Dance & Dance

This may be quite old. I copy paste it from my old blog at friendster but it was my own creation. Anyway, let’s talk about my old games addiction. Btw, now, only dotA!

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) is a game that started the dance game craze in Japan/Asia. Konami has created this simple to learn, fun game. The game is played using your feet; played by stepping on arrows. For Europe version, it was called Dancing Stage. Japan and U.S. version came with different songlist but same name.

It's actually pretty simple. Your "controller" has four directions: left, down, up, and right, which are shown at the top of your play screen. You select a song. As the song plays, arrows will start scrolling up to your top line. When an arrow scrolling up reaches the line of arrows at the top, you must "step" on the direction matching that arrow's direction. If two arrows come up at once, you must press both at once (jump or hop). If a green "freeze" arrow appears, you must hold that step at the beginning until the freeze arrow ends.

Depending on your timing, you can score 'Perfect!', 'Great!', 'Good!', 'Boo!' (Almost!) and 'Miss!' (Bad!). You can score combos by getting 'Perfect!' and 'Great!' steps in succession - getting one of the others breaks this combo. An energy bar is located up the top of the screen. Getting 'Perfect!' or 'Great!' increases this, 'Good!' gives no changes, and getting others decreases it. If it empties, you lose. For freeze arrow, if you hold your feet until the freeze arrow ends, you score 'Ok!'. Otherwise, you get 'NG!' and your energy bar decreases.

At the end you are given a rating based on your stepping accuracy. An E is a fail. D is almost a fail (or you failed but managed to recharge up you bar when playing two player). C is an average score. B is a good score. A means you made one or two mistakes and got a lot of great steps, or made several mistakes but generally got perfects. AA means you get full perfect/great combo (more to perfect) and get 'Ok! for all freeze arrow'. AAA means you got all perfect and get 'Ok! for all freeze arrow.

Well here in Brunei, there were only 3 (or 4) type of machines. DDR 5th Mix, DDR Max (6th Mix), and DDR 3rd Mix, as well as the old DDR 2nd Mix. It cost you $1 to play once, that is $1 for 2 tokens... 1 game required 2 tokens but 1 game have 4 songs to be played if you passed all... So, it is worth of a dollar to play DDR rather than others machine at the arcade... The Arcade would be very crowded at evening (around 7 PM) especially every weekend & the day before. A lot of DDR dancer would be playing there. However, it would be very quite in the evening & at the afternoon (except on weekend)... If you want to try this game, you should try it in the afternoon... No embrassment playing with mistake there...

For DDR & myself... I used to play a lot with Fuze, Adib, Pau, my lil sister and my lil brother. Playing DDR is seen to be kind of show-off cause we are playing & showing our skill of dance in front of people. I can't denied that... I played DDR cause it's fun, for fitness & my motive to play at the arcade is to have fun. A real show-off & psycho were those who play to be recognized by people & being famous...

Anyway, you guys can download "Stepmania 3.9" from http://www.stepmania.com and download songs from Stepmania's 'Song Download Site' links... It's very interesting & cool! Stepmania is a simulation for Dance Dance Revolution & In The Groove for Laptop & PC. It is a Simulation which you can play any songs you want (by downloads), change themes, edit songs & etc. Enjui it~ Good Luck in DDR-ing...

For now, I didn't play DDR more often. It’s dotA only now! I did went to Arcade, but just walk in then out. Sometimes I just watch tekken-gamers play the Tekken 5 & Tekken 6. I see that people playing DDR are becoming less and now extinct... I don’t care anymore. =P

The song selection screen!

Trying on the DDR Mat