DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX- is the 7th game in the Dance Dance Revolution series of music video games and the sequel to DDRMAX. It was released in the arcades by Konami on March 27, 2002. Although only officially released in Japan, units exist worldwide. DDRMAX2 contains a total of 116 songs that are playable in normal gameplay, 34 of which are new to Dance Dance Revolution. 20 of these songs are hidden and unlockable.
The interface used is a red, grey, and yellow version of the Song Wheel interface introduced on DDR 5thMIX. The names of the difficulty modes are "Light," Standard," and "Heavy," as they were in DDRMAX.
General Information / Changes[]
- Many of the KONAMI originals from 5thMIX returned. However, none of the previous Dancemania licenses removed in DDRMAX returned.
- First Dance Dance Revolution game to not feature "How To Play" in attract mode.
- First Dance Dance Revolution game with CHALLENGE difficulty and CHALLENGE mode.
- CHALLENGE mode is a variant of NONSTOP mode, with courses containing a variable number of songs (from 5 to 10) under a single difficulty. Unlike NONSTOP mode, players may not set any modifiers (some courses had certain stages with fixed modifiers instead).
- When playing CHALLENGE courses, the LIFE GAUGE is instead replaced with LIFE4 (depicted as a battery with three segments). Getting any four missteps (combo breaks and/or N.G.s on Freeze Arrows) anytime during a song will trigger an instant stage failure. LIFE4 would remain exclusive in this mode until the EXTRA STAGE system rework in Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA2.
- Only Dance Dance Revolution title to hide the actual title from CHALLENGE-only songs by displaying their original version's title, banner and background when played in their respective courses. This was changed in Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME.
- Scoring system works similar to DDRMAX, with one major difference: fixed maximum score is now 10,000,000 X the foot level in a song (for example, a Level 10 chart has a max possible score of 100,000,000).
- This scoring system would also be used in Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME.
- Post-song bonuses are no longer granted.
- Difficulty ratings return, now on a scale of 1 to 10.
- First mainline Dance Dance Revolution game to have a difficulty level of 10.
- The default song sorting order is now by group/color, followed by the Single Light foot rating, and then by title.
- Junko Karashima makes her BEMANI debut.
- First appearance of the DARK modifier (also known as STEP ZONE in later games), which hides the stepping zone. Until SuperNOVA, DARK is placed under the ARROW option.
- Final Dance Dance Revolution game that uses the "music from beatmania" label from old versions.
- All Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX arcade songs received brand-new banners, replacing the old banners (which were crops of the background images).
- The Dancemania licenses have generic movie backgrounds for their graphics.
- First Dance Dance Revolution game to hide the actual BPM of a song by quickly cycling through random 3-digit BPMs on the songwheel. For this game, this feature is used for MAXX UNLIMITED and 革命. Their actual BPM would not be shown until the following game.
- First and only Dance Dance Revolution game to hide the GROOVE RADAR rating of a song by continually animating through random songs' ratings. This can only be seen on 革命 during ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE. 革命 will show its normal GROOVE RADAR rating during all other instances.
- Color labeling on the songwheel has changed since DDRMAX:
- Green for default songs new to DDRMAX2.
- Blue for DDRMAX songs.
- Yellow for songs that first appeared before DDRMAX.
- Purple for unlocks.
- Red for EXTRA STAGE and ONE MORE EXTRA STAGE songs.
- Total songs: 135
Gameplay[]
- Main article: Gameplay of Dance Dance Revolution
The core gameplay of DDRMAX2 is the same as the previous Dance Dance Revolution games. The 2-tiered scoring system which debuted on DDRMAX is still utilized on DDRMAX2. The Groove Radar also returned, along with the return of the previous Foot Rating system.
Extra Stage[]
If, on the final stage, a player gets the grade of AA or better on any Heavy step routine, the game gives the message "Try Extra Stage." The song wheel on the Extra Stage is locked to MAXX UNLIMITED, which is played with the Reverse Scroll modifier, a Dark Modifier (Step line disappears) and a x1.5 Speed modifier. The Extra Stage is also played in "Pressure" mode, where health bar starts full and does not regenerate if it depletes with missed steps.
