Dance Dance Revolution/Trivia

• Bad Export for You: Has happened to various degrees. Usually due to differences in what kind of music is popular in certain areas, licensing, etc., For the hardcore players who are more used to what the Japanese arcade versions offer (or are on a neverending quest to get all perfects on every song ever stepped), the regional variations can quickly turn into One Game for the Price of Two meets Mission Pack Sequel
  • The PlayStation versions based off the arcade titles were quite different between territories. The Japanese releases would be an accurate port of the arcade version, and even have some bonus content or songs from the next arcade version. Then for America, they get the branding and some of the original music from the corresponding arcade version, but almost everything that wasn't a Konami Original would get replaced by American pop (essentially, In Name And 50% Of The Content Only). If Europe were lucky, they'd get a game at all, but it would have European pop, and would be part of a completely separate continuity. be called Dancing Stage, and have little connection to the game its based off.
  • Beginning on SuperNOVA (which was by the way, the first arcade version to get an almost consistent international release), Konami got the bright idea to release an American PS2 version of it before the Japanese versions. Missing songs and features that came through unlocks or the Japanese PS2 version got held over to the next release, if not at all. For the most insane example, just look at how significantly different the PlayStation's DDR X2 was in comparison to the arcade version.
  • The Wii games, for the most part, avert and subvert this at the same time. Except for its tendency to use different logos in Europe (and eventually staying with the Hottest Party branding, even though American versions would reset the count on Hottest Party 4), the Hottest Party games between America and Europe are almost identical. In Japan, the first one was close (with a few odd song replacements and a new boss America would not get until Hottest Party 3), but the second and third editions diverged with completely different names, and a selection of J-pop to replace most of the American music.
  • The debut of Konami's e-Amusement system (which stores statistics/progress, etc. on an online account accessed with a smart card reader) on SuperNOVA frustrated many American players, since the game's unlock system and other features had a dependency to it, and it's exclusive to Asia. This left American SuperNOVA cabinets without complete access to all of the game's content (although a software patch distributed via CD for sync issues did unlock one of the main boss songs for regular play).
    • However, you've got to give Konami credit for at least trying: a SuperNOVA2 machine in Naperville was the test site for a beta test of e-Amusement in the United States. Due to a lack of interest (most likely due to the fact that it was subscription-based and needed a bit of extra hardware to work, and even Golden Tee Live manages to pull off online functionality through either just a normal internet connection or a cellular network out of the box), it didn't launch officially, but code-based unlocks would also return on SuperNOVA 2, thankfully.
  • For X, due to cost concerns, North America and Europe did not get the highly anticipated new machine design that Japan got. Raw Thrills (who had previously worked with Konami on a arcade version of Guitar Hero) designed a more frugal variation for the American market. Unfortunately, these machines were plagued by a poor sound system, an uncalibrated monitor, and very crappy pads with a single sheet of metal atop them. Some adjustments were made for X2 (including building the pads more like the pre-X design, and making the cabinet look a little more aesthetically pleasing), but problems still surfaced. Even worse, due to concerns that the SuperNOVA 2 to X hardware upgrade would be too much for operators to handle (SuperNOVA involved one too, but they managed), they refused to offer upgrade kits for legacy machines.
• Executive Meddling: Due to some form of expiring license for the vocals, a new version of "Dynamite Rave" was recorded for the international arcade versions of DDR X (which also made an appearance on Hottest Party 3 as a "new" song).
• I Knew It!: For both the Hottest Party 3 and Hottest Party 4 cycles, both multi-platform releases were given the tentative title of just Dance Dance Revolution at E3. However, some fans had referred to their Wii and PS2 versions as Hottest Party 3 and X2 respectively. Turns out, this is what Konami ended up doing.
  • The same happened with DDR 2010: people disambiguated them by calling them Hottest Party 4 and "DDR Play Station 3": this time, Hottest Party 4 ended up being its name ... in Europe.
