Customer Rating:  
Summary: New players will love it. Veterans? Not so much.
Comment: Allow me to start with the good news: This game is better than Supernova 2. That in itself is cause for celebration.
In terms of gameplay, X towers over its predecessor. The problems with the terrible step charts in Supernova 2 have been remedied in X: all the step charts in this game flow beautifully. The gallops in the song Horatio are a great example of what I mean. In this respect, veterans will be pleased. Of course, if you're the casual player who doesn't care about DDR jargon like "gallop" and "crossover", there's not much that this game can do wrong as long as the up arrow still means up.
Another issue corrected from Supernova 2 is the difficulty scale. Traditionally, each song is rated on difficulty from 1 to 10. Lately, however, these ratings have been a poor indicator of the song's true difficulty. To fix this, X increases the grading scale to make the difficulty of songs more specific. This may work against you, though, when you try to play a previous installment, but I thing the change is welcome.
Also, I've found this game's transition between the three difficulty modes (in this game called Basic, Difficult, and Expert) is smoother than in any of the previous games. It's easier to go from Basic to Difficult because many Basic songs include the eighth notes common to Difficult mode. Likewise, you'll find some Expert-style steps (crossovers, gallops) sprinkled in a few Difficult songs. The differences between the modes aren't as jarring and ultimately discouraging. If your goal is to become a DDR master from the ground up, this might be the game to try.
Others have complained about Challenge mode, and I must agree. Instead of giving us a new difficulty level that, as the name would suggest, challenges expert players, Konami spits one of the three regular difficulties of a song with us but with a twist: Shock Arrows. When the Shock Arrows show up, you have to jump out of the way, usually by jumping to the middle. I found this lazy and also unfair because it teaches players the fatal habit of returning to the center of the mat. Shame on you, DDR X. Shame on you.
I don't know whether even to mention the story mode since it's a bit unfair to judge a dance game on an element that a dance game doesn't truly need. Basically, you pick a character and go through a storyline that includes 10 missions of dance. The storylines are a little forced (A story about takoyaki? Seriously?) but they get the job done. There's actually no real reason to play story mode anyway, since I think you can unlock everything through game mode. All the other favorite modes are present: course, endless, workout, party, battle, training. It's all there.
As others have noticed, the announcer is atrocious. I don't know who told Konami it was a good idea to have the announcer sing a completely different song while you're trying to dance. The good news is that you can turn him off in-game, but you can't turn him off on the menus, and I hate to turn off the announcer because I like to be told when I have a 100 combo. I just have to do without, though, because the announcer truly is intolerable.
Finally, we get to the game's one pitfall: Song selection. Don't get me wrong, it's a great selection, and you have tons of songs to choose from right from the start. There are a great proportion of medium-high energy songs, which seem to be everyone's favorite; this is very refreshing after Supernova 2's snoozefest. There's a lot of instrumental techno/trance songs that remind you that this is, after all, a dance game. The licensed tracks aren't bad, either. It seems to have everything... or does it? The veteran player will quickly notice the absence of old DDR staples: Naoki, DJ Taka, and other favorites are sorely missed. The game tries to redeem itself with older songs like Butterfly, Boys, and the planet songs, but it's just not enough.
All in all, this is a solid DDR title. I imagine that new players will be thrilled with this game's huge music selection. Older players, on the other hand, will sigh with relief over the step chart improvements, only to realize there was nothing wrong with them in Extreme 2 and go back to Dynamite Rave without a second thought.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A New DDR
Comment: I like the new DDR! It has Butterfly, Sunkiss Drop, and all of the planet songs! The announcer can be a little annoying at times and the new shock arrow is a new challenge too. The boss songs are a new challenge too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Awesome - can unlock songs while just playing normally, good song variety
Comment: I'm thrilled with this latest DDR game. I own all the PS2 Dance Dance Revolution games and I love to work out a few times a week with DDR. The last few games before this one required you to go through some kind of stupid dance master mode or something to unlock songs- so I was thrilled to find that you can unlock songs, dancers, etc just by playing normally in game mode.
Two annoying things in this one:
You can't shut off the dancers
The announcer is dire - really, really bad. Luckily you can shut him up in options.
