Dance Dance Revolution has been, to put it bluntly, nearly inescapable. I mean, they even made multiple versions for the Game Boy Color. Though many of these never made it to the United States, Konami hasn’t been shy about making sure the game appeared on every system imaginable. Except, of course, for the Gamecube. In some ways, this was really puzzling, as one of the appeals of Nintendo’s current box was its ease for making party games (and DDR can be an awful lot of fun at parties). I know some people sarcastically would say Nintendo held out for the rights to stick Mario in the game (doubtful, considering the N64 and Game Boy color versions were made just fine). But now they have their ammunition, as Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix has come to the states. Of course, just because it’s predictable, doesn’t mean it’s bad.
First off, I’m going to start this review as I never thought I’d start a rhythm game review – with the game’s plot. Apparently, there are four music keys, which are kept locked in a tower lest the power of music be abused throughout the Mushroom Kingdom. And, of course, they get stolen (first by Waluigi, then by Bowser – man, Mario’s nemeses are just tripping over each other at this point). Toad goes off searching for your personal favorite Mario brother (dude, Luigi all the way for me), so that they can dance their way into recovering the music keys, using the power of… well… their amazing dance steps.
You know, never in my life did I think I’d sit here and discuss the plot of a DDR game. In retrospect, that was either naïveté or the poorly worded hope that I’d never have to. Seriously, Mario can bounce around a board game without a plot (or he used to be able to, at any rate). He can drive go-carts without a plot. Why in the name of Miyamoto does he suddenly need plot in order to dance? Actually, Miyamoto’s complete lack of involvement with the game might have something to do with it. At any rate, we have DDR with plot, and all we’re really left wondering is why anyone even bothered.
Now, for the main part, the controls of the game. If any DDR game needed a description of the basic controls, it’s this one, obviously marketed towards people that haven’t had a chance to play the series before. You’ve got a floor mat, and you step on arrows on the floor mat in time with music. Time your steps so that you tap each zone when the on-screen arrow scrolls up onto a static stage. There you have it; Dance Dance Revolution, ladies and gents. In terms of the basic setup, this game is the same as previous DDR games.
However, don’t get the impression that DDR Mario Mix is much like other DDR games. If any of them stood apart compared to others, it would be this mix. To begin, although there is a free mode, you’ll have to play through the Story Mode first. Only one song is unlocked at the beginning, and to get the rest you have to slog through the story mode. Actually, to get every song unlocked, you actually have to push through it twice – once in regular story mode, and once in story mode EX, where you get your introduction to Mush Mode (but more on that in a moment). Look, I thought the unlock procedure for DDR Extreme 2 was annoying, but this is beyond the pale. I don’t care if I only have to beat the song on the easiest setting to unlock the song; I don’t want to have to wait that long.
Along the same lines, you also have to unlock the harder difficulty levels. You can only choose Easy or Normal difficulty levels at first in story mode, and can unlock harder runs by beating them (why you’d want to push yourself through the plot more than you had to is a question I could not begin to answer). Free mode is similarly draconian. It allows the two difficulty levels I mentioned before, plus Hard and Very Hard. Each song also has Super Hard steps, but you have to beat Very Hard to even unlock those. It’s almost like Nintendo or Konami (they can both take blame, really) doesn’t want you to play the harder difficulty songs.
Of course, that’s not to say these songs are even difficult. Despite being color-coded the same as the arcade’s Beginner, Light, Standard, Heavy, and Challenge/Oni ratings, these songs are much easier than almost anything on any other DDR mix (except possibly Bus Stop’s remake of Carl Douglas’ Kung Fu Fighting). The game doesn’t give foot ratings on any song, but I’d estimate the pinnacle of the game’s difficulty, Bowser’s Castle, would only rank an 8 foot rating on Super Hard. Heck, Easy in this game doesn’t even use the up or down arrows – I’ve got a four-year old nephew who’d get bored of that after getting perfect ratings on every song. One problem I can foresee is that someone could get good at this version and think because they can do Very Hard songs on DDR Mario Mix, they can do Heavy songs (same color marker) on other DDR mixes, where they might be barely ready to do some Standard songs.
Okay, so far, the changes have been all bad. However, there’s one that isn’t totally bad, and one that’s actually good. In terms of being a mixed bag, Konami is contributing a totally different hit detection algorithm for this game. It actually tells you if you’re early or late on a step (but treats both the same for scoring) and you can thus chart it to see where you need to improve for better scores. However, the game is very liberal with its ratings. I’d guess that anything worth a Great or better rating on another mix is a Perfect here, and you have to get to an Almost-level screw-up before the game will break your combo. Thus, it’s way too easy to get a full combo, and a perfect score doesn’t (or at least shouldn’t) count for bragging about DDR skills. However, one little touch (blatantly stolen from Pump It Up and In The Groove) is that each half of a jump is registered separately. Thus, you can make only half of it, or see exactly which side you have better timing with (probably the side with your dominant hand, if you’re at all like me). Thus, there are some benefits and drawbacks to the new step detection algorithm.
For a good change, this game introduces Mush Mode. Mush Mode is basically the same as regular DDR, but with the field a bit different. Some arrows are turned into classic Mario enemies. Others become objects that change between arrows until about a beat before you have to step on the right arrow. Some move at different speeds compared to other arrows. Some arrows get pushed at the last second to a different side. They even introduce mines to DDR for the first time – apparently, Konami is allowed to steal concepts from rhythm games they didn’t make, but they’ll sue anyone who tries to make a floor pad-based dancing game. Legal issues aside, though, Mush Mode changes up the standard gameplay and can make some stages even more difficult. I could see having plenty of fun with mods like that on other rhythm games.
