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Dance Dance Revolution, or DDR (known as Dancing Stage in Europe) is a music video game series produced by Konami. It was first introduced to Japanese video arcades in 1998, after being shown at the Tokyo Game Show earlier that year. Since then, the game has gained significant popularity elsewhere in the world, including large portions of North America and Europe. As of 2005, over 90 official versions have been produced, including those for home video game consoles. The Dance Dance Revolution series is a subset of the larger Bemani series of music video games. Including the arcade release of SuperNOVA, there are exactly 950 songs released among all official arcade and console versions.

The game is played on a dance pad with four arrow panels: left, down, up, and right. These panels are pressed using the player's feet, in response to arrows that appear on the screen in front of the player. The arrows are synchronized to the general rhythm or beat of a chosen song, and success is dependent on the player's ability to time and position his or her steps accordingly.

Gameplay details

In Dance Dance Revolution, a player must move his or her feet to a set pattern, stepping in time to the general rhythm or beat of a song. During normal gameplay, arrows scroll upwards from the bottom of the screen and pass over stationary, transparent arrows near the top (referred to as the "guide arrows" or "receptors"). When the scrolling arrows overlap the stationary ones, the player must step on the corresponding arrows on the dance platform. Successfully hitting the arrows in time with the music fills the "Dance Gauge", or life bar, while failure to do so drains it. If the Dance Gauge is fully depleted during gameplay, the player fails the song, usually resulting in a game over. Otherwise, the player is taken to the Results Screen, which rates the player's performance with a letter grade and a numerical score, among other statistics. The player may then be given a chance to play again, depending on the settings of the particular machine (the limit is usually 3-5 songs per game).

DDR is often criticized as being rigid and bearing little resemblance to actual dancing. Many players, in order to better focus on timing and pattern reading, will minimize any extraneous body movement during gameplay. These players are commonly referred to as "technical", "tech" or "perfect attack" (PA) players. However, there are those who prefer style over accuracy, and may incorporate complex or flashy techniques into their play movements. Some dedicated "freestyle" players will even develop intricate dance routines to perform during a song. Technical players will often practice the most difficult songs for extended periods of time, while freestyle players will choose songs on lower difficulty levels, as to accommodate their desires for easier movement.

Other modes

Several other gameplay modes have appeared throughout the DDR series.

• Nonstop Mode, introduced in Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX, allows the player to play several songs in a row, with no rest period in between. The player chooses a particular Nonstop course to play, each course containing a predetermined order of songs. In 3rdMIX, the number of songs played is dependent on operator settings, but the mode later reappeared in DDR EXTREME with a fixed number of four songs.

• DDRMAX2 introduced a more challenging variant of Nonstop mode, known as Challenge Mode or "Oni" Mode (referring to "demon" or "ogre" in the Japanese language). In Challenge Mode, a player chooses a predetermined set of songs, similar to Nonstop mode. These courses range from five to ten songs in arcade versions, and can reach upwards of twenty in home releases. Unlike Nonstop mode, a Dance Gauge is not used to determine whether the player continues to the next song. Instead, a battery divided into three segments is displayed at the top of the screen, with one segment disappearing every time the player scores less than a "Great" judgment, or receives an "N.G." on a freeze arrow. If one of these errors is made while the battery is empty, the player immediately fails the course. The battery is replenished upon successful completion of each song, although the amount given back is dependent on the unique settings of each course.

• Another "Challenge Mode", unrelated to the "Oni" Challenge Mode, is only featured in certain home releases. Gameplay consists of several "challenges" that may be attempted one at a time. In each challenge, the player must complete a certain song or section of a song while meeting certain conditions, sometimes with various gameplay modifiers applied to the song. For example, some challenges may require the player to not hit Up and Down arrows, play one set of steps with the wrong song playing, or play with the music reduced to half speed. Challenges are grouped into several sets within each game, depending on their difficulty. This mode was renamed "Mission Mode" in later console releases in Japan, and "Dance Master" mode in the US.

• Endless Mode is also exclusive to home versions, and similar to Nonstop Mode, allows the player to play through numerous songs one after another. However, Endless Mode continues to queue up songs indefinitely, until the player quits or the Dance Gauge is depleted. The song order is random, but options are available to limit the songs to a certain difficulty or category. The player may also choose to have a break stage appear after a certain number of completed songs. After Konami was forced to cease their arcade operations, all later DDR releases had the Endless Mode added by default into all mixes.

• Event Mode is another where there is no set number of stages. After a person completes or fails a song, the game goes back to the song selection screen. (Standard game mode in all the Xbox versions of the DDR games is set to Event Mode.) In the arcade versions of the game, Event Mode must be activated in the operator's menu, and functions somewhat differently. When Event Mode is active in the arcade releases of the game, the "Extra Stage" is no longer available, and players are still limited to a set number of songs per play. However, a player will no longer fail a song instantly if his dance gauge drops to zero, and the timer on the results screen is deactivated. This is primarily used in tournaments so an accurate tally of the players' Dance Points can be achieved.

• Extra Stage, introduced in DDR "Max" and appearing on subsequent arcade versions of DDR, rewards a highly skilled player for performing well on his or her last song. The player is rewarded with the opportunity to play a free extra song, which is often a very difficult song with difficult song modifiers, such as 1.5x, Reverse, Dark, and No Recovery. A player who attains a grade of "AA" on the Extra Stage is invited to play "One More Extra Stage," which is usually a somewhat easier song, but with much more difficult modifiers such as "Dark" and "Sudden Death".

• Mush Mode, presented in DDR: Mario Mix, replaces arrows with goombas, bob-ombs, and other miscellaneous items and objects from the Mario series.

