Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME: Encyclopedia - Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME is the eighth game in the Dance Dance Revolution series of music video games. It was released in arcades by Konami on December 25, 2002. Although only officially released in Japan, units exist worldwide. It featured 240 songs, 14 of which were hidden and unlockable. 59 were new to DDR, and 23 were never seen before in any other Bemani game. It was speculated to be the final arcade version of Dance Dance Revolution.

For a comprehensive list of the songs available in this game, please refer to the Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME song list.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME is also the winner of the Video Music Awards in 2005 on MTV for * Best Video Game Soundtrack

The interface used is a recoloring and smoothing of the song wheel interface first introduced in DDR 5thMIX. The names of the difficulty modes are "Light," Standard," and "Heavy," [楽 (raku), 踊 (gyou), and 激 (geki), respectively] just as they were in DDRMAX and DDRMAX2. A "Beginner" [習] mode, color-coded light blue, is now available. First seen in Dance Dance Revolution USA as "Simple", it is easier than Light mode. "Challenge" [鬼 (oni)] steps, color-coded dark blue and first seen in DDRMAX2, are also available for some songs, but it is not selectable before the game starts. By pressing the two arrow buttons on the machine simultaneously, you can change the sorting method from the default (New songs first, then returning songs, then unlocked songs) to an alphabetical sort, a sort by song speed in BPM, and a sort by popularity. In this version, a sort by origin, the mix or Bemani game a song is originally from, is also available, and placed between the default and alphabetical sorts.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Gameplay

The general premise of DDR EXTREME is the same as the previous Dance Dance Revolution games. One player can play using one dance pad (Single play style), Two players can play using one dance pad each (Versus play style), or One player can play using both dance pads (Double play style).

A player must step to the beat, matching the beat to the arrows presented to them on screen by stepping on arrows on a metal-and-plexiglass dance stage. Depending on the timing of each step, the step is scored "PERFECT," "GREAT," "GOOD," "BOO" or "MISS." A health bar is on the screen, and starts half-way at the beginning of the routine. PERFECT and GREAT steps increase the health bar until it is full. BOO and MISS steps diminish it. GOOD steps have no effect either way. If a player accumulates too many BOOs or MISSes in rapid succession, and the health bar fully diminishes, then they fail the song and the game ends.

Freeze Arrows, introduced in DDRMAX, have returned. Instead of just stepping on the arrow, you have to hold it for as long as the green arrow line remains on the screen. If you hit the arrow and keep it held, you score an "OK," which scores six dance points. If you do not succeed, it scores an "NG," with is worth nothing when your dance points and grade are calculated. OKs help build up the health bar, and NGs diminish it. You get extra base score points for successfully holding a freeze arrow.

A player may play anywhere from three to seven songs (not including extra stages), depending on how many the arcade owner sets the machine to play each game. At the end of each song, the player sees their accumulated points and how many of each kind of step they stepped. They also get a letter grade, ranging from E (only seen in two player modes when one player fails but the other passes) to AAA (all steps PERFECT), solely determined by the kind of steps they make. At the end of the game, they get a cumulative score based on the last three songs they played plus Extra Stages, if obtained (read on about the Extra Stages).

Scoring for each song has changed as well. There are now two systems: the long-score system used to determine rankings, and an independent dance point system now used to determine the grade.

The long-score system is the same as in DDRMAX2. The maximum score for a song is the foot-rating for that routine multiplied by 10 million. The highest number of points possible for a single song is 100 million points for a 10-foot song.

The dance-point system uses raw step values to determine the grade. It goes by the following formula: A 'perfect' step adds two points, a 'great' step adds one point, a 'good' step is worth nothing, a 'boo' step takes away four points, and a 'miss' step takes away eight points. An 'O.K.' freeze adds six points, and an 'N.G.' freeze is worth nothing. The dance points are also tied to the life bar. As always, if a player take too many bad steps and depletes the life bar, they will fail, and the game will end immediately. In two-player games, if one player fails, they can continue dancing, but it ceases to accumulate dance points for the failed player, accumulates score points at only 10 points per step, and automatically gives the failed player an 'E' for the song.

If the first song is in Beginner or Light mode, then the game will allow a player to fail that song and continue, but will fail the player out if they fail a second song. In Beginner mode, it will fail only at the end of a song. In Light mode, it will fail as soon as the life bar is depleted.