I do love that there is at least one good rap song in here, and quite a few oldies like Dub-i-Dub and Butterfly (a new remix). There's also just generally a good variety of songs. There's an interesting clubhouse reggae song that I was particularly happy to see.
I have played four nights now with a person with very different musical taste than I have, and we both enjoyed it a lot and found songs we wanted to replay each night.
I'm giving it five stars because of the simplified unlock process and the fun variety of songs. Yay for X!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Fun New Songs for a Great Game
Comment: How many DDR games can they make? DDRX brings a new, urban video-based look to the DDR game, but in the end it really comes down to if you enjoy the songs and dancing to them.
I have five DDR games and I have an area of my basement set up with the PS2, the pile of games and the dance pad. I don't tend to play "one game" (in terms of DDR). If I head downstairs to dance, I play a few songs on one game, swap games, play a few songs on the next one and so on. I get a lot of chances to compare them all against each other, the benefits and downsides of each one.
DDR X is certainly shinier than the other games. They are pushing the PS2 to its limits with the graphics here. Really, though, who is watching the graphics when they are dancing? Yes, I love having the treadmill-dancing video running for OK Go (and missed half the steps the first time I danced it because I was having so much fun watching the video). Which sort of proves my point - if you are watching or paying attention to anything other than the arrows, you'll be in trouble :)
Since the arrows really don't change from game to game, all that really matters is the song list. This is a VERY subjective judgment. We all have quite different musical tastes. For example, in DDR X there are four songs I really like - and I'm not really fond of the others. I'm sure other players will have a completely separate list of songs in this game they adore. That's why it's nice to have so many options in the game, so that you can pick out the ones you like and ignore the ones you don't like.
I'm really glad they continue to come out with games for the PS2 to continue out the DDR game line. I like the steps and songs in my various DDR games and am always glad to be able to add more games into my workout mix. I'm sure at some point with the PS3 they'll come out with a DDR that lets you download songs and old step sets from the old DDR games, and at that point I might convert up to the PS3. In the meantime, though, this is a great option. I definitely recommend anyone who wants to get a good balance and cardio workout to look into DDR, look at the song set list for each one and choose a few that you enjoy. DDR isn't about just having one and playing only it all the time. It's about having a few, with songs you like, and enjoying the songs.
DDRX is definitely a great addition to the library. Well recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: my impressions
Comment: I just got the game a week ago, so i have yet to unlock everything but i think i have seen enough to write a decent review. for good measure. I have been playing ddr for about 6 years now and own all but 2 of the ps games (i'm missing supernova and disney mix for the ps1) and i have the short-lived In The Groove for ps2 as well.
the good:
- big initial songlist (around 40)
- no more shop (that's my opinion anyway)
- Classic songs like "butterfly" and "hero" are in this version with updated steps (the songs are not remixed but the songs do have different step patterns)
The bad:
- The announcer! OMG the announcer! I've never had to disable an announcer's voice in the previous versions but there's a first for everything i guess
- The theme: The "urban" theme is quite possibly the worse move konami could've made (it's the main reason the announcer is so horrible) especially when you have an urban theme on a song list still comprised of mostly j-pop and trance.
- the new step levels: Changing the levels of the songs this late in the series is another bad move. I only hope someone who starts off with this game doesn't go to the arcade and think he/she can do a 9 or 10-footer song cause they can do it on this game
- Shock arrows: i know they are based on the mines from ITG but those mines are only one or two arrows at the same time. in ddr x, shock arrows always seem to be on all four arrows at the same time and placed in between beat steps so you have to either jump or put both feet in the center to avoid them ( the latter is harder because of two things: one, feet-in-the-center is something you DON'T do at harder levels and two, most basic pads still hit an arrow on accident when you put your feet in the center and it can't be helped. i've hit the shock arrows almost everytime i placed my feet in the center.
I know that's a lot of bad things but the songs are still fun to play (which is why this got 3-stars instead of 2) so if you want new songs or classic songs that you haven't heard in a while that have been made a bit more difficult. get this game. personally, once i unlock everything, i'm going back to supernova 2 cause i like the songs better there ( i love angelus but i did miss butterfly)
|
