Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party

"Decent, but does not compare to the PS2 versions"

Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party is the first DDR game to be released for the Wii.

Graphics: The same as any other DDR game. Not incredible, realistic Xbox 360 style graphics, but good enough for DDR. Incredible graphics are not really needed for rhythm games. 8/10

1P Mode: The 1P mode is this game is decent. I like the fact that it allows you to play higher difficulty levels by making the requirements things like “pass the song on Basic or higher.” Some of the previous DDR games required the player to play through hours of Beginner and Basic/Light songs in the 1P mode. This is boring to more advanced players. 8/10

Gameplay: It's basically the same DDR gameplay with 4 arrows. Two new features were added, but many things were removed for this game. The new features are hand motions and gimmicks. Hand motions require you to shake the Wii controller. These are represented by controller icons that scroll up the screen with the arrows. These are OK, but I'm glad you can turn them off in the option menu. The other feature is gimmicks. These are things like double stomps(arrows that reappear and must be hit again), arrows that spin around and a weird implementation of mines(which you are supposed to avoid). Most of these are just annoying and do not really add much to the game. Luckily, they can also be disabled in the options menu.
Speaking of the options menu, there are only 3 options: Hand motions, gimmicks, and freeze arrows. There are no speed modifiers or any other options available in this game. This makes playing the more difficult songs annoying because it is too difficult to read the arrows. Double mode is also unavailable (probably because of the lack of high quality dance pads for the Wii.) There is also no training mode, edit mode, or courses. Expert players will find the lack of these features very annoying. I rate Gameplay a 5/10. The 5 points are just for being DDR.

Music: The music selection is decent, but there are only about 50 songs while the PS2 and Xbox versions have about 70. All of the licensed songs are covers. Some of the covers are good, but why does the PS2 version get the original licensed songs while the Wii version gets only covers? Although some of the original versions of these songs would be too slow for DDR. 7/10

Sound: Sound seems fine to me. The announcer can be annoying, but the announcer is no worse than any other DDR game. 9/10

Replay Value: Replay value in DDR games is high, but the missing features and reduced song list lower the replay value of this game. 8/10

Buy/Rent/Ignore: I recommend that you buy a PS2 version instead. The PS2 versions have more songs and features. Unless you're a serious DDR player who only has a Wii, get another version. I don't think you can rent this game, but even if you could, it would be pointless because you wouldn't have a dance pad.

Pluses and Minuses:
+It's DDR
+All songs are new to DDR
+/- Hand Motions
-No speed modifiers or other modifiers
-No Double mode, courses, training mode, or edit mode
-Less songs than the PS2 versions
-Gimmicks

Graphics:8
1P Mode:8
Gameplay:5
Music:7
Sound:9
Replay Value:8

Overall Score (not an average): 7.4, which rounds down to 7/10.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/08

Game Release: Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party (w/ Dance Pad) (US, 09/25/07)