The grade is dependent on the number of dance points you accumulate: 100% dance points is 'AAA', at least 93% is 'AA', at least 80% is 'A', at least 65% is 'B', at least 45% is 'C' and anything below 45% is a 'D'. If you manage to get a net dance-point total of zero without depleting the life bar and, thus, failing, then you get an 'E'. The final grade for the entire game is an average of the grades from the last three songs and not derived from the actual dance points scored.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - FMV backgrounds

The arrows scroll over clips of full motion video. The screen refreshes at a full speed of 60 frames per second.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Groove Radar

The Groove Radar is a graphical representation based on a five-point difficulty system. The five skill areas are as follows:

• Stream is the ability to smoothly go through from step to step. This is determined by the number of steps in the song.

• Voltage is the ability to hit the fastest steps consistently. This is determined by the fastest tempo of the song, and how long such tempo is sustained in aggregate.

• Air is the ability to hit "jump steps," steps that require you to hit two arrows at the same time. This is determined by the number of jump steps.

• Chaos is the ability to hit irregular steps. This is determined by analyzing the irregularity of the overall step routine.

• Freeze is the ability to hold onto the freeze arrows. This is determined by the number of freeze arrows.

The classic foot-rating system is also used as a simpler method of determining a song's difficulty. It is arbitrary. A new rating, referred to as flashing 10, is introduced, and represents an extraordinarily difficult song. Only three songs have stepsets rated flashing 10s:

• "The legend of MAX" on Single Heavy and Double Heavy
• "PARANOIA survivor MAX" on Single Heavy, Single Challenge, Double Heavy and Double Challenge
• "MAX. (Period)" on Single Heavy, Single Challenge, and Double Heavy (on Japanese home version)

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Modifiers

Modifiers are changes that can be made to modify the step routine. A menu is available to make these modifications easily. This menu can be accessed by holding the Green select button when you choose your song.

Some of the available modifiers are as follows:

• Speed mods change the speed at which the arrows scroll on the screen. You can increase it to multipliers of 1.5x, 2x, 3x, 5x or 8x. The default is "1x."

• Boost, when turned on, causes the arrows to accelerate as they near the step zone. The default is "Off."

• Appearance mods change how the arrows appear on the screen. The default is "Visible." "Hidden" makes the arrow fade out halfway up the screen. "Sudden" makes the arrow fade in halfway up the screen. "Stealth" means the arrows are not visible at all.

• Turn mods affect the pattern of the arrows themselves. The default is "Off." "Left" turns all the arrows 90 degrees left. "Right" turns all the arrows 90 degrees right. "Mirror" flips the step pattern so that all left and right arrows swap, and all up and down arrows swap. "Shuffle" creates a random swap of the arrows, and can vary from turn to turn.

• Other mods affect the difficulty of the step routine. The default is "Off." "Little" eliminates all steps that are more frequent than standard 1/4 steps. "Flat" makes all the arrows appear the same, regardless of their step fraction. "Solo" changes the colors of the arrows to the colors used in DDR Solo 2000. "Dark" removes the "step zone," forcing the player to rely solely on the beat to determine when to step.

• Scroll mods affect the direction in which arrows scroll. The default is "Normal." "Reverse" makes the arrows scroll from top to bottom instead of bottom to top. The health bar is also moved to the bottom.

• Freeze can turn the Freeze Arrows on or off. The default is "On."

• Step is the last chance to change the difficulty of the song. The default is whichever difficulty you selected before choosing the song.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Extra Stages

Once more, the extra stages have returned.

If, on the final stage, you get a grade of AA or better on any Heavy step routine, the game gives the message "Try Extra Stage." Unlike previous versions, you can choose any song for your Extra Stage. You are forced to play Heavy steps in a Reverse Scroll modifier and a 1.5x Speed modifier. On top of all that, Extra Stage is played in "Pressure" mode, which means the health bar starts full and does not regenerate if it depletes with missed steps. Challenge-only songs may also be used for Extra Stage.

If, by choice or chance, a dancer chooses The legend of MAX (a flashing-10 in Heavy difficulty) for their Extra Stage and 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 Dance Dance Revolution. The player is forced to play its Oni steps in a Reverse Scroll modifier and a 3x 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.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Nonstop Mode

Nonstop Mode, which appeared in DDR 3rd Mix and DDR 4th Mix, has officially returned. You must choose a course of four songs and play through it to the end (or until you fail). The course Pop 4 is used to determine rankings. Your base score is used to determine your rank. Base score is always a maximum of 100 million points. Since base score is always graduated, the first song is generally worth up to 10 million, the second song 20 million, the third song 30 million, and the fourth song 40 million.