If the player 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 革命 (KAKUMEI).. The player is forced to play its Oni steps in a Reverse Scroll modifier, a Dark Modifier (Step line disappears) and a x3 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.
Nonstop Challenge[]
The Nonstop Challenge, also referred to as Oni Mode, is a feature new to DDRMAX2. It was officially renamed Challenge Mode in Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME to avoid confusion with Nonstop Mode. The mode involves playing through 4-10 different usually themed songs with limited gaps between them just like in Nonstop Mode, but the traditional Dance Gauge is replaced by a "battery bar" with 3 lives (4 lives total,). A life is lost if a combo is broken (which is done by getting a step judged as a Good or less, or by breaking a Freeze). Lives can be regained after every song played, and some courses force different modifiers. If all lives (4) are lost, the game ends and the course fails. (The challenge Lives is also used at DDR SuperNOVA2 in EXTRA STAGE.)
In Challenge mode, the dance point system is slightly modified (Perfects and OKs are worth 2 points and Greats are worth 1, everything else is worth 0), and the final score is displayed as a percentage of the maximum possible dance points. The courses Naoki Standard, Nearly = 130, and Paranoia Brothers are used for rankings. Players are ranked first by how long they lasted, and then, in case of a tie, by percentage score.
Oni mode courses in DDRMAX2 sometimes have special song remixes that have a special difficulty, referred to as the Challenge difficulty and color-coded navy blue. The fan name of the mode comes from the Japanese name for the difficulty, 鬼 (oni, Japanese for demon). There are nineteen of these songs, and they are not available in the regular game mode in the arcade version of DDRMAX2. They all present on the home version as normal songs, although only 1 difficulty is available. Some of these Challenge remixes do appear on Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME as playable tracks.
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 5thMIX (the home version of DDRMAX2 cannot create arcade-compatible Link Data). 5th Mix can create two different kinds of arcade link data; the Link Data file for DDRMAX2 is known as "New Version" Link Data and is backward-compatible with DDRMAX arcade machines as well. Link Data serves two primary purposes: Score-saving and Internet Ranking. The user can save his or her scores from arcade performances, and whenever the game is played in the future, the arcade game will load the scores for each user and show them on the song-selection screen to show the player's best performances. These scores can also be viewed at home with DDR 5thMIX. DDRMAX2 also provides Internet Ranking codes based on the user's performance in the Challenge Mode courses. As with all of Konami's Internet Ranking events, the webpage for the game would allow users to enter in a generated password which contains their initials and scores for that session, and the webpage would display the rankings for those who have submitted codes. Link Data saves these passwords so that they may be entered much more conveniently.
The arcade game can exchange custom stepchart data with the home version, as well as any earlier version that has songs that are in DDRMAX2, though this requires special steps to be taken in DDRMAX2 to write a PlayStation 1-formatted save file, which must then be copied to the PlayStation 1 memory card by the user.
Home version[]
The home version of DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX- was released in Japan on April 24, 2003, for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. It has 74 songs, including most of the new songs from the arcade version, including eight new home-exclusive songs, All the Challenge-difficulty songs from the arcade version are available for play on the home version, most of them hidden and unlockable. There are a total of 32 hidden songs. DDRMAX2's hidden songs can be unlocked automatically by accessing its save data in the home version of Dance Dance Revolution Extreme. In addition, DDRMAX2 can be used to unlock the hidden songs in DDRMAX.
DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution-, with the mix number omitted, is the home version released in North America for the Sony PlayStation 2 video game console. The North American version is considerably different from the Japanese version.
General Information / Changes[]
JP version[]
- A MINUTE (Extended Mix), IT'S RAINING MEN(Almighty Mix), MORE THAN I NEEDED TO KNOW, and THERE YOU'LL BE are missing from the arcade songlist.
- As a result, BABY LOVE ME is now the default song.
- Songs are now sorted in ABC order by genre on the songwheel, unlike the arcade version, which orders them by their LIGHT foot ratings.