• Marth Debuted in Smash Bros: Any song in a Western release that is transplanted from a Bemani series that never got such a release. Tell that to everyone who says Xepher came from DDR SuperNOVA and not beatmania IIDX12 HAPPY SKY.
• Name's the Same: There are two different songs named Fantasy, one which debuted in MAX and another which debuted in MAX2. Yes, they both made it onto Extreme too.
  • There are two different songs named Stay, one which debuted in MAX2 and another which debuted in Extreme.
  • The PlayStation game Extra Mix (which has the Solo sub-series songs and the songs new to 4thMix Plus) has three pairs of same-named titles: I'm Alive, Together Forever and Sky High.
• No Budget: Betson by far. Since SuperNOVA, cabinets have been built on a very slim budget. The cabinet problem got even worse on X: while Asia got extremely nice new cabinet design and the ability to retrofit old cabinets for the game, everyone else had to buy a new cabinet. Even worse, the new cabinets were built to be as cheap as possible, and suffered from numerous problems with the pads (which, just to show how lazy they were, were covered with one piece of metal with holes in it for gods sake!) and lag issues with the monitor. Some of these issues seemed to have been rectified upon the release of X2, although there are still reported issues.
• No Export for You: After Dance Dance Revolution USA (which was a fork of 3rdMix) was released, no new arcade version would be released in America until SuperNOVA. Even Europe got one in between with Dancing Stage EuroMix 2 (which had songs from MAX and MAX 2, and a design based off MAX 2). America never got arcade-accurate PlayStation ports like Japan did either.
  • Despite getting SuperNOVA, Europe did not get the arcade version of SuperNOVA 2 at all, since Europe-wide export restrictions on the PlayStation 2 revision used in the hardware (apparently, these restrictions did not suddenly took effect and prevented them from selling kits anymore). This was rectified on X, as it now uses a Windows-based computer, as with every other Bemani title. This didn't stop them from releasing a version for the home PS2, however. Of course, as usual, they managed to screw that one up too, by giving them essentially a carbon copy of the American PlayStation 2 version with fewer songs (mainly by replacing most of the licenses with one Eurovision Song Contest reject), and was way behind schedule.
  • However, it seems like the tables have turned: Konami has all but given up on releasing versions of arcade Bemani titles on major consoles in Japan (except on portable devices, and even some of those are outsourced).... except in America. In fact, much of the content on the new arcade version X3 vs. 2nd Mix comes from the Wii exclusives DDR 2010 and DDR II, which were released everywhere but... surprise surprise, Japan! Despite the fact that DDR II plays catch-up on X2 AC in the same way as the PS2 versions did (the "new version contains the later unlocks from the previous AC and some songs from the new one" pattern), X3 vs. 2nd Mix has to play catch-up on both DDR 2010 and DDR II. Hence, Japan gets two whole CS games worth of new songs they haven't "seen" before.
    • Combine Hottest Party 3 with DDR II, and you pretty much have most of X2 AC. Nice.
  • The Ultramix and Universe games were also never released in Japan. Some songs from Ultramix, however, did get dispersed through several other titles, including DDR Festival (based off Extreme US) and STRiKE (based off Extreme 2). Some songs from Universe 3 also made an unexpected appearance on X2.
• Old Shame: Naoki Maeda really regrets 'LET THEM MOVE' (song from 2ndMIX). The song has since become unavailable in Arcade and Console versions for years.
  • Unfortunately for Naoki, although the song disappeared from the main game modes, home version developers had a habit of using it as a tutorial song. It kept appearing in Lesson Mode well into the PlayStation 2 era.
• Revival by Commercialization: Earlier versions of DDR brought dance music musicians Smile.dk, the late Captain Jack, and others to fame. The former gained enough fame to perform in several different countries, including the U.S.
• What Could Have Been: The "Master Songlist" (a file available in the data of every PlayStation 2 game) includes all the songs in the series that have appeared in their Arcade and Console incarnations. The songlist also includes a really good number of licenses and Konami Originals that never made the cut. But... sometimes the Master Songlist also revealed songs that would eventually appear on the next version.