In terms of things that could have been in the game but left out are Doubles Mode (one player on two pads) and anything using the third or fourth controller slot. It’s not like Konami doesn’t know how to make that work – the Xbox versions of DDR have always accepted up to four people. They’ve also had the brain-bendingly difficult (but great for experts) Quadruples mode, where one player gets four pads’ worth of real estate to themselves. The Gamecube is perfectly equipped to do this as well. There’s no good reason why these modes are absent, sadly, from Mario Mix.
The game also includes a dozen mini-games, which honestly feel mostly like a waste of time. They all involve flailing on the mat in some way with little rhyme, rhythm, or reason, and they feel like they belong in a Mario Party game (speaking of, I’d love to try playing that series with the floor pad) instead of this game. I’d blame Konami for their love of inserting useless, non-dance junk into the DDR series, but remembering the bonus games from Donkey Konga makes me think that Nintendo might have also been responsible. The only mini-game that’s at all entertaining to play is the flagpole jump, and that’s mostly because of nostalgia (I know I’m not the only one who pretended to run and jump at the end of every level of Super Mario Bros.). I can imagine that people who didn’t remember clearly when SMB1 came out wouldn’t quite get the same kick I do out of that mini-game.
I’m bothered by the mini-games so much mostly because they detract from the centerpiece for a rhythm game – the music. I’ll have to admit, the music for this is fairly solid. Something that will catch people off-guard is that every song in this game is exclusive to this game. This should at least satisfy people who complain that they already have three versions of Dynamite Rave, five of Paranoia, and six, counting remixes, of Drop The Bomb. They are divided into two camps – remixes of classic tunes starring the Mario gang, and remixes of classical tunes. Both are fairly solid, although the first group is probably the stronger of the two (given how little they had to work with for some of the older tunes). They manage to hit all sorts of great tunes, from Underground Mozart to the Boo Boogie (from Super Mario Bros. 2 US, odd since Boos didn’t show up until the third game). Probably my favorite is the pop-tinged remake of a classic folk polka, Always Smiling (also one of the few songs in-game that feature vocals).
Long-time DDR fans will also appreciate hearing snippets of other DDR songs in the game. It sounds like Bowser’s Castle borrows more than a couple beats, and almost borrows the classic riff, from Paranoia. I swear that Jump Jump Jump borrows heavily from Tomorrow Perfume. There’s a few other songs that sound familiar beyond the themes from Mario games (and I was almost surprised that they didn’t remix Dr. Mario music with Healing Vision), but I can’t place them immediately.
However, the game does have one huge musical flaw – it only has 29 songs in total. There’s technically a 30th, as you get to dance to the original Super Mario Bros. theme, in all its 8-bit glory, once you clear story mode (but you never get to do it in free mode, of course). Now, I’ll grant that DDR Mario has perhaps the best signal-to-noise ratio for any Bemani game, but still, 29 songs is way too few. Gamecube discs might not hold as much, but there were surely things that could have been cut. Moreover, nobody forced Nintendo to stay just with Mario tunes. EarthBound, Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda… all these and more would have been incredible to dance to (especially the last one). Nintendo is not lacking in tunes they could have slapped in this game, and they could have easily compressed the music better to fit more in.
Another thing they could have done is simplified the graphics. Yes, the graphics in this game are the nicest I’ve seen in a DDR game. However, nobody plays these games for the nice graphics. I’m fairly certain that they didn’t need to show off that the Gamecube is capable of making solid 3D graphics, especially from the Mario games. Heck, they probably borrowed the models from Super Smash Bros. Melee. However, they could have easily gotten by with models taken from Super Mario 64, or Paper Mario, or the like. I know the amount of work that Nintendo has put into animating the Mushroom Kingdom is one of their points of pride. However, I think the lush graphics are taking up too much space, and that simpler graphics would have looked nice while giving the game more room for more music, which is what I really want out of a DDR game.
Finally, there’s the pad for the game. Especially since nobody outside of MadCatz (and that’s not a company that has my trust, especially for floor pad controllers) is making Gamecube pads at the moment, you’re going to need the one coming with the game. Well, it’s honest that Konami is learning a little about making pads. This one has a bottom with better traction, so it’s not as easy to make it slide across the floor by accident. Even better, the top is textured to that it’s no longer slicker than a marketing executive at the holidays. It’s still not hard to slide right off the pad and right onto your rear, but it’s not as bad as the Ice Capades pad made by Konami for the PS2 and Xbox versions. While it still needs a lot of improvement (it could use different textures for the hot zones and padding to negate jumping shock), Konami is, at least, starting to improve their controller hardware.
DDR Mario Mix feels like a great big laboratory for Konami, with Nintendo’s blessing. They’re trying to do more with pad-based mini-games, they’re doing completely new music, and the Mush Mode challenge is unlike anything DDR has ever done in a great way. However, the game is way too easy, doesn’t rank songs in the way that the series has done from the beginning, and uses a hit detection algorithm that is way too lenient on the player. Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix is great for a few groups of people. Newcomers to DDR will find it easier than with any other mix (even the simple but incredible DDR Party collection). DDR players looking for some great-sounding songs new to them will want to check this out. And, of course, rhythm game fans that only own a Gamecube (there’s got to be one, right?) will want to finally have a DDR of their own. However, there are many better DDR mixes out there, ones with actual challenge and ones where you can use better third-party mats. It’s not that DDR Mario Mix is bad. It just doesn’t take enough classic DDR elements and bogs the game down with too much extraneous junk. It’s obvious, with some tweaks, the Gamecube is just as capable of a great DDR title as any other console. It just hasn’t been made yet.
