Dance Dance Revolution Online Games

Dance Dance Revolution, abbreviated DDR, and previously known as Dancing Stage in Europe and Australasia, is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, Dance Dance Revolution is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance genre in video games. Players stand on a "dance platform" or stage and hit colored arrows laid out in a cross with their feet to musical and visual cues. Players are judged by how well they time their dance to the patterns presented to them and are allowed to choose more music to play to if they receive a passing score.

Dance Dance Revolution has been given much critical acclaim for its originality and stamina in the video game market. There have been dozens of arcade-based releases across several countries and hundreds of home video game console releases.DDR is viewed as an exercise tool and is in use as such in many gyms and schools. The series has also inspired many clones of its gameplay and a global fan base of millions that have created simulators of the game to which they contribute original music and "simfiles", collections of dance patterns to a specific song.

Dance Dance Revolution Gameplay

The core gameplay involves the player moving his or her feet to a set pattern, stepping in time to the general rhythm or beat of a song. Arrows are divided by 1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, and so on (with differing color schemes for each), up to about 1/32 notes. During normal gameplay, arrows scroll upwards from the bottom of the screen and pass over a set of stationary arrows near the top (referred to as the "guide arrows" or "receptors", officially known as the Step Zone). When the scrolling arrows overlap the stationary ones, the player must step on the corresponding arrows on the dance platform, and the player is given a judgement for their accuracy (Marvelous, Perfect, Great, Good, Boo/Almost, Miss/Boo). Longer green and yellow arrows referred to as "freeze arrows" must be held down for their entire length, either producing a "O.K." if successful, or a "N.G." (no good) if not. Dance Dance Revolution X contains songs with Shock Arrows, walls of arrows with lightning effects which must be avoided, which are scored in the same way as Freezes (O.K./N.G.). If they are stepped on, a N.G. is awarded, the lifebar decreases, and the steps become hidden for a short period of time.

Successfully hitting the arrows in time with the music fills the "Dance Gauge", or life bar, while failure to do so drains it. (If The Judgement on arrows scores less than Great, Combo will break immediately or if the dance gauge drains.) If the Dance Gauge is fully depleted during gameplay, the player fails the song, usually resulting in a game over. Otherwise, the player is taken to the Results Screen, which rates the player's performance with a letter grade and a numerical score, among other statistics. The player may then be given a chance to play again, depending on the settings of the particular machine (the limit is usually 3-5 songs per game). In most of the home versions, there is usually an option for event mode, where an unlimited number of songs can be played. On most DDR games, there is an option to use two pads at once, making it harder to play but increasing the number of moves to incorporate into songs.

Dance Dance Revolution Difficulty

Depending on the version of the game, dance steps are broken into varying levels of difficulty. The main difficulty levels are "Basic/Light/Standard", "Another/Trick/Standard/Difficult" and "Maniac/SSR/Heavy/Expert". Some versions also include "Hard", "Super Maniac", "Beginner" and "Challenge", which typically fall on the lower and higher ends of the difficulty scale, respectively. Songs are also given a "foot rating" (which is represented by a row of colored footprints (Cyan/Blue for Beginner (introduced in DDRMAX2), Yellow for Basic/Light, Fuschia for Difficult/Standard/Another/Trick and Green for Expert/SSR/Maniac/Heavy, and Purple For Challenge (introduced in DDRMAX2).), ranging from one to ten feet to indicate the overall difficulty of the step sequence. Typically, songs with 10 foot ratings are very fast, with one exception being "Bag" on Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, which is rated a 10 due to its low speed and high density of arrows. Extreme also introduced a rating referred to as a "flashing 10" (as it is represented by all 10 feet icons glowing yellow), considered to be tougher than a standard 10.

Exclusive to Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMix, all Maniac routines were split into a different mode of the game called "Step Step Revolution", or SSR, which was accessible by pressing the arrow buttons after inserting coins and before pressing start. The SSR mode was eliminated in 3rdMix Plus, and the Maniac routines were folded back into the regular game.

On Dance Dance Revolution X, the foot rating system was given its first major overhaul, now ranking songs on a scale of 1-20, the first 10 represented by yellow blocks, and the second 10 represented by additional red blocks shown in place on top of yellow blocks. All songs from previous versions were re-rated on the new scale, including the flashing 10s, whose true difficulty in comparison to other flashing 10s is also now known as a result for the first time.

The highest known difficulty on the new scale is 18; challenge charts featuring this rating include Pluto Relinquish, Dead End (Groove Radar Special), Fascination Maxx, Fascination -Eternal Love Mix- (Single), Healing D-Vision, NGO (Single), PARANOiA ~HADES~, PARANOiA MAX ~Dirty Mix~ (SMM Special), Maxx Unlimited -X-Special-, The Legend of Max -X-Special-, and Trigger.

Beginning in 6thMix, a "Groove Radar" was introduced, showing how difficult a particular sequence is in various categories, such as the maximum density of steps, how many jumps are in the steps, etc.