After over a decade and 3 generations of gaming systems, it seems Konami has NEARLY gotten it right with the two latest DDR titles that have hit the Wii—simply going back to basics by titling then Dance Dance Revolution Wii and Dance Dance Revolution II Wii. No ‘extreme’ or ‘hottest party’ subtitles. I’m the kinda way over-aged kid who wants to just jump in, select a song, and dance till I can’t dance till I can’t dance no more. But over the years, numerous variations on the series on numerous game systems has featured idiotic things like story modes and journey modes, bonus rounds, challenge songs—dance this mess around!
That’s where these two new volumes come in—with volume 2 being an improvement even over the first one. The BIGGEST difference here is, for the first time ever, you actually get to choose to dance to a mere segment of a song (which has always been the case on DDR games), OR to dance to the ENTIRE SONG!!! WAHOO!!! And what’s even better is that both volumes are loaded with full-length original hits by the original stars! I know, I sound like a K-tel album advertisement, but the fact is, on past versions of the games, many times we were bombarded by cheesy hi-nrg and techno cover versions. Not here. You can dance to entire songs by Bananarama (love a good banana ramming), Natasha Bedingfield, The B-52s, Justin Bieber (anyone who got his start selling his goods on the internet is okay with me), Kelly Clarkson (the original American Idol), Miley Cyrus, Jason DeRulo, Duran Duran, Everything but the Girl (the way I like my porns…), Goldfrapp, Human League (I do want you baby, on DDR…and now I’ve got you), Ke$ha, Kool & the Gang, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga, Leona Lewis, Martha & the Vandellas (always feel at home in ‘Mo’ Town), Bruno Mars, Jason Mraz, Nelly (gayest rapper name ever), New Edition, Ne-Yo, Rihanna, Selena Gomez & The Scene (love my Disney pop stars), Sister Sledge, Jordin Sparks, Spice Girls, Donna Summer (the queen’s queen), Train, and Yaz (80s synthlicious). I get giddy just pointlessly listing them all! That’s six decades worth of dance music that gets this 42-year-old tween’s feet twitching faster than a bottle of Excedrin.
Being able to dance through an entire 3 to 4 minute song really intensifies the cardio. Maybe they’ll have a Dance Dance Gay Revolution edition loaded with 10-minute club anthems next time around. Unfortunately, there are more ‘stat’ screens after you complete a song than ever before. Stepping on the ‘A’ foot pad to skip through them all is like a whole other dance. Yeesh! Who cares about dance stats? Just let me pick the next song already!
Indeed, as if to balance out the longer songs, they’ve given us two left feet by throwing in all these extra screens between songs. In fact, once you’ve picked your song, you are sent to a load screen that ends in a freeze frame—forcing you to have to step on A to proceed to the song! Sure, that’s great if in the two seconds between picking your song and going to the dance screen you realize you have to pee. Otherwise, you end up standing there waiting for the song to start until you finally realize progressing to the song is all in your hands (or feet, in this case).
Then there’s the random “bonus challenges” or whatever the hell they are. You’ll be shakin’ your groove thing, finish a song, and then all of a sudden get notified that you have a challenge song. When you’re sent back to the song select screen, that song is automatically selected on the wheel of tunes. For someone as anal retentive as me who systematically, methodically, and OCDally progresses through the songs alphabetically, it’s a hassle. You can choose not take that challenge song, but when you finish the song you opted for instead, you get yet ANOTHER screen informing you that you totally FAILED the challenge. How did I fail it? I didn’t even TRY IT!!! And don’t ask, because I have no idea what the reward is for completing the challenge. If it’s that you don’t have to ever have one of these challenges cut in to your dancing with yourself, please let me know and perhaps I’ll take the challenge.
Oh, and another time consumer? You know how I said it’s so great that you can do an entire song? Well, EVERY time you choose a song, you have to choose whether you want to do the entire song or just a segment as WELL as choosing your difficulty. In past games, you just chose your difficulty on the main song select screen, which would become the default choice, and if you felt like changing it, you would do it there before choosing your next song. That SHOULD have been the option here for both song length and difficulty.
Despite its flaws, the game still has another positive: songs unlock based on how much dancing you do. That used to be the way it worked, but then somewhere along the line, they began to add these ‘journey’ modes with some ridiculous plot that forced you to compete in certain challenges to progress. Fail the challenge, song remains locked away. ANNOYING. But here, after every handful of songs, you get a new song added to the list. Hot.
And finally, Konami tried to introduce a new mode into the game with volume 1: hand dance moves using the Wiimote and Nunchuk. Blech. DDR has always been about the feet. Let those obnoxious dance games for the systems on which “you are the controller” have the monopoly on the hand movements. I’m a DDR purist. Not to mention, when you use two controllers that are connected by a wire to dance, there’s a REALLY good chance your hands are going to go in opposite directions at some point and your going to rip that wire right out of your controllers. I’ll never understand how those glow stick twirlers at the techno clubs in the 90s did it.
Good news is, Konami seemed to realize it didn’t stand a fighting chance against the ‘you are the controller’ technology, dropping hand movements completely for DDR II Wii. Call me old fashioned, but I still buy all my music on CD and play dance games with a dance pad. The big question is—which of those formats is going to be phased out first….?
