Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA
DDR returns to the arcades and hits home with the best version US audiences have seen yet.
Published: October 17, 2006
It feels like we've been calling every subsequent release of Dance Dance Revolution here in the States "the best ever" since they started coming out, and maybe that's because we're just grateful to get a new game. By all accounts the DDR craze is over among the hardcore. I don't mean that there aren't still people playing it, and DDR has managed to imbed itself in American pop culture well enough that there isn't quite the same stigma attached to those that play it openly in public. It's not cool by any stretch to play DDR unless you're actually good at it, but hey, at least people won't laugh and point when you try it out -- at least not to your face.
Part of the problem with the game dying off in arcades (beyond the fact that arcades themselves are continuing to die off) is probably that there hasn't been a new DDR game since 2000. That's more than half a decade of the same songs, so it's no wonder things have died down a little. At home, we've gotten updates to things, but there's something about getting the arcade experience at home -- even if for a while there, the US was getting some seriously cramped versions of the Japanese and Arcade releases. Now, finally, SuperNOVA for the home and the arcade are the same game. And that game is awesome.
Let me throw a qualifier in there: it's awesome for those that still dig the series. Nothing has fundamentally changed here; freeze arrows, arguably the only major change since the series' inception, are here, but crazy stuff like diagonal arrows have been thankfully left out. That doesn't mean there aren't some really wild takes on the familiar formula in parts of the game, but I'm getting ahead of myself here, and to anyone just casually observing the game, about the only difference they're going to notice is the fact that there are a bunch of new songs.
"A bunch" is a massive understatement, actually. There are now hundreds of songs in the game, and while SuperNOVA continues the grand tradition of repurposing and truncating pop songs from a handful of genres (this time there are songs from Fall Out Boy, Kelly Clarkson, David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper and even acts like The Crystal Method), these aren't covers or trance remixes, they're the actual songs and in many cases have the actual video playing in the background. They're just, well, chopped up to fit into the space of about two minutes rather than being the full song, which is a bummer.
Luckily, for every one of those Top 40-friendly songs, there are a handful of classics, remixes of those classics and import music to help balance things out. I personally like just about everything shy of a lot of hip-hop stuff, so I'm more than pleased with the collection assembled. And normally, this would be about where I killed the review, saying "it's pretty much the same, the tunes are good, buy it," but there's sooo much more to talk about.
For starters, Konami finally updated the engine for the game. Gone are the low-res PS one-era backgrounds (well, for the most part) and in their place are new motion capture-heavy dancers doing their thang in swirling, iridescent arenas. That's when the game isn't showing a video in the background, mind you, and while the videos don't run at 60fps (yet), the step overlay is very smooth indeed. It all feels upgraded, the whole mess given a fresh coat of interface design paint that throws the whole mix into what feels like a giant electronic rock tumbler, with twisting, glowing bands of energy arcing around the main screens.
This carries over into the game's hand of modes. Yes, vets can still set up Endless or randomized games in Advanced Mode, Edit Mode still lets you rework the steps into patterns you so choose, and you can still play the game online in ranked or non-ranked matches. All three of these modes are mostly unchanged from the last DDR game (though the only play interface is now broken down into a much more friendly system that mirrors the single-player sections in name).
No, the biggest changes here are in the Diet Mode -- which now offers pre-selected routines that slowly ramp up and then die off, more customization of characters, the ability to turn off arrows that have the player jump to hit two at a time and unlocks songs while you play (I can't honestly remember if that was possible in the past) -- and the single-player game, which tasks the admittedly cool but disorganized Dance Master Mode and upgrades it to Stellar Master Mode.
Part of the problem with the game dying off in arcades (beyond the fact that arcades themselves are continuing to die off) is probably that there hasn't been a new DDR game since 2000. That's more than half a decade of the same songs, so it's no wonder things have died down a little. At home, we've gotten updates to things, but there's something about getting the arcade experience at home -- even if for a while there, the US was getting some seriously cramped versions of the Japanese and Arcade releases. Now, finally, SuperNOVA for the home and the arcade are the same game. And that game is awesome.
Let me throw a qualifier in there: it's awesome for those that still dig the series. Nothing has fundamentally changed here; freeze arrows, arguably the only major change since the series' inception, are here, but crazy stuff like diagonal arrows have been thankfully left out. That doesn't mean there aren't some really wild takes on the familiar formula in parts of the game, but I'm getting ahead of myself here, and to anyone just casually observing the game, about the only difference they're going to notice is the fact that there are a bunch of new songs.
"A bunch" is a massive understatement, actually. There are now hundreds of songs in the game, and while SuperNOVA continues the grand tradition of repurposing and truncating pop songs from a handful of genres (this time there are songs from Fall Out Boy, Kelly Clarkson, David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper and even acts like The Crystal Method), these aren't covers or trance remixes, they're the actual songs and in many cases have the actual video playing in the background. They're just, well, chopped up to fit into the space of about two minutes rather than being the full song, which is a bummer.
Luckily, for every one of those Top 40-friendly songs, there are a handful of classics, remixes of those classics and import music to help balance things out. I personally like just about everything shy of a lot of hip-hop stuff, so I'm more than pleased with the collection assembled. And normally, this would be about where I killed the review, saying "it's pretty much the same, the tunes are good, buy it," but there's sooo much more to talk about.
For starters, Konami finally updated the engine for the game. Gone are the low-res PS one-era backgrounds (well, for the most part) and in their place are new motion capture-heavy dancers doing their thang in swirling, iridescent arenas. That's when the game isn't showing a video in the background, mind you, and while the videos don't run at 60fps (yet), the step overlay is very smooth indeed. It all feels upgraded, the whole mess given a fresh coat of interface design paint that throws the whole mix into what feels like a giant electronic rock tumbler, with twisting, glowing bands of energy arcing around the main screens.
This carries over into the game's hand of modes. Yes, vets can still set up Endless or randomized games in Advanced Mode, Edit Mode still lets you rework the steps into patterns you so choose, and you can still play the game online in ranked or non-ranked matches. All three of these modes are mostly unchanged from the last DDR game (though the only play interface is now broken down into a much more friendly system that mirrors the single-player sections in name).
No, the biggest changes here are in the Diet Mode -- which now offers pre-selected routines that slowly ramp up and then die off, more customization of characters, the ability to turn off arrows that have the player jump to hit two at a time and unlocks songs while you play (I can't honestly remember if that was possible in the past) -- and the single-player game, which tasks the admittedly cool but disorganized Dance Master Mode and upgrades it to Stellar Master Mode.
