Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3

"Well if noone else is gonna review this thing"

Intro:
Well, here we are, another DDR. But how does this one stack up to the others? It's not a bad game, but as far as DDR goes it doesn't have an amazing collection of songs. About half of the songs are American pop songs, and personally when I play DDR, I'd rather have my Butterfly and my Sandstorm than some crappy pop culture stuff that Black Eyed Peas or Run DMC thought up when they could take enough time away from their pile of money to sell their "songs" to be put into a DDR game. Don't get me wrong, a few good American songs are on here, Freezepop has a song, on here, but it's far from their best work, and a few others are passable. As far as difficulty goes I'm only on standard, so I can't compare it to another DDR as far as it goes with vet players, but it does seem to have an easier feel to it than most of the other DDR games I've played. Another big disappointment is that most of the songs are just "repeats." Not a remix or anything just flat out copied and pasted from one DDR to this one. Granted Akumajo Dracula Medly is wonderful, but this song alone is not worth $50. Personally though, I don't downvote games because they are a port or remake. I rate them based on how fun it is if this were the first one you've played.

Gameplay:9/10
Konami really needs to drop all the gimmics that come with the new DDR games and realize that game mode is just about all anyone cares about. if they didn't waste precious memory on things like Quest Mode, and the like they could have another 10 solid songs on this game.

The classic game mode like always is golden. However, I personally don't like the ranking system. Unfortunatly, it's possible to get more points with a B than with an A, and what's displayed in the song select screen goes by the points, not the higher grade. For instance, a B with 50,000 points will appear in song select if you get an A with 49,000 points. This can be aggrivating if you want to improve and can't keep track of what songs you actually got an A on I'm not sure if every DDR is like this but if it is, I wish it were fixed.

Party mode could be fun for a change, but it's not close to being anything to obsess over.

Workout mode is the usual thing, good if your on a diet or need exercise, but I personally find no use in it myself.

Quest mode would be fun if it were designed better, First of all, you have to get so many points to accomplish anything that you'll probablly end up playing 50 songs just to get past the first level. Secondly, the grades you would have recieved in Quest mode don't transfer, so if you finally got that AA on Legend of Max in Quest mode it won't appear in your records.

Challenge mode is just that, challenges for people to try to beat. It can be fun at times, probablly more fun if you've mastered heavy/oni and you are looking for more in the game.

Graphics:10/10
I don't see why it matters too much, but they're solid. Provided you have a dance pad that accepts your timing well enough, the graphics aren't going to slow you down and most of the videos in the background of the game are entertaining.

Sound:7/10
As I said in the intro, the songs that are here from Konami or any other game company are great, but I doubt too many people were thinking "God I wish 'Whip it' or 'Play that Funky Music' were on my DDR." The americanized songs just don't have much of a DDR feel for the most part, and the worst part is they take up almost half the collection of songs. Hopefully Konami drops this idea in future games, but if people really wanted them Stepmania would have been a better direction for these songs to go in.

Replayablity:10/10
Weather you just want that AAA in Legend of Max Heavy or you want to be good at every song on the game, just about any DDR game has countless hours of replayability that you can spend on it. You can just avoid playing any songs you don't like, which is a good perk to the DDR world.

Rent or Buy?
If you actually have a store that rents this, or a friend that has it, borrow/rent it first and see if you like the song selection. If you can find it for $20 or less and you have a pad for X-box, I'd say pick it up. I was kind of disappointed in it but I didn't really do my homework before buying it.

Overall: 7/10(not an average)
If you're looking to play DDR for the first time grab a copy of Konamix or Max for PS2. There are currently seven playable DDRs on PS2 and only 3 on Xbox. Xbox does have the song packs, but you must have Xbox live and you have to pay for most of them. If you're a die hard fan and must play them all. You probablly won't regret this purchase, especially considering you probablly have a dance pad for UM or UM2. Overall it gets a 7/10, but compared to other DDRs, I'd only give it a 4/10, use your best judgement if you want it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/06