DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix

DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix

Cover art for the PlayStation 2 port of DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix.
Developer(s) Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
Publisher(s) KCET
Distributor(s) KCET
Designer(s) KCET
Series Dance Dance Revolution & Bemani
Engine 7thMix & 7thMix PlayStation
Platform(s) Arcade & Sony PlayStation 2
Release date(s) Arcade:
  • JP March 27, 2002

PlayStation 2:

  • JP April 24, 2003
Genre(s) Music & Exercise
Mode(s) Single-player & Multiplayer
Rating(s) CERO: A (PlayStation 2)
Media/distribution CD-ROM (arcade)

DVD-ROM (PlayStation 2)
Cabinet Custom
Arcade system Bemani System 573 Digital
CPU R3000A 32 bit RISC processor
Sound PlayStation SPU
Display 29" CRT (Raster, 256x224 & 740x480)

DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX is the 7th game in the Dance Dance Revolution series of music video games and the sequel to DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6th Mix. It was released in the arcades by Konami on April 17, 2002. Although only officially released in Japan, units exist worldwide. DDRMAX2 contains a total of 116 songs that are playable in normal gameplay, 34 of which are new to Dance Dance Revolution. 20 of these songs are hidden and unlockable.

The interface used is a red, grey, and yellow version of the Song Wheel interface introduced on DDR 5thMIX. The names of the difficulty modes are "Light," Standard," and "Heavy," as they were in DDRMAX.

Contents

Gameplay

See also: Gameplay of Dance Dance Revolution

The core gameplay of DDRMAX2 is the same as the previous Dance Dance Revolution games. The 2-tiered scoring system which debuted on DDRMAX is still utilized on DDRMAX2. The Groove Radar also returned, along with the return of the previous Foot Rating system.

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." The song wheel on the Extra Stage is locked to MAXX UNLIMITED, which is played with the Reverse Scroll modifier, a Dark Modifier (Step line disappears) 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.

If the player 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 革命 (KAKUMEI).. The player is forced to play its Oni steps in a Reverse Scroll modifier, a Dark Modifier (Step line disappears) 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.

Nonstop Challenge

The Nonstop Challenge, also referred to as Oni Mode, is a feature new to DDRMAX2. It was officially renamed Challenge Mode in Dance Dance Revolution Extreme to avoid confusion with Nonstop Mode. The mode involves playing through 4-10 different usually themed songs with limited gaps between them just like in Nonstop Mode, but the traditional Dance Gauge is replaced by a "battery bar" with 3 lives (4 lives total,). A life is lost if a combo is broken (which is done by getting a step judged as a Good or less, or by breaking a Freeze). Lives can be regained after every song played, and some courses force different modifiers. If all lives (4) are lost, the game ends and the course fails. (The challenge Lives is also used at DDR Supernova 2 in Extra stage.)

In Challenge mode, the dance point system is slightly modified (Perfects and OKs are worth 2 points and Greats are worth 1, everything else is worth 0), and the final score is displayed as a percentage of the maximum possible dance points. The courses Naoki Standard, Nearly = 130, and Paranoia Brothers are used for rankings. Players are ranked first by how long they lasted, and then, in case of a tie, by percentage score.

Oni mode courses in DDRMAX2 sometimes have special song remixes that have a special difficulty, referred to as the Challenge difficulty and color-coded navy blue. The fan name of the mode comes from the Japanese name for the difficulty, 鬼 (oni, Japanese for demon). There are nineteen of these songs, and they are not available in the regular game mode in the arcade version of DDRMAX2. They all present on the home version as normal songs, although only 1 difficulty is available. Some of these Challenge remixes do appear on Dance Dance Revolution Extreme as playable tracks.

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 DDRMAX2 cannot create arcade-compatible Link Data). 5th Mix can create two different kinds of arcade link data; the Link Data file for DDRMAX2 is known as "New Version" Link Data and is backward-compatible with DDRMAX arcade machines as well. Link Data serves two primary purposes: Score-saving and Internet Ranking. The user 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. DDRMAX2 also provides Internet Ranking codes based on the user's performance in the Challenge Mode 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 the home version, as well as any earlier version that has songs that are in DDRMAX2, though this requires special steps to be taken in DDRMAX2 to write a PlayStation 1-formatted save file, which must then be copied to the PlayStation 1 memory card by the user.

Home version

The home version of DDRMAX2: Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX was released in Japan on April 24, 2003, for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. It has 74 songs, including most of the new songs from the arcade version, including eight new home-exclusive songs, All the Challenge-difficulty songs from the arcade version are available for play on the home version, most of them hidden and unlockable. There are a total of 32 hidden songs. DDRMAX2's hidden songs can be unlocked automatically by accessing its save data in the home version of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. In addition, DDRMAX2 can be used to unlock the hidden songs in DDRMAX Dance Dance Revolution 6thMix

DDRMAX2 Dance Dance Revolution, with the mix number omitted, is the home version released in North America for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. The North American version is considerably different from the Japanese version.

Music