In the Groove

"If you enjoy DDR, there's a good chance you'll enjoy ITG--especially if you're looking for a challenge"

Quick pros and cons:
+ 70 songs and over 550 step sets to try, including plenty of new challenges for experts
+ New elements and modifiers give ITG its own personality while preserving fun core gameplay
+ Fun Marathon mode adds a twist by throwing in scripted mods
+ Lots of extra touches and features that experienced players will appreciate
+ If you enjoy techno, trance and vocal trance, you'll love the songlist...
- ...but if you don't, you may want more variety than the songlist has to offer
- Some songs are edited…poorly
- Load times are annoying and border on downright ridiculous
- Quite a number of the easier stepsets are repetitive and unmemorable
- Practice mode could have been implemented better, and Training is too "quick and dirty"
- There's a bug that can cause the game to crash on startup

The odds are good that if you're reading this, you already know what In The Groove is, and you've played your share of Dance Dance Revolution. But for the sake of completeness, or on the chance that you don't fit into the above group...

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a music game where the goal is to step on arrow panels in time to music. A player chooses a song and shortly after it begins playing, arrows begin to rise. They arrive at a "step zone" to the beat of the song, and at the instant they arrive there, the player must step on the corresponding panels. Score is determined by how accurately this can be done.
DDR's been around since 1998 and started in the arcades. While decent home versions are now available, a large part of its hardcore fan base still plays in the arcade--where there hasn't been a new version released since Christmas 2002. And while that latest release--DDR Extreme--was by far the biggest and best version ever released, it's been showing its age. Many players have either passed every song, about mastered every song or simply become bored with it.

Enter RoXoR Games. They noticed that there was a growing number of players that wanted something new to play... you know, some new songs, new steps... or perhaps even something more challenging than DDR Extreme. The result: In The Groove. Although it wasn't very widely distributed, it developed a following, and brought something new to the table. And now you can try it at home! This is a breath of fresh air for DDR fans who are getting bored of playing the same songs over and over, and for the arcade players who despise the American home versions for one reason or another. But is it any good? Once again, it depends on what sort of dance game player you are.

The main menu offers the normal game mode (Dance), a two-player Battle mode, course-based gameplay (Marathon), an interactive Training “video” for new players, a Fitness mode that offers a continuous workout, a Practice mode, an Options menu and a way to check your Records.

This stuff sounds fairly routine, so you might wonder what the differences are between ITG and DDR. Besides a completely different set of steps and songs, the gameplay differs in the appearance of the arrows themselves—they're 3-D now instead of just 2-D pictures—as well as the introduction of two new elements: mines and hands. Mines appear along with the arrows and at the moment one reaches the step zone, you must not be touching the panel it affects to avoid a penalty. Steps referred to as Hands must be hit with your hands, because your feet will already be busy… at least three panels will have to be hit at once!

Mines and Hands can sound lame in theory but in practice, they've been implemented fairly well. Mines are used sparingly in most songs, and are usually in places where they're tricky rather than annoying. Hands are also sparingly used, and in the easier songs, they'll generally appear while your feet are holding freeze arrows. This gives you time to bend your knees and hit the Hand arrows rather than rush to hit everything at once. If you dislike either Mines or Hands, it's easy to turn them off completely.

Since the arrows are in 3-D, their appearance is slightly different from those in DDR. The biggest result of this change is the presence of many more arrow modifiers that became possible when the change was made. There are literally dozens of ways you can change the way the arrows appear and move. Most of these make reading them more difficult (or in some cases, nearly impossible, such as one that moves the arrows down from the top of the screen before moving them back up again), but some of them can make the going easier, as well—like Mini, which allows you to see things well in advance even if you've sped the arrows up.

Speaking of modifiers, they've been employed to make the course-based Marathon mode more interesting. In about half the courses offered, modifiers will be added and removed while a song is playing. Often you'll have to deal with multiple modifiers at once. This forces you to literally stay on your toes and pay close attention throughout the whole course. There are even a few courses where the steps themselves are very easy but the mix of modifiers makes them quite difficult! There are some courses that don't use modifiers, but the ones that do are infinitely more entertaining.