- The window for background videos is now a little expanded, removing the black borders on both sides of the screen.
- All CHALLENGE-only remixes now use their new re-colored banners/backgrounds first seen in Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME.
- They are playable outside of CHALLENGE MODE and are properly credited in courses, unlike the arcade version.
- They also use new sample playbacks, which would be first used in the arcade series starting in Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA.
- First Japanese CS Dance Dance Revolution title in the main series in which the arcade beatmania IIDX crossovers don't have to be unlocked.
- Can unlock everything in DDRMAX CS through System Data Support.
- DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX- CS is the only Japanese home port of a mainline Dance Dance Revolution arcade game in which none of its new CS songs were ever ported to an arcade release during the time the series was producing Japanese CS releases.
- Final Japanese Dance Dance Revolution release to use KONAMI's 1998-2003 logo.
- Total songs: 74
NA version[]
- First North American Dance Dance Revolution title to feature the 2003-2013 KONAMI logo.
- First North American Dance Dance Revolution title with CHALLENGE difficulty.
- First North American Dance Dance Revolution title with BEGINNER difficulty since Dance Dance Revolution CS (North America).
- Unlike its Japanese counterpart, Extra Stage can be accessed by getting AA on the Final Stage with any Challenge charts.
- First North American Dance Dance Revolution title with CHALLENGE-only songs, introduced in the Japanese arcade version of DDRMAX2.
- First Dance Dance Revolution title in any region that uses official music videos for licenses when available, eliminating on-screen dancers.
- Nonstop Mode replaces the Oni/Challenge Mode from both the previous North American release and DDRMAX2's Japanese arcade and CS counterpart.
- THE WHISTLE SONG (Blow My Whistle B*tch) was renamed to THE WHISTLE SONG (Blow My Whistle Baby) due to explicit content.
- KAKUMEI's banner is the only banner containing Japanese text without Romanization of any kind.
- Older songs that were in Dance Dance Revolution EXTREME have their background video scripts based on that game.
- Total number of songs: 69
Characters[]
The characters that are only playable in the US Version.
- Main article: DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution- Characters
Music[]
- Main article: DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX-/Songs
Courses[]
- Main article: DDRMAX2 -Dance Dance Revolution 7thMIX-/Courses
Beta Version[]
Original[]
- Several early versions of title tags that would've appeared on the songwheel for 革命, MORE THAN I NEEDED TO KNOW, and Spin the disc appear in the game's data.
- Early versions for TRANCE DE JANEIRO(SAMBA DE JANEIRO 2002 Epic Vocal Remix)'s graphics are found in the game's files. Most notable, these early renditions of the song's graphics removes subtitle of the song.
Home version[]
- Full Double charts for Kind Lady(interlude) can be found in the data, suggesting that the new CS songs might have been planned to have full Double charts instead of only CHALLENGE charts like in the final release of the game.
References[]
External links[]
Sources[]
- https://remywiki.com/AC_DDRMAX2
- https://remywiki.com/CS_DDRMAX2_JP
- https://remywiki.com/CS_DDRMAX2_NA
| Dance Dance Revolution Arcade Games | |
|---|---|
| Main Arcade Series | DDR (1998) • DDR 2ndMIX • DDR 2ndMIX CLUB VERSIONS • DDR 3rdMIX • DDR 4thMIX • DDR 5thMIX • DDRMAX • DDRMAX2 • DDR EXTREME • DDR SuperNOVA • DDR SuperNOVA2 • DDR X • DDR X2 • DDR X3 VS 2ndMIX • DDR (2013) • DDR (2014) • DDR A • DDR A20 • DDR A20 PLUS • DDR A3 • DDR WORLD |
| Spinoffs | DS TKD • DDR Solo BASS MIX • DDR Karaoke MIX • DDR Solo 2000 • DS DCT • DDR Karaoke MIX 2nd • DDR KIDS • DS Disney's RAVE |
| Foreign Releases | Dancing Stage • DS EuroMIX • DDR USA • DS EuroMIX2 • DS Fusion |