Welcome to my Dance Dance Revolution fan page! This page is a mish-mash of DDR related content--my favorite songs, games I own, favorite characters, etc. I don't consider myself an expert on the franchise by any means, so my aim is not to educate with this page...it's just for fun! ^^ I hope it reaches other DDR fans and breathes some life into a once-thriving fandom!
Here is my all-time favorite DDR song for mood music~
I think I first laid eyes on a DDR cabinet at about 9 or 10 years old. The town next door to mine had a roller rink (aaghh, my age is showing! those are so outdated now!) that my family would take my brother and I to almost every weekend. That arcade was a thing of dreams! And they brought new games in often. For a couple months, they brought in a curious-looking game that towered before all the others (it looked huge in that tiny ass room, haha), that blasted loud music and had flashing speakers and lights. I stared very quietly at it for a long time, watching older kids play it--their feet moved so quickly! I never got the courage to try to play it myself, but it always left me entranced... Little did I know that I would rediscover this game years later, and it would be something of an obsession in my teenage years... XD
Rare photo of me at an arcade, circa 2009.
Somehow, around the age of 12-13, I re-discovered this mysterious music game thanks to the internet. I can't really remember how or why I stumbled across it again--I think it was just seeing memes and silly DDR-related gifs around on forums back then--but it was then that I began my quest to try to play the game myself! By that time the roller rink was gone, and there weren't any arcades close enough for a kid with no money and no car...so I had to resort to playing the home console version. My first DDR game was the awesome Extreme 2! I loved that game so much. I would wake up an hour or two earlier than I had to for school, sneak into the living room and play a few songs before my parents woke up. I was super into it, lurking forums like DDR Freak (but not posting because I was still pretty young, and my family was super strict about internet safety), printing out step charts and staring at them at school, and watching very early Youtube videos of people playing at arcades. (Seriously, I think the very first Youtube video I ever saw was somebody playing DDR...lol) I dragged my friends at the time into it, and we all still have fond memories of jamming out to those crazy Eurobeat remixes like Butterfly and Cartoon Heroes. Every great sleepover back then required a hardcore DDR match!
Eventually, due to life becoming more busy and complex the older I got (finishing highschool, entering college, etc.) I forgot about DDR for a long while. Fast foward 8ish years later, and I rediscovered it after finally finding an arcade in the area with...not just one, but two cabinets! It resurged my interest in the series, and I've begun playing on a regular basis again. My collection for home has been growing as well, and I hope to continue to expand it and improve my skills! ^^
Here's an embarrassing clip of me playing in the arcade!
Here is my collection of DDR games! It might be kind of humble, but I'm proud of it~ Here's a rundown of the titles, in order from my most favorite to least favorite, with a brief little review:
Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 - okay, I've gotta list this one as my all-time fav, just because it's the one I grew up with! Sooo many great songs on this one, and I love the character selection available. I spent a lot of time playing the "dance master" mode, that challenges you to learn songs with increasing difficulty...I swear it's how I learned the skills I have today, lol. :P Dance Dance Revolution Extreme - The Extreme games are just so good! So many good songs on this one as well! Not much to say other than that, I haven't really explored any other modes other than 'free play' on my games besides for Extreme 2. Dance Dance Revolution Max 2 - Several songs by BeForU on this one, my favorite~ :) This game has a neat feature that shows you how many points are needed to unlock new songs after each session...really helpful when you're trying to unlock everything! Dance Dance Revolution Supernova Good mix of kinds of songs and difficulties. A couple of my fav Naoki songs on here, along with Jun~ Dance Dance Revolution Konamix - This is my only DDR game for the original Playstation! It's really neat--DDR felt like a different franchise back in this era, it seems. The songs are WAY harder than any of the PS2 games! The only difficulty settings are 'Basic', 'Trick', & 'Maniac' (with the Basic level feeling like a very intense 'Light'/easy 'Standard' level from the PS2 games...seriously, this game does not go easy on anybody, lol), Anyways, this game is mostly Konami-original songs, which is awesome! The characters available are really great too. I would probably play this game more often if the arrows weren't smaller than the ones in the PS2 games, because it hurts my eyes after awhile... ;_; Dance Dance Revolution Max - I'm not sure how Max ended up at the bottom of my list, but...here we are, lol. There just aren't a lot of songs that get me excited on this one--there's a lot of cool remixes of classic Konami songs though, which is fun (and incredibly challenging). And Darude Sandstorm....lol.
My DDR pad. Pretty standard stuff, besides the fact it's over 10 years old (!!!) I wrote a bunch of silly stuff on the back of it, in order to differentiate it from my friends' pads. I signed and dated it all the way back in 2006! It's kind of a miracle that it still works, haha. My cat peed on it once.
The characters in DDR are often overlooked, but I think they're really cool! I prefer my DDR games to have some kind of character selection because I think it's more fun. Here is a list of my favorite characters from the entire franchise--click their image to read more about them on the DDR fan wiki!
"MOVE YA BODY FREERY" - If you're a fan of Vinesauce, you might remember a time when streamer Vinny was quoting this video a lot. It's of Naoki (yes, that Naoki, the producer of so many awesomely cheesy DDR songs) at E3 in 2010, trying very hard to communicate in English about the latest DDR game. His dedication to looking like he just crawled out of the early 2000s Eurobeat hell, and his passionate enthusiasm fills me with joy. I will forever move my body freery, Naoki-san! DDR Freestyle compilation - I will always dream that someday I'll be as cool as these guys. DDR documentary on VICE - DDR in it's homeplace, Japan. It's as hardcore as you can get!