Dance Dance Revolution Extreme
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| Dance Dance Revolution Extreme | |
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 Cover art for the PlayStation 2 port of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. |
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| Developer(s) | Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo |
| Publisher(s) | KCET |
| Distributor(s) | KCET |
| Designer(s) | KCET |
| License | Proprietary |
| Series | Dance Dance Revolution & Bemani |
| Engine | Extreme & Extreme PlayStation 2 |
| Aspect ratio | NTSC-J, horizontal |
| Platform(s) | Arcade & Sony PlayStation 2 |
| Release date | Arcade: |
| Genre(s) | Music & Exercise |
| Mode(s) | Single-player & Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | CERO: A (PlayStation 2) |
| Media | CD-ROM (arcade) DVD-ROM (PlayStation 2) |
| Input methods | Pressure sensitive panels & Buttons (arcade) Dance pad & PlayStation controller (console) |
| Cabinet | Custom |
| Arcade system | Bemani System 573 Digital |
| CPU | R3000A 32 bit RISC processor |
| Sound | PlayStation SPU |
| Display | 29" CRT (Raster, 256x224 & 740x480) |
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme (stylelized as Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME) is the 8th game in the Dance Dance Revolution series of music video games. It was released in arcades by Konami on December 25, 2002. Although only officially released in Japan, units exist worldwide. It features 240 songs, 14 of which are hidden and unlockable. 59 were new to DDR, and 23 were never seen before in any other Bemani game. It was speculated to be the final arcade version of Dance Dance Revolution, but with the release of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA, Konami has proven this not to be the case.
The interface uses a recoloring and smoothing of the song wheel interface first introduced in DDR 5thMIX. The names of the difficulty modes are "Light," Standard," and "Heavy," [楽 (raku), 踊 (gyou), and 激 (geki), respectively], as seen in DDRMAX and DDRMAX2. The only addition was the creation of a "Beginner" [習] mode, color-coded light blue, which similarly appeared first in Dance Dance Revolution USA as "Simple." "Challenge" [鬼 (oni)] steps, color-coded dark blue and first seen in DDRMAX2, are also available for some songs, but it is not selectable before the game starts.
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[edit] Gameplay
- See also: Gameplay of Dance Dance Revolution
The core gameplay of DDR Extreme is the same as the previous Dance Dance Revolution games. The 2-tiered scoring system which debuted on DDRMAX is still utilized on Extreme, as well as the Groove Radar and Foot Ratings. A new rating, referred to as flashing 10, was introduced, and it signals that the steps are extraordinarily hard. Only three songs on Extreme have stepcharts rated as flashing 10s:
- "The legend of MAX" on Single Heavy and Double Heavy
- "PARANOIA survivor MAX" on Single Heavy, Single Challenge, Double Heavy and Double Challenge
- "MAX. (Period)" on Single Heavy, Single Challenge, and Double Heavy (on Japanese home version)
As with previous versions, the arrows scroll on top of full motion video backgrounds with no dancing characters, but if Beginner mode is chosen, the background is replaced by a visual representation of the pad, and a character assisting the player on when to step. The characters in Beginner mode are named "Train" and "Bus", originally appearing in the background video for "Long Train Runnin'" from DDRMAX2, appearing as unlockable characters on the Japan-only home version Dance Dance Revolution Party Collection.
[edit] Extra Stage
If, on the final stage, a player gets the grade of AA or better on any Heavy step routine, the game gives the message "Try Extra Stage." Unlike previous versions, a player can choose any song for their Extra Stage. Players are forced to play Heavy steps in a Reverse Scroll modifier and a x1.5 Speed modifier. The Extra Stage is also played in "Pressure" mode, where health bar starts full and does not regenerate if it depletes with missed steps. Challenge-only songs may also be used for Extra Stage.
If, by choice or chance, The legend of MAX is chosen by the player for their Extra Stage and scores a grade of AA or better, then they are forced to play "One More Extra Stage." This time, the Song Wheel is locked on Dance Dance Revolution. The player is forced to play its Oni steps in a Reverse Scroll modifier and a x3 Speed modifier. On One More Extra Stage, it is in sudden-death mode, which means just one step that is not scored "Perfect" or "Great" or one freeze that is scored "NG" ends the game.
[edit] Nonstop Mode
Nonstop Mode, which appeared in DDR 3rdMIX and DDR 4thMIX, is also present in DDR Extreme. Players must choose a course of four songs and play through it to the end (or until the player fails). The course Pop 4 is used to determine rankings. A player's base score is used to determine their rank. Base scores are always a maximum of 100 million points. Since a base score is always graduated, the first song is generally worth up to 10 million, the second song 20 million, the third song 30 million, and the fourth song 40 million.