Each Nonstop course has two difficulty settings, Normal and Difficult. In Normal difficulty, songs are typically Light or Standard difficulty, and in Difficult they are one level above, so Light songs become Standard and Standard songs become Heavy.

In addition to a number of courses with pre-set songs and difficulties, there are 10 courses where the songs vary. Six of these courses are named Player's Worst, Player's Best 1-4, Player's Best 5-8, and so forth to Player's Best 17-20, and they contain the four least popular and twenty most popular songs respectively. The method for deciding a song's popularity is based on how often and how recently a song is played, and songs with equal popularity are chosen in alphabetical order (evident as the songs in Player's Worst typically include the least popular songs starting with numbers or the letter A). For the Player's Best/Worst courses, the Normal difficulty is Standard and Difficult is Heavy for all songs, except where the song only has Oni/Challenge difficulty.

The remaining four courses with variable songlists are named Random Dancemania, Random Bemani, Random All and Random Caprice.

• Random Dancemania: Four songs taken from the Dancemania label. In the Course Select screen, the names and foot levels of songs are replaced with question marks, the only hint to the songs being that Oni/Challenge level songs appear in purple.
• Random Bemani: Four songs that have appeared in previous Bemani games. Like Random Dancemania, song titles and foot levels are obscured with question marks.
• Random All: Four songs from the entire DDR Extreme song list. Again, song titles and foot levels are obscured with question marks.
• Random Caprice: Like Random All, the four songs are taken from the entire DDR Extreme song list. Unlike the other three random courses, the song titles and foot levels are displayed on the Course Select screen.

With the exception of Random Caprice, the songs selected for the random Nonstop courses are not known to the player until play begins. Like the Player's Best/Worst courses, the songs are typically Standard in the Normal difficulty course and Heavy in the Difficult course, but under certain conditions (such as the song only having an Oni difficulty) the difficulty may be Oni/Challenge. Since the colour of the song title (or the question marks that replace it) reflects the difficulty - pink for Standard, green for Heavy and light blue for Oni - this is the only clue towards what songs are in each course, since not every song has Oni steps.

A new timing, "MARVELOUS," is used in Nonstop Mode. It is stricter than "PERFECT" timing, and a MARVELOUS step is worth two points in determining your letter grade.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Challenge Mode a.k.a. Oni Mode

The Nonstop Challenge feature from DDRMAX2, also referred to as Oni Mode, returned and was officially renamed Challenge Mode to avoid confusion with Nonstop Mode. It can be selected when you select difficulty before choosing your first song. You have to complete a set course of anywhere from five to nine songs, with difficulties set and, in some cases, different mods. You cannot mod any songs in Oni Mode, and must play them all at native scroll and whatever mod the machine deems is part of the course. Unlike Nonstop Mode, you have to be perfect with your steps. The health bar is replaced with a battery. If you get a GOOD, BOO, MISS or NG up to four times in any one song, it fails you out and the game ends.

Your score is based on the number of dance points accumulated in the song, unlike DDRMAX2, which shows the percentage of available dance points instead. BOOs and MISSes do not take away from your dance points. The courses Naoki Neo-Standard and Dancemania are used for rankings. Both the dance points and how long you last, if no one has passed the course on that machine yet, determine your rank on each.

MARVELOUS timing is also used in Challenge Mode, and it is worth three points in this mode.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - 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 or earlier (the home version of DDR EXTREME cannot create arcade-compatible Link Data, but can read it). It can exchange data with DDR EXTREME, as well as any earlier version that has songs that are in DDR EXTREME. It can also use Edit Data, custom steps made on the home version.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Bootlegs

As with other DDR versions, bootlegs are fairly common. However, bootleggers of DDR EXTREME went beyond the standard practice of releasing the same game as Konami. Two modified versions were produced. Not to be confused with these is In the Groove, a music game based on StepMania.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Dance Dance Revolution MegaMix

Dance Dance Revolution MegaMix was the first of the two bootlegs. It was advertised as an "upgrade" to DDR EXTREME, and many arcade operators paid to install it over DDR EXTREME. To their chagrin, it turned out to be a scam: the gameplay was exactly the same; only a few interface elements were tweaked, including the removal of the original songwheel background with a blank blue screen and the replacement of freeze arrows with "freeze blocks", where the whole area of the freeze arrow is simply a filled rectangle (likely a bug), and the replacement of the Japanese warning screen with the words "DONT FALL OFF !!"[1]

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME Plus!

