Dance Dance Revolution is a long-running series, over a decade old now. Console versions have been consistently released since the days of the PlayStation under many different titles such as EXTREME, SuperNOVA and various Disney editions. DDR has manifested itself on the Xbox 360 as DDR UNIVERSE, which has had 3 releases to date. Major changes and additions to the formula are few and far between in the world of DDR. Almost any title is an adequate purchase as your first if you just want to dance in its regular game mode or multiplayer mode and explore the standard DDR feature set. We must, then, seek out what sets Dance Dance Revolution UNIVERSE 3 apart from other entries in the franchise if you have become an experienced dance connoisseur. Introduced in U3 and featured on the back of the box are a newly structured Quest Mode and DJ Mode. Both of these are poorly thought out as is the half-hearted attempt at updating the presentation for the casual Rock Band crowd, but at least that’s a baby step in the right direction.
Without entirely explaining how the previous UNIVERSE Quest Modes have worked, I’ll just say that instead of playing songs of your choice/random songs to clear venues like before, each venue is now dedicated to a single song. For promoting each song’s worth, this is a good idea. Unfortunately, the Quest Mode is now largely the Challenge Mode from UNIVERSE 1 and 2. Each song has challenges of ascending difficulty tied to it and the challenges are often increasingly frustrating. Rather than make you try for a high score or to hit all of the double arrows, the game presents challenges that are more difficult and specific such as hitting only 16notes, finishing the song with your dance meter below 50% or achieving a full combo. On top of that, you sometimes play only a small segment of the song instead of the full two minutes-ish. This is a detriment to each song’s exposure. For me, the last straw of Quest Mode was the abundance of loading times (even with the Xbox 360’s install feature). The cycle of immediately failing a difficult challenge and having to go through loading screens that were just a little too long in order to retry was torturous. This new Quest Mode is an unpleasant and avoidable way to experience Dance Dance Revolution that removes the feeling of speed from the game even further than previous Quest Modes have.
DJ Mode is a near useless inclusion. The claim that you can “create your own mixes to dance to”, to me, implies that you can make some simple medleys with selections from the tracklist and use the Edit Mode to make stepcharts for them. Perhaps it would’ve been something like Frequency and Amplitude’s remix mode. This is not the case. DJ Mode allows you to play sound effects overtop of songs of your choosing in real time. That’s it. There are around 20 sound effects to choose from and assign to the two thumbsticks. You can trigger and scratch the sound effects by spinning the thumbsticks. You can’t record any mixes you make as if you would want to. It makes as much sense as the footwear choice made by girl on the front of the case, who is wearing heels while playing this game.
Touches have been made to the typical Dance Dance Revolution menus and presentation for UNIVERSE 3 to make it seem more intelligent and modern. The menus are more minimalist and cream coloured instead of the usual neon craziness. Trademark DDR rectangular song graphics in the song selection have been replaced with square ones that resemble album covers. The artist and song title appear in the corner at the beginning and end of each song. Lyrics can be turned on to play alongside the background movie during the song. These are all fine choices, but they don’t play to DDR’s strengths, they represent the desire to market to the non-hardcore DDR fan demographic. However, Konami just doesn’t want to go all the way with it. Sure, this game features songs like A Fifth of Beethoven, Canned Heat and Watch Us Work It (the great Devo single from that Dell ad). 90% of the tracklist is independent artists you’ve never heard of and recycled in-house Konami compositions, though. The UNIVERSE series is developed outside of Japan specifically for the Xbox 360 and the addition of these North American pop classics seems like an afterthought. What’s wrong with that picture? It’s like if Rock Band 2 had ten beloved rock hits, forty Harmonix artists and forty Rock Band Network artists. UNIVERSE 3 also features confusing DDR staples like bonus song stages that sometimes appear when playing the regular mode, A/AA/ AAA rankings and “Oni” difficulty on select songs. I’m aware that these and the inclusion of only a handful of big pop singles are to be expected by followers of the series, but how can Konami expect to reach the next level of sales outside of Japan when they’re putting out stuff like this next to their rhythm game competitors?
UNIVERSE 3 is definitely the worst of the UNIVERSE series due to its headache of a Quest Mode and loading times, but it wants to change. Everyone knows Dance Dance Revolution; it’s undeniably a piece of pop culture. Remember “that Family Guy where Peter and Bill Clinton play Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' on DDR”? It just doesn’t have the relevant soundtrack to stick in peoples’ minds. Everyone remembers Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead or Alive from that time they Rock Band, but no one would remember Orange Lounge’s 100 Sec. Kitchen Battle!! from DDR UNIVERSE 3 if they ever played it. The upcoming series reboot entitled “Dance Dance Revolution” is shaping up to tackle that problem with more than a few big names included alongside Konami acts for some flavour. Hopefully the tentative downloadable content support doesn’t just mean more Konami/independent stuff and the interface is sharp. This could be the one to break the mould, but it could just as easily fall in line with UNIVERSE 3.