Each Nonstop course has two difficulty settings, Normal and Difficult. In Normal difficulty, songs are typically Light or Standard difficulty, and in Difficult they are one level above, so Light songs become Standard and Standard songs become Heavy. A new timing, Marvelous, is used in Nonstop Mode. It is stricter than Perfect timing, and a Marvelous step is worth three points in determining a player's letter grade.
In addition to a number of courses with pre-set songs and difficulties, there are 10 courses where the songs vary. Six of these courses are named Player's Worst, Player's Best 1-4, Player's Best 5-8, and so forth to Player's Best 17-20, and they contain the four least popular and twenty most popular songs respectively. The method for deciding a song's popularity is based on how often and how recently a song is played, and songs with equal popularity are chosen in alphabetical order (evident as the songs in Player's Worst typically include the least popular songs starting with numbers or the letter A). For the Player's Best/Worst courses, the Normal difficulty is Standard and Difficult is Heavy for all songs, except where the song only has Oni/Challenge difficulty.
The remaining four courses with variable songlists are named Random Dancemania, Random Bemani, Random All and Random Caprice.
- Random Dancemania: Four songs taken from the Dancemania label. In the Course Select screen, the names and foot levels of songs are replaced with question marks, the only hint to the songs being that Oni/Challenge level songs appear in purple.
- Random Bemani: Four songs that have appeared in previous Bemani games. Like Random Dancemania, song titles and foot levels are obscured with question marks.
- Random All: Four songs from the entire DDR Extreme song list. Again, song titles and foot levels are obscured with question marks.
- Random Caprice: Like Random All, the four songs are taken from the entire DDR Extreme song list. Unlike the other three random courses, the song titles and foot levels are displayed on the Course Select screen.
With the exception of Random Caprice, the songs selected for the random Nonstop courses are not known to the player until play begins. Like the Player's Best/Worst courses, the songs are typically Standard in the Normal difficulty course and Heavy in the Difficult course, but under certain conditions (such as the song only having an Oni difficulty) the difficulty may be Oni/Challenge. Since the colour of the song title (or the question marks that replace it) reflects the difficulty - pink for Standard, green for Heavy, and blue for Oni - this is the only clue towards what songs are in each course, since not every song has Oni steps.
[edit] The Oni glitch
DDR Extreme has a bug which can be used to access hidden Challenge steps for some songs. If a player has one course selected, then changes to an adjacent course and presses the start button the split second after the previous songlist collapses, but before the new songlist expands, the newly selected course will inherit the difficulties of the previous course. For example, if one of the song's difficulties of the previous course is Oni, the song in that slot of the new course will be played on Oni, regardless of what it actually should be. Performing this trick on songs like Love♥Shine and Dam Dariram, gives the player access to the songs' hidden Challenge steps. A few other songs have secret Oni stepcharts as well, though most of them seem unfinished, and some songs can crash the machine if the bug is used on them. In Nonstop mode, the player cannot enter the modifier menu; doing so will load the proper difficulties.
[edit] Challenging Mode
The Nonstop Challenge feature from DDRMAX2, also referred to as Oni Mode, returned and was officially renamed Challenge Mode to avoid confusion with Nonstop Mode. It can be selected when a player selects a difficulty before choosing their first song. Players have to complete a set course of anywhere from five to nine songs, with difficulties set and, in some cases, different modifiers. Players cannot mod any songs in Oni Mode, and must play them all at native scroll and whatever modifiers the machine deems as part of the course. Unlike Nonstop Mode, players have to be perfect with the steps they make. The health bar is replaced with a battery. If a player gets a GOOD, BOO, MISS or NG up to four times in any one song, it fails the player out and the game ends. As before, players can regain 1-3 battery pieces after every song.
A player's score is based on the number of dance points accumulated in the song, unlike DDRMAX2, which shows the percentage of available dance points instead. BOOs and MISSes do not take away from dance points. The courses Naoki Neo-Standard and Dancemania are used for rankings. Both the dance points and how long a player lasts, if no one has passed the course on that machine yet, determine the player's rank on each.
MARVELOUS timing is also used in Challenge Mode. It is worth three points in this mode.
The "difficulty bug" described in the Nonstop section works in Oni mode as well. This can make most Oni courses considerably more or less difficult, and can result in impossibly high scores for a particular course.
