Comparison of dance pad video games

This is a comparison of dancing video game series in which players must step on panels on a dance pad in time with music. Step placement and timing is indicated by rising arrows overlapping fixed targets.

General information

Hands

• Dance Dance Revolution: No hands officially. Aside from a single song in Dancing Stage 1.5 (Uh La La La Maniac Single), a single song in Ultramix 2 (Skulk Challenge Single) (Needs Hacking), and four songs in Solo 2000, no more than two panels need to be pressed simultaneously at any given time, A Glitch/Trick has been found that lets you put them in edit mode.
• Dance Praise: No hands officially, although some songs feature glitches that require three or four panels to be pressed simultaneously.
• In The Groove: Yes. Up to six panels must be pressed at once. It is worth noting that on machines which were converted from DDR to ITG, it is usually more difficult to hit hands because one must apply much more pressure to get steps to register; this is because DDR cabinets were not originally designed with hand play in mind.
• Pump It Up: Yes. In Five-Panel (Singles) songs above the level 13, to press three arrows at once (Triples) is fairly common, albeit often done with the heel rather than a hand. In Ten-Panel songs (Doubles) above the level 17, to press four arrows at once (Quads) is not uncommon, but once again, hands are often not involved. In some boss songs, you might have to press five (singles) or six (doubles) arrows at once, in which case you do have to use the hands, but more than this (eight or ten) has been mostly discontinued (except for some boss missions and gimmick "another" charts)
• Pump It Up Pro: Yes. Up to six panels must be pressed at once.

Notes

1. ↑ The developer is the company or individual that has produced/created the game.
2. ↑ The first release is the commercial release within the video game franchise that is earliest in time.
3. ↑ The latest release is the commercial release within the video game franchise that is most recent in time. This may be the latest version if there is only one game in the series or the latest sequel if there are multiple games in the series.
4. ↑ The number of panels per pad refers to the number of inputs that are utilized in gameplay after the start of a song/level.
5. ↑ Modifiers are changes that can be made to modify the game's step routine that usually either increase or decrease difficulty. Such changes may consist of modifications to note scrolling speed, changes to the design or integrity of the notes, and alterations to note positioning.
6. ↑ Courses, often termed "Marathon courses," are sets of multiple songs that are played back-to-back without intermediate rests for the player to select the next song. During course play, life meters for subsequent songs are often directly impacted by the life meters from the songs previously completed. Thus the second song in a course set may begin with the same life meter as the player remained with at the completion of the first song in the course. Courses are often constructed thematically.
7. ↑ Bombs are notes that scroll onto the screen along with the note-markers that the player must avoid stepping on. Often, stepping on a bomb penalizes the player's dance gauge by having it reduced. In some games, derivative elements called "Attack Mines" or "Mod Bombs" may be used to trigger changes to the gameplay that the player might find distracting.
8. ↑ USB card availability refers to the capacity of video game systems in the series (typically arcade systems) to read character or song data from an external removable USB drive.
9. 1 2 3 4 panels per player: left, down, up, right.
10. 1 2 By selecting Doubles mode, one player can play with two pads, or 8 panels.
11. ↑ Note that in the now-defunct Solo series, only one pad is used. For this reason, Doubles mode cannot be played. However, two panels were added to the standard four: up-left and up-right. The player can choose to play using 3 or six panels.
12. ↑ Included from MAX2 to �X3 inclusively. Dropped in the 2013 release of Dance Dance Revolution.
13. ↑ The latest arcade, PS2 and Wii versions feature bombs. Universe 3, however, lacks them.
14. 1 2 5 panels per player: up-left, up-right, center, down-left, down-right. The Center panel is square, and the corner panels are rectangle (height > width).
15. ↑ Partial. (Dance Praise 2: the ReMiX introduced Custom Playlists. Similar to courses in DDR and ITG, Custom Playlists are custom-made lists of songs to play through.)
16. ↑ Progressive Mode, allowing several songs to be played with a continuous life bar, and modifiers that change between songs and even during songs.

References

1. ↑ Dance Aerobics Release Date. GameFAQs. Retrieved on 2008-11-30.
2. ↑ "Pump It Up History". Arcade-History. Retrieved 2008-08-20. 
3. ↑ http://www.Cyber-coach.co.uk/