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME Plus! was the second of the two bootlegs. It also featured some graphical changes, but it had one gameplay addition - the ability to increase the song tempo by 10% or 20% by increasing the clockspeed which in turn damages the machine's internal CPU. In addition, the tempo can often not be changed, causing much agony among DDR players as their songs become harder and more likely to fail.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Home versions

The home version of Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME was released in Japan in September 2003 for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. It featured 111 songs, and had all the features of the arcade version.

The North American home version of DDR EXTREME was released on September 21st, 2004, for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. The songlist is considerably different from the Japanese version, and the feature set is closer to that of DDR Festival: Dance Dance Revolution.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Music

Notable songs from this version include:

• bag: An unusual 10-footer that only runs at 65 BPM. The difficulty lies mainly in reading the arrow patterns, which appear in extremely dense clusters of 1/24th notes. Because of this, many players do not consider "bag" to be a 10-footer at speed modifiers higher than the default "x1". Regardless of the scroll speed, the steps also have notoriously difficult timing, caused by the game engine's inability to properly space triplet-based notes (it rounds them to 1/64ths). This also affects songs such as "Burning Heat!" and "AFRONOVA", but the problem is amplified in "bag" due to its slow BPM.
• "Cartoon Heroes (Speedy Mix)". A speed remix of the popular song by Aqua, it is often considered to be the hardest 9-foot song, with steps including twisting runs and extensive series of gallops.
• The legend of MAX: DDR Extreme's addition to the "Max" line of songs, scrolling at 333 BPM. It briefly accelerates to 666 BPM, technically making it the fastest-scrolling song in the game, but no steps are hit during this speed-up. It also has a slow section at 83.25 BPM, which provides rest before returning to its regular speed. LoM, a common abbreviation for the song, is a "flashing" 10-footer, signified by the pulsating foot rating on the song selection screen. Many players interpret this to be a rating higher than 10.
• PARANOiA survivor MAX: This "PARANOiA" remix is often considered to be the hardest song in any DDR game. The Challenge/Oni steps have a combo of 655 (613 steps total, on Single and Double), consisting mainly of 1/8th notes at 290 BPM. Turns and jumps are plentiful, and several major slowdowns often catch players off-guard. The last portion of the song is infamous for its "death runs" – four 1/8th note patterns that contain highly complex turns, similar to those in "RHYTHM & POLICE" or "exotic ethnic" (except at 290 BPM). Both the Heavy and Challenge/Oni steps are rated a "flashing" 10. (See PSMO)
• 桜 (SAKURA): Originally from Beatmania IIDX 8th Style, it is considered by many players to be the easiest of the 10-footers. Although it reaches 320 BPM, the Heavy steps are very simple and do not have the stamina draining ability of the "Max" songs. The main difficulty in SAKURA comes from the BPM changes at the middle and end of the song. One step in particular is notoriously difficult to hit, due to a severe BPM slowdown that occurs 1/32nd before the actual arrow. It is of interest to note that although the song selection screen displays 300 for the maximum BPM, the final section of the song scrolls at 320 BPM.
• MAX. (period): Appearing only on the Japanese home version of DDR EXTREME, this song scrolls mostly at 300 BPM, and has step patterns similar to "MAX 300", with many 1/4th note jump sections thrown in. It also includes a short 180 BPM section which pays homage to the original "PARANOiA". However, the song is most notable for its last 12 seconds, which consists of a long stream of 1/4th note arrows. This section is extremely difficult to sight-read, since the arrow scroll doubles to 600 BPM.
• Dance Dance Revolution: This song, named after the game series itself, is initially only available as "One More Extra Stage". The Challenge stepset consists almost entirely of Heavy patterns from other classic DDR songs. In order of step pattern appearance, these songs are: "BRILLIANT 2U (ORCHESTRA GROOVE)", "DEAD END", "DYNAMITE RAVE", "AFRONOVA", "END OF THE CENTURY", "AM-3P", "CELEBRATE NITE", and "B4U". "Dance Dance Revolution" also has original Beginner, Light, Standard, and Heavy steps that are unlockable through the use of machine codes.

Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME - Soundtrack

The Original Soundtrack for DDR EXTREME was produced by Toshiba-EMI under their Dancemania dance music brand. It contained 30 of the new songs.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki