videos, cartoons with squirrels and zombies and the very sexy lady who sings Highs Off U, there's also a large array of characters to choose from. And overall everything looks great. "Absolute"ly nothing to complain about.

Overall: 9/10

This could very well be rated a 10, but I give it a 9 to give room for improvement. Although there isn't much to improve on, since Extreme is the best us console version of DDR yet. I mean, you've read the review, now go buy the game. It's definitely worth it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/22/04