The "Trick" Oni course is home to three unique mods that are not available in any other mode. The Ecstacy remix uses "Brake", which causes the arrows to decelerate as they reach the target; basically the exact opposite of "Boost". The AM-3P remix uses "Fuwa-Fuwa", which causes the arrows to expand and contract like an accordion. MAX 300 is on x0.25 speed. Also, the "Neo-RevenG" course has Sakura on x0.5 speed. Some DDR Extreme machines have been hacked to make these mods available at all times.
[edit] Link Data
Some machines have the ports to insert PlayStation memory cards. Such memory cards have to be PlayStation 1 (not PS2) memory cards with Link Data from the home version of DDR 5th Mix (the home version of DDR Extreme cannot create arcade-compatible Link Data). 5th Mix can create two different kinds of arcade link data; the Link Data file for DDR Extreme is known as "New Version" Link Data, and unlike the previous two games, is not backward-compatible with DDRMAX or DDRMAX2 arcade machines due to a small technical bug. The machine will use all scores previously saved in the file by DDRMAX or DDRMAX2, but when the data is saved, the file is re-written in such a way that the previous arcade games will not recognize it. With the appropriate hardware to read/write PlayStation 1 memory cards on a Windows-based PC such as a DexDrive, a player can easily correct the file and make it usable in all three arcade games (though subsequent uses of DDR Extreme requires the link data file to be fixed again prior to use in DDRMAX or DDRMAX2). Cutriss of DDR Freak wrote a Windows-based program which performs the modifications to a save file in the .mcs format.
Link Data serves two primary purposes: Score-saving and Internet Ranking. The player can save his or her scores from arcade performances, and whenever the game is played in the future, the arcade game will load the scores for each user and show them on the song-selection screen to show the player's best performances. These scores can also be viewed at home with DDR 5th Mix. DDR Extreme also provides Internet Ranking codes based on the user's performance in a given set of Challenge or Nonstop courses. As with all of Konami's Internet Ranking events, the webpage for the game would allow users to enter in a generated password which contains their initials and scores for that session, and the webpage would display the rankings for those who have submitted codes. Link Data saves these passwords so that they may be entered much more conveniently.
The arcade game can exchange custom stepchart data with DDR Extreme, as well as any earlier version that has songs that are in DDR Extreme, though this requires special steps to be taken in DDR Extreme to write a PlayStation 1-formatted save file, which must then be copied to the PlayStation 1 memory card by the player. Memory card functionality would be later removed and replaced with e-Amusement.
[edit] Bootlegs
As with other DDR versions, bootlegs are fairly common. However, bootleggers of DDR EXTREME went beyond the standard practice of releasing the same game as Konami. Two modified versions were produced, DDR EXTREME PLUS and DDR MEGAMIX (both released in February 28, 2003).
[edit] Dance Dance Revolution MegaMix
Dance Dance Revolution MegaMix was the first of the two bootlegs. It was advertised as an "upgrade" to DDR EXTREME, and many arcade operators paid to install it over DDR EXTREME. It turned out to be a scam, as gameplay was exactly the same; only a few interface elements were tweaked, including the removal of the original songwheel background with a blank blue screen, and on some machines, the replacement of freeze arrows with "freeze blocks," where the whole area of the freeze arrow is simply a filled rectangle (likely a bug). The Japanese warning screen was also replaced by a screen with the words "DONT FALL OFF!!".
[edit] Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME Plus!
Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME Plus! was the second of the two bootlegs. It also featured some graphical changes, but it had one gameplay addition - the ability to increase the song tempo by 10% or 20% by increasing the clockspeed (overclocking) which in turn damages the machine's internal CPU. In addition, the tempo cannot be changed if one selects "Heavy" at the beginning, although this can be worked around by choosing any other difficulty, then switching to heavy. The speed increase remains in effect even after the game ends, a machine that is left on 20% speed for extended periods of time can be damaged very quickly. However, there have been some arcade operators that have installed fans over the CPU to stop them from overheating though this is not common. In addition, the rounded edges of the arrows are also squared off. Also, the Caution screen with Japanese writing is replaced with the words "SLIPPERY WHEN WET".
[edit] Home version
The home version of Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME was released in Japan in September 2003 for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. It featured 111 songs, and had all the features of the arcade version, but is missing one song which is new to the arcade version: Senorita (Speedy Mix) by JENNY ROM. The home version also brings back dancing characters with a new cel-shaded appearance.
The North American home version of DDR EXTREME was released on September 21st, 2004, for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. The songlist is considerably different from the Japanese version, and the feature set is closer to that of DDR Festival: Dance Dance Revolution. Additionally, the US edition of DDR EXTREME has a completely re-worked player interface which bears no resemblance to any arcade version, making it quite difficult to navigate for veterans of the arcade versions.
