I’ve been a huge Dance Dance Revolution fan since the game came out for the Playstation 2. My family bought DDR Max and I fell in love with dancing on that little funky footpad. Fast forward six years, and I re-discovered my love for DDR when I “borrowed” my brother’s Playstation 2. I’ve danced and exercised to my heart’s content but became tired of the same old songs. If you are looking for tips that can help you in improving your dance moves and defeat your opponents in the game then you can try Capsa Susun that will help you in doing so with its amazing tips and tricks. 

So I turned to Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party Mix for the Wii. It wasn’t cheap at a price tag of $70, but I’d read some reviews and thought it would be a new, improved way to dance and exercise. But I was disappointed by my initial attempt at playing. Things were lacking, and when my pad broke on the second try, I hoped to return the game.

Best Buy, however, does not have a return policy, just an exchange policy, so I took this as a sign that DDR Hottest Party had more to it then I had originally believed. But after playing DDR Hottest Party more, and examining all of its options, I have to stick with my initial disappointment.

The game has many flaws. Perhaps I’m just used to DDR Max and all it was, but DDR Hottest Party doesn’t live up to its name or its price tag. Here are some of the reasons why:

• There is no edit mode. To some, this might not be that big of a deal, but to me, it was practically a deal-breaker. I love to dance, but my feet and knees sometimes don’t. Edit mode allowed me to change songs to make them danceable. With edit mode, you could eliminate jumps, add in arrows, and totally change up songs. Although DDR HP (Hottest Party) does allow you to turn off jumps and freeze arrows, it still doesn’t give you the ability to be creative.

• The songs are not up to speed. Sure, most of them are hot songs that you could recognize and possibly sing along with (unlike previous DDR’s which came with songs you’ve never heard of) but almost all of them miss that essential beat that allows you to dance. It looks like Wii just re-mixed the songs with drumming beat behind them and hoped that would pass. It doesn’t. As a result, for any song to be a challenge you have to play it on the hardest level, which just results in the keys flying by really fast. Which leads me into my third complaint…
• The songs are really easy to dance too. DDR HP has one more choice of difficulty level than DDR Max, but all the levels are not that difficult. You pretty much choose between the arrows going slowly by on your screen, or really fast.
• The workout mode is insulting. Really, it insults you. On DDR Max, when you entered workout mode it just counted calories, not how many perfect, good, or bad, etc. arrows you got. At the end of the song, you were told how many calories you had burned and how many you had to go to reach your goal. On DDR HP, however, it counts how many perfect, good, bad, etc. arrows you get. At the end, it gives you however many calories you burned, and the grade you received on the song. As always on DDR when graded, the narrator’s voice adds his own personal comments. As a result, when you expect to feel good for burning 15 calories you instead feel bad because you got a C score and the narrator says “I know you can do better” in a voice that echoes of your mother. I preferred just to know how many calories I burned.

This also leads me to how many calories you burn exactly. In DDR Max, calories were counted for every step you took, whether there was an arrow or not, which meant I could get in one or two extra calories by stepping in between the arrows. In DDR HP, however, it doesn’t show you how many calories you’re burning while you’re dancing but gives you a number at the end. I’m also confused by how I could be burning 15 calories on a slow song on DDR Max, but can only burn 9 on the fastest song on DDR HP. One of the calorie counters is off. Also, I didn’t really feel like I got a good workout after DDR HP. Yes, my feet hurt, but I never got out of breath or felt properly worked out.

• On DDR Max, the letters for whatever type of arrow you received (great, good, bad, etc.) were in bright yellow letters, so you could guess what score you would get at the end. On DDR Hottest Party, the letters are white and blend perfectly into the background, so as a result, you have no clue what scores you are getting on any of the arrows. Often I’ll finish a song thinking I did really great only to get a D score.
• The dancing pad was designed poorly. The material sticks to your feet while you dance (if you dance barefoot, which really is the only way that makes sense because if you danced in shoes you run the risk of ruining the dance pad, and if you dance in sucks you run the risk of slipping). I constantly mess up because the pad sticks to my feet and gets bent in half. I really don’t know what they were thinking when they choose that material.
• I thought the backgrounds for DDR Max were cheesy and ridiculous. Then I got DDR Hottest Party and realized how much I loved the backgrounds for DDR Max. You are asked to choose a “dancer” before you start dancing for DDR HP, and while you dance your dance dances on-screen with background dancers. Their dance moves have nothing to do with yours and are in no way similar to yours. It looks bizarre and silly and is a distraction.
• DDR HP added in the possibility of hand motions along with your dancing, with the Wii remote and the nunchuck. I’ve tried using the hand motions a few times, but most of the time they didn’t register. They also didn’t make me feel any more worked out, and they didn’t make me feel like a better dancer.

Now, I’m not saying the game is a total loss. If you had friends who also owned the game the competitive dancing aspect could be fun. Or, if your goal was to beat the game, it might be a challenge. But if you bought the game to exercise or just have fun dancing, this game might not be for you. DDR HP 2 comes out soon, and I’m hoping they will have fixed some of these crucial errors. Though as previews are already showing the possibility of mii heads on dancer’s body’s (creepy, anyone?) dancing in the background, it’s not looking like it.