I've played for 3-4 hours now over the last week, and here's my assessment:
Instruction manual: There's a book in here, but it's a waste of paper. It's about 12 pages long and is in 4 languages. If you need instructions on how to load the game and select buttons on the screen, you're covered.
Songs: The songs ARE much more mainstream overall, but I haven't found that to be a huge plus. There are a number of songs that are under 100 bpm, which just doesn't inspire me to jump around a lot. I actually enjoy the Japanese-pop-dance stuff that's found on the older versions; I wouldn't necessarily be jamming to it in the car, but I prefer it for DDR.
Difficulty: Perhaps due to the slower pop songs, the difficulty is WAY LOWER. I admit that I'm no longer a beginner, but when I can pick a song and beat it on Expert the first time through when I'm still trying to beat Expert songs on the old version, I think that says a lot. Not only are the routines easier, but the scoring is far more forgiving. This might be appreciated by a beginner, but I enjoy the challenge of working up from JUST finishing an Expert song without failing, to a C, to a B, to an A, with practice over time. The songs that I've muddled through receive B's, ones that I expect to get B's on are A's, and if you get most of the steps but miss a few, you get an AA. A full combo (no missed steps) receives an AA*. The scores seem needlessly inflated. I've received very few AA, and only a couple of AAA scores on ANY level in a year of playing DDR Universe 1&2, and have AA and AA* scores on half of these songs already.
Interface: This is only slightly modified and works much the same as the Universe versions. The dance options menu that used to be accessed by holding down the A-button while selecting a song to play is now accessible from the song selection menu by pressing Y. I thought this was handy, but the design of the menu itself is needlessly annoying (and a constant gripe for me). I prefer my arrows to run 1.5-2 times faster, which is controlled here. It's still the first item in the list, but you can't just change it and be done. You must arrow down or A-button through the other 8-10 items in the list to get to the confirm button at the bottom. If you back out, it doesn't save the change. This makes it a big hassle to move between slow songs (which I have to run at 3x now) and fast ones, since I prefer the arrows to go by at approximately the same rate and have to adjust it this way.
Display: The arrow coloring is slightly different, but the concept is the same, so I got used to it quickly. On DDR 1&2, I have the background videos turned off because they make me dizzy combined with the scrolling arrows, and the background image brightness turned down to 50% to make the arrows stand out. They've removed the option to turn off videos here, so I have to turn the brightness to 0 to make the videos disappear. I can live with this, but the completely black background gets boring pretty quickly, and I miss the colorful backdrops.
Workout Mode: This is one of my biggest gripes. I use DDR as a workout, and I assume anyone turning on this mode is doing the same. The game will show you how many calories you've burned after each song as before, but it will ONLY track total calories EVER not daily. I don't really care how many calories I've burned over the last year (or three), I want to know how many I burned TODAY. In order to track this, you'll need to check Workout Mode both before you play (taking note of the total calories) and after, and do the math. This is just plain stupid.
Training Mode: This is my other dumbfounded gripe. If you turn down the speed of the song (which is the only reason I go to training mode, and must be one of the most used features), the song doesn't play. WHAT??? I suppose running the steps to metronome clicks with no music may have some value, but not to me. Training mode is dead to me on this version.
Club Mode: This seems to be the only "story" mode, which I'm not big on anyway, but is usually the only way to unlock new content. I've only delved into this a few times, and I'm trying to be patient with it hoping it will get better. You're led through a sequence of random songs (you choose how many, 4-20). The "challenge" is that the difficulty and options change throughout the songs. This can sometimes be fun, but so far, each sequence has begun in painfully-slow Beginner difficulty, and taken a while to get up to a playable speed. Once it does, this can be fun, but because its designed to change options, you can't set any of your own by default. For me, when a slower song gets to Expert mode and the arrows are only at 1x, I can't pick out the rhythm of the steps fast enough to make them because the arrows are all on top of each other. After suffering through the Beginner and Basic levels only to fail out because the arrows are too close together is beyond frustrating. I'll probably only use this mode if I find out from other players that there is indeed unlockable content to be had.
New features:
Mid-song, you'll get a sequence of circled arrows that will give you bonus points if completed successfully (much like Guitar Hero). This was a little annoying at first because the circles usually obscure the coloring of the arrows, but I've gotten used to it as an added challenge.
My favorite new feature is the "Challenge" level which is unlocked per-song after getting an A on the Expert level (though not available on every song). This opens up "Octagon" steps for this difficulty level, which use diagonal arrows to signify the A, B, X, and Y buttons. This is great fun, and I'm enjoying the challenge of wrapping my brain and feet around 4 new places to step. It's nice to have a new physical challenge that doesn't involve making my feet move any faster, as I was reaching my limit on DDR Universe 1&2.
Overall: This is a worthwhile purchase at this price, and I'll continue to play it, but it didn't meet my expectations. I certainly didn't expect key basic features to disappear or become annoying to use. I'll add it to my DDR rotation, but I'll be rotating back to an older version sooner than I anticipated.
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I've always loved the DDR series, but this game really fell short with the song selection. It was too much American pop with poor step charts and not nearly enough of the type of songs that made me and so many others fall in love with the series.Best Deals for DanceDanceRevolution Bundle - Xbox 360
For many of my teen years, Dance Dance Revolution was practically an addiction. Yes, I was one of those guys at the arcade that people stopped and watched. However, I'm going to step back and look at this with less bias.Story: N/A (Dance Dance Revolution has no story.)
Graphics are not very important in Dance Dance Revolution. It's just arrows moving up a screen with background images or videos.
Graphics: 3/5
Music is the meat of this game. I will note the music selection will disappoint most hardcore fans. All the included music is licensed rather than the exclusives that made the old titles great, and downloadable song packs are limited. Casual fans are more likely okay with the music selection, and many might even prefer licensed music, as they would be familiar with it.
Sound: 3/5
Gameplay is the same as any other Dance Dance Revolution. Players step on buttons on a pad below their feet corresponding to arrows on the screen. This title brings nothing new to the series, but why fix what isn't broken?
Gameplay: 4/5
Dance Dance Revolution only functions