• Magic Dance is a battle mode introduced in DDR: Disney's Rave. Two players play the same song on the most difficult steps available. Instead of a dance meter, there are two bars in the center of the screen that fill up as combos increase. When one player's bar is full, a modifier affects the other player for a short time (such as hidden, reverse, boost, and others). This game mode was not very popular, and is rarely seen in subsequent DDR releases, although it has been seen in the DDR PC simulator Stepmania as Magic Dance, and the game based off it, In The Groove under the name Battle Mode. A similar mode also appears in the arcade and PS2 versions of DDR SuperNOVA, called Battle.

Versions

Dance Dance Revolution has been released in many forms, in arcades and on various video game consoles. Although the majority of these releases have been limited to Japan, localized versions of the game have been released in Europe, North America, Korea, and other areas of Asia, to varying degrees of success. Japanese versions have also found their way outside the country through importing and bootlegging, especially in North America. According to popular fansite "DDRFreak", as of September 2005, more than 2100 arcade DDR machines exist in the United States, with over 25% of them located in California. The versions of "Dance Dance Revolution" are released as "mixes" and range from "Dance Dance Revolution" to "Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA," There was also "DDR USA", which was one of the first mixes released for the U.S.

Arcade machines

A standard Dance Dance Revolution arcade machine consists of two parts, the cabinet and the dance platform. The cabinet has a wide bottom section, which houses large floor speakers and glowing neon lamps. Above this sits a narrower section that contains the monitor, and on top is a lighted marquee graphic, with two small speakers and flashing lights on either side. The wide base of the machine creates horizontal ledges on either side of the monitor, which may be used to mount cardboard displays that ship with the game, or to store player possessions.

Below the monitor are two sets of buttons, each consisting of two triangular yellow "Select" buttons, pointing left and right, and a middle rectangular green button labeled "Decide". These buttons are mounted on a raised plate, which forms a small lip between the monitor and the buttons. The "Select" buttons are used to scroll player options or songs, while the "Decide" button confirms a player's choice. On many DDR machines, players may often use tokens or other personal items to form an organized system of the players' order. "Coin lines", as they are commonly called, clearly shows the order of prospective players, so as to eliminate confusion. Some machines are even equipped with PlayStation memory card slots located below the buttons, to store player scores and to play "edits", or, a custom-created step pattern for a player's chosen song.

On the floor in front of the cabinet is a raised metal dance platform, divided into two "pads". Each pad consists of nine 11-inch squares in a 3×3 matrix: four arrow panels for input (up, down, left, right), and five neutral metal squares. There are four pressure-activated sensors underneath each arrow panel, one placed at each edge, along with neon lights underneath the sensor that light up when the sensor detects a player's input. Mounted to the pad behind each player is a metal bar, resembling an upside down "U", which is commonly used to assist in balance.

Dance Dance Revolution Solo machines have smaller cabinets, and only one dance pad, which includes "Up-Right" and "Up-Left" arrows, in addition to those previously mentioned. There is no metal bracket surrounding the "Up R/L" arrows, which can make stepping difficult for a player not used to the extra arrows. Solo machines generally do not come with a bar, but all have the option for one to be installed at a later time.

The rare Dance Dance Revolution Karaoke Mix also has one dance pad, as well as a smaller screen, and a microphone to allow the player to dance and sing simultaneously. Similar functionality is available in Karaoke Revolution Party, released on the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox.

Although some evidence suggested that DDR EXTREME would be the final arcade release in Japan (this has never been officially stated), on January 25, 2006, a new arcade release was announced for North America, Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA. A version for Europe, Dancing Stage SuperNOVA, was premiered at the Amusement Trade Exhibition International in London, England, the previous day. More recently, Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA made an appearance at this year's AOU (All-Nippon Amusement Machine Operators' Union) show in Japan, making the game the first world-wide arcade release in the series.

Arcade releases

These arcade releases are releases from Japanese Version

• Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA
• Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME
• Dance Dance Revolution MAX2
• Dance Dance Revolution MAX
• Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX
• Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX PLUS
• Dance Dance Revolution SOLO 2000
• Dance Dance Revolution 4thMIX
• Dance Dance Revolution SOLO BASS MIX
• Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX PLUS
• Dance Dance Revolution 3rdMIX
• Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX with beatmania IIDX Substream CLUB VERSION 2
• Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX with beatmania IIDX
• Dance Dance Revolution 2ndMIX
• Dance Dance Revolution 1st

These arcade releases are releases from the European Version

• Dancing Stage SuperNOVA
• Dancing Stage FUSION
• Dancing Stage EUROMIX 2
• Dancing Stage EUROMIX
• Dancing Stage

These arcade releases are releases from the American Version

• Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA
• Dance Dance Revolution USA
• Dance Dance Revolution

NOTE: The majority of the systems in the United States are running a Japanese version of the game.

v t e Dance Dance Revolution
List of video games TV Windows List of songs Dance Dance Revolution Solo Dancing Stage
Arcade releases	1990s Dance Dance Revolution (1998) music 2ndMix music 2000s 4thMix DDRMAX 6thMix Extreme music SuperNova music X music 2010s X2 X3 vs. 2ndMix DanceDanceRevolution (2013 and 2014) music A music A20 music 2020s A20 Plus music World Spin-offs Dancing Stage Disney's Rave Dancing Stage Fusion
Console releases	Oha Suta Dance Dance Revolution (2001) Disney Mix DDR Festival Dancing Stage MegaMix Ultramix 2 3 4 Extreme 2 Mario Mix Max Hottest Party 2 3 Dance Dance Revolution (2010) II Universe 2 3 X2 (PS2) DVD Game Freedom Dance Wars Grand Prix
Related articles	Cobalt Flux Comparison of dance pad video games Dance Dance Immolation Dance pad Dance Revolution e-Amusement StepMania
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