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
Stellar Master is a fantastic way of indoctrinating newcomers into the DDR faithful, simply because it takes them through the basics, starting with a tutorial level (which can be skipped) and then with progressively more difficult challenges on different "planets" in the game's solar system. Unlike Dance Master mode, which devolved rather quickly into a free-picked set of challenges with mysteriously unlocked secret paths, Stellar Master is far more streamlined.
Six challenges per planet are broken down into easy, medium and hard objectives. What begins as a simple "pass three songs"-style requirement slowly starts to evolve into more complex tasks like scoring a certain number of points or nailing AA or AAA on a number of songs. There are times when the objectives are fairly random (dance twice with a female character? When the characters are randomly chosen? Okaaaaaay...), but for the most part, they're fairly clear, and a little grid shows when you can tweak the options and what difficulties you have to complete the songs/objectives on.
These challenges are important, not only because they help slowly teach newcomers the basics while providing absolutely insane tasks for more advanced players later on, but because each planet is broken down into specific songs (which can then be unlocked for the other modes by buying them with credits earned as you play normally). Once you've passed two challenges, you'll unlock the first of three progressively harder final tests and it's here that Stellar Master Mode really gets interesting.
The EX Challenges are little more than a continuation of the same goal-oriented objectives from the normal levels, but here you have to solve three or four of them back-to-back. Things range from just finishing a song (usually the arrows here are moved around or reversed or fall from the top of the screen or start only a quarter of the way up the screen or something) or playing with special kinds of steps (bees or digital arrows rather than the traditional ones), to more diabolical tasks like not hitting any notes and then getting a Perfect on the 16th note or only stepping on the left and right arrows yet passing the song. They're completely random, but they're also one of the most inventive ways the series has progressed since the four little directions debuted.
It sounds like a simple thing; adding stupid little objectives and rearranging little arrows, but it can't be said enough how much fun this actually makes the game for folks who have tired of just playing the songs to unlock more stuff. This gives things a purpose, and unlike Dance Master Mode, which was fun, yes, but unwieldy, Stellar Master Mode actually has a very obvious direction to it, and offers some serious challenge and depth to what used to just be playing the levels (which you can still do if you want).
Other than that, though, it really is the same basic game; the motion captured dancers are nice enough (some of the girl dancers' moves are actually a little distractingly nice, truth be told), and the new sort of spacey warped-out stages are a nice replacement for static screens and cheap effects. The video quality was also a nice touch, and it's obvious some of the songs that were cut off were done so because of space limitations, but just having videos in the first place (including an inordinate number of BeForU ones -- though, I'm not exactly complaining) is a nice touch. Dolby Pro-Logic II support and the ability to tweak the delay for HDTVs were also nice little touches.
Is SuperNOVA radically different from the games in the past? No, not at all, but it is the first game that offers an honest-to-goodness single-player experience that uses the tried-and-true gameplay from almost a decade of games to reinvigorate dancing solo. Online play, a beefed up Workout Mode, and more options for advanced users mean that there's something there for everyone, too. It's clear that SuperNOVA is meant to be a return to form for Konami's arcade efforts, and while we're not so sure DDR can make an arcade comeback, we are sure of this: the PS2 version of SuperNOVA is the definitive home DDR experience.
If you've still got that old pad, bust it out and pick up a copy. There's still room left to get hooked all over again.