[edit] Notable music
Notable songs from this version include:
- bag: An unusual 10-footer that runs at 65 BPM, despite the fact that its true BPM is 130. The stepset's difficulty lies mainly in reading the arrow patterns, which appear in extremely dense clusters of 1/24th notes. Because of this, many players do not consider "bag" to be a 10-footer at speed modifiers higher than the default "x1". Regardless of the scroll speed, the steps have notoriously difficult timing, caused by the game engine's inability to properly space triplet-based notes (it rounds them to 1/64ths). This also affects songs such as "BURNING HEAT! (3-Option MIX)" and "AFRONOVA." The problem, however, is amplified in "bag" due to its slow BPM.
- "Cartoon Heroes (Speedy Mix)". A remix of the popular song by Aqua, often considered to be the hardest song with a rating of 9 feet, with steps including twisting runs, jumps, and many gallops at 170 BPM.
- The legend of MAX: DDR EXTREME's addition to the "MAX" song series, scrolling at 333 BPM. It briefly accelerates to 666 BPM in the middle of the song. Technically, this made it the fastest-scrolling song in DDR before Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA 2, but no steps are hit during this speed-up. It also has a slow section at 83.25 BPM, which provides a short rest before returning to 333 BPM. The Heavy stepset's final section includes a long run and concludes with a series of jumps, with gallops thrown in. The legend of MAX is a "flashing" 10-footer, signified by the pulsating feet below the Groove Radar on the song selection screen.
- PARANOiA Survivor MAX: This "PARANOiA" remix was considered to be the hardest song in any DDR game until the release of Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA. The Challenge/Oni steps have a combo of 655 (613 steps total, on Single and Double), consisting mainly of 1/8th notes at 290 BPM. Turns and jumps are plentiful, and several major slowdowns often catch players off-guard. The last portion of the song is infamous for its "death runs" – four 1/8th note patterns that contain highly complex turns, similar to those in "RHYTHM & POLICE" or "exotic ethnic" (except at 290 BPM). Both the Heavy and Challenge/Oni steps are rated a "flashing" 10.
- 桜 (SAKURA): Originally from Beatmania IIDX 8th Style, it is considered by many players to be the easiest of the 10-footers. Although it reaches 320 BPM, the Heavy steps are very simple and do not have the stamina draining ability of the MAX songs. The main difficulty in SAKURA comes from the BPM changes at the middle and end of the song. One step in particular is notoriously difficult to hit, due to a sudden BPM slowdown that occurs 1/32nd before the actual arrow. It is of interest to note that although the song selection screen displays 300 for the maximum BPM, the final section of the song scrolls at 320 BPM. In DDR SuperNOVA2, Sakura was changed from a 10 to a 9.
- MAX. (period): Appearing only on the Japanese home version of DDR EXTREME, this song scrolls mostly at 300 BPM, and has step patterns similar to "MAX 300", with several 1/4th note jump sections thrown in. It also includes a short 180 BPM section which pays homage to the original "PARANOiA". However, the song is most notable for its last 12 seconds, which consist of a long stream of 1/4th note arrows. This section is extremely difficult to sight-read, since the arrow scroll doubles to 600 BPM. It is of interest to note that this MAX song is not by NAOKI, unlike the other MAXes, but by 2MB, a renowned DDR song remix artist, most popularly known for Healing Vision (Angelic mix). The song also contributed to the speculation of the end of DDR, with spoken messages such as "Why do you need Konami Original songs?" and "Thanks for playing" at the end.
- Dance Dance Revolution: This song, named after the game series itself, is initially only available as "One More Extra Stage". The Challenge stepset consists almost entirely of Heavy patterns from other classic DDR songs. In order of step pattern appearance, these songs are: "BRILLIANT 2U (ORCHESTRA GROOVE)", "DEAD END", "DYNAMITE RAVE", "AFRONOVA", "END OF THE CENTURY", "AM-3P", "CELEBRATE NITE", and "B4U". "Dance Dance Revolution" also has original Beginner, Light, Standard, and Heavy steps that are unlockable through the use of machine codes. Another notable feature of the song is that the female background singer sings lyrics from the openings of previous DDR mixes, and the background movie consists of scenes from the opening videos of the older mixes which featured them.
[edit] Soundtrack
The Original Soundtrack for DDR EXTREME was produced by Toshiba-EMI under their Dancemania dance music brand. It contains 30 of the new songs.
[edit] External links
- Konami (US Home Page), makers of DDR.
- Konami (Japanese Home Page)
- Official DDR EXTREME website, from Konami. (In Japanese)
- Dancemania (In Japanese)
[edit] References
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