One of the biggest problems with the last few American releases of DDR was the low difficulty level for experienced players. There just weren't enough new challenges for veterans, and the number of veterans is only increasing as time goes by. Well, you won't be hearing any similar complaints regarding ITG. ITG uses roughly the same numerical difficulty scale that DDR goes, and while DDR's goes up to 10, ITG's reaches 13! The last few domestic PS2 versions of DDR have generally included only one 10-footer and a handful of 9s, but in ITG you'll find a ton of 9s, quite a few 10s and 11s, and a small bit of 12s to accompany a single 13. The more complex songs feature over 600 steps and are often laden with Mines and sprinkled with Hands. They won't be mastered anytime soon!

Another factor adding to the difficulty is the longer average length of songs. In DDR most songs averaged around a minute and a half, where most songs in ITG are around two minutes long. A few feel like they drag on for too long, but for most of the songs, the length feels right on the Hard and Expert difficulty levels. Unfortunately, for the easier difficulties, this doesn't work in the game's favor. Many of the easier sets of steps get too repetitive in later parts, and the longer length of the song doesn't help. Overall, the steps 6 feet and below aren't very interesting or memorable. Most of the steps in Double mode aren't as interesting as DDR's steps, either, but for most players, this isn't an issue. What comes through are the challenging and fun Single-mode steps on the Hard and Expert difficulty levels. They're there to be enjoyed, and most of them are entertaining enough to keep you hooked!

As for the songs themselves, there's a lot to like here. Most of the original music was done by Kyle Ward under a number of aliases (KaW, Smiley, Inspector K, etc.), much like Naoki had so many aliases in DDR song lists. Most of his music is enjoyable to play, and some is even enjoyable to listen to outside of the game (I especially like Oasis). The majority of the songlist is licensed mostly from a number of relative unknowns, although DDR fans will probably recognize Missing Heart and E-Rotic (and the songs from them in ITG are great). The songs are consistently good, even the ones you've never heard of, although there are a few stinkers (like the repetitive PA Theme, which is basically talking over a beat).

Two problems, though: one, the songlist lacks the variety of your typical DDR list. There's a whole lot of trance, vocal trance and some techno, and even some hard rock, but anything else is not well-represented. The good news is that the style of music used really does lend itself to this sort of game. The bad news is that if you're looking for more variety—say, Eurobeat, tribal, breakbeats, hard techno, some funky stuff, or even the J-pop often found in DDR—you won't find that much in ITG. The other problem is that quite a few of the songs have had lyrics changed. The original lyrics weren't really all that questionable; there was nothing there that you wouldn't hear on broadcast radio or network TV. The fact that editing was done at all is kind of wrong, but what makes it a problem is the shoddiness of the editing itself. It doesn't sound professional… honestly, it's like someone's kid did it in Sound Recorder in the space of half an hour. Thankfully, not every song suffers from this.

The feature set contains quite a few little things that increase the level of enjoyment for a wide range of players. For example, the song selection screen always has plenty of information about the song you're highlighting, such as the number of steps, jumps, Mines and Hands. This is easier to read than DDR's Groove Radar and provides concrete information on just how difficult a song is. When selecting a speed modifier, the BPM of the song will be displayed. The song results screen shows exactly where in the song you had problems. Your combo counter will not reset between songs (although it's a bit strange that it doesn't reset between games), and in addition, it will flash differently if you haven't hit a Great yet. The song list can be sorted in a variety of different and useful ways. Oh, and unlike in the recent DDR Extreme USA, you can indeed turn off the corner buttons when using a dance pad...thank goodness.

Too bad the innovation that inspired all of these couldn't have been applied to the Training and Practice modes. Both are bare-bones. Training shows you the basics of how to play, and at various intervals, it allows you to try. But it'll keep on going even if the player doesn't get it right. It should allow a player to proceed at their own pace. The Practice mode offers some useful features such as the handclap and the ability to zoom in, but if you play a full song in Practice mode, you won't get any kind of results screen to show how well you did. You also can't switch songs without exiting Practice mode.

Another odd problem: the loading times. They're horrible. Some load time before a song begins is expected, but to have to wait 5-10 seconds between the end of a song and the display of the results screen is just too long. Load times are also too long when waiting for the song list to display, when accessing the modifier menu, and when using the menu within Practice mode. This is not nearly as graphic-intensive as Tekken5, and yet, Tekken5 had shorter load times. This was RoXoR's first attempt at a PS2 game, so I'm willing to cut them some slack, but they'd better make sure this is fixed if ITG2 reaches PS2.

Worse than the loading time problem is a bug that can cause the game to crash on startup. The options menu allows you to choose a default sort order. If you choose “Top Grade,” then save the game to your memory card, ITG will freeze next time it starts. There is a workaround: boot the game with no memory card, load the data manually from the Options menu and you're fine. (You should then change the option and re-save to avoid another crash.) But this should have been tested more thoroughly before release. Being a programmer, I understand how this would have been hard to catch, but I seriously get the impression that ITG just wasn't tested long enough.

Rounding out the feature set: the Fitness mode's best feature is to randomly generate a nonstop set of songs on a particular difficulty level. It will automatically switch between difficulty levels (Medium, Hard, Expert, etc.) to continuously give you, say, songs with a difficulty rating of 7. This is great, and I wonder why Konami didn't think of it before. I might actually use this mode at some point. Battle mode works much like the old Dance Magic mode in DDR Disney Mix, where higher combos cause modifiers to affect your opponent. But this just means that the more behind you are, the less of a chance you have to come back. It would have been better to use modifiers to keep the game close. Still, it's fun, and an alternative to the normal play mode.

Adding up all of this, my opinion is that In The Groove is a fine game for someone who's already played DDR or another dance game and is looking for something new to try. It's especially good for players who've mastered most of DDR and are looking for a new challenge. It's not quite as good for novices, because of the half-hearted Training mode and the uninteresting steps on easier songs. Novices should try a version of DDR first, then “graduate” to ITG. Even if you don't fit into any of these groups, ITG makes a good substitute for DDR until the next domestic PS2 version's release in September. Give it a try…it's not perfect, but you may wind up really liking it.

Graphics: 8
The arrows look a bit different from DDR's, so they'll take a bit of getting used to, but they're fine. The animation is smooth in most cases, even while modifiers are changing in a Marathon mode course. The background animations aren't as impressive as DDR's, but you're not looking at them during the game anyway.

Sound: 8
Personally, I love the soundtrack. Just about all of the music goes hand in hand with this kind of game. It's too bad that shoddy and arguably pointless editing dragged the score down a bit. If you want a bit more variety, though, you may want to lower the score to a 7 or 6.

Gameplay: 8
It's not as original as DDR, obviously, but it's just different enough that the two games have their own styles. I enjoy DDR a little bit more, but if you play strictly for challenge, you may actually like ITG better. The score reflects the fact that the steps on the easier modes aren't all that memorable.

Features/Replay: 8
Making up for the terrible load times and the lame Practice mode is the simple fact that ITG is quite entertaining to play and replay. Notable also is the fact that all of the songs in the arcade version of ITG are in this version, so they can be practiced at home…and an unlock code is available, so you have the option to skip the unlocking process and enjoy it all immediately. Fun Marathon courses and very detailed record-keeping help keep the replay value high.

Overall: 8
In The Groove is a great first effort by RoXoR to provide another spin on the dance game genre. It's a bit rough around the edges, true, but if you're a true fan of the genre, you'll probably want to own this. If you're unsure, try it at a friend's house first, or split the cost with somebody. But if you've never played a dance game before, try the recent DDR Extreme USA first.

Also try: DDR Extreme (arcade), DDRMAX 1 and 2 (arcade, Japanese PS2, USA PS2)

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/23/05