Collection essentials #354: Dance Dance Revolution (PS1)

It’s been a while since I talked about a brand new genre. Introducing the first “rhythm game” that I’ll be covering (also known as a “music game”). 

As if Konami didn’t already have an incredible pedigree by the late ‘90s, they had to bring it a notch higher by basically inventing a popular new genre. They did so at the end of 1998 in Japan with two major arcade releases, Pop’n Music and Dance Dance Revolution. The latter went on to be especially popular, and if you’ve been in an arcade at any time after the turn of the millennium there’s a very high chance you’re at least vaguely familiar with it.

Rhythm games typically feature music from real-life artists. A player chooses the song they wish to play, and then they have to perform a specific series of inputs that correspond to the beat of the song. Rhythm games will almost always feature a few different difficulty levels, with higher difficulties often being infamous for being incredibly hard, and watching a rhythm game master clear those stages can be quite a spectacle to behold. A lot of the appeal of rhythm games, especially in arcades, comes from the unique controls that they use. Developers like to be quite creative with their rhythm games, with some imitating musical instruments, some just having a whole lot of buttons (like Pop’n Music) and some arcade machines using something that doesn’t even resemble an instrument or a controller like “Chrono Circle”. 

Dance Dance Revolution, as you probably already know, uses four “buttons” that are placed on the ground for players to dance on. Gameplay is pretty simple for the most part. A series of arrows will rise to the top of the screen representing which one the player has to step on, and they do so when the arrow reaches the top. The more accurate the player is with their timing, the more points they score.

Gameplay doesn’t typically change a lot in Dance Dance Revolution sequels, though there is one particular significant gameplay element that would come after a few installments. Typically Konami gets a new lineup of songs and uses those to make a sequel. And since this isn’t too hard to do, there are very very many iterations of DDR in existence. Home console ports of DDR can be played with a regular controller using both the d-pad and face buttons, but one can also buy “dance mat” controllers so the games can more properly be played. There are of course more “solid” controllers that can be bought, but they are harder to find, much more expensive and more awkward to store so not many people get them (and I am not one of them). 

One little thing about DDR that’s not my preference is the way notes appear. It would be easiest for my brain if the four arrows on the screen were represented in the four cardinal directions, with inputs coming out of the center of them, so that “up” arrows would move upward, “left” arrows would move leftward, etc. Some other rhythm games use a system like that. But with DDR the arrows are at the top of the screen in a line in a way that doesn’t correspond to the actual directions they’re pointing, so it’s slightly awkward sometimes for my brian to process the actual direction that my feet have to go.

It took a couple years for the first DDR game to hit consoles in North America. But in a way that was for the game’s benefit, as Konami was able to add more songs than were available in the original arcade release. Obviously later entries in the series have more content to add here, but this release has a pretty strong song list with fan favorites such as “Boom Boom Dollar”, “Put Your Faith In Me” and  “Drop the Bomb”.

As a kid, I remember well when DDR took arcades by storm at the turn of the millennium. It was popular among friends and family of mine, and I often watched them play it in arcades much better than I could at the time. It took me a while to get the hang of it. And I couldn’t play it super often because it was more expensive to play DDR than the average arcade game. It was years before I actually got my own dance pad at home, too. I never quite turned into one of those rhythm geniuses who you see tearing these games up whenever you go to an arcade, but I still greatly enjoy DDR. The first home version to hit the states is an easy pick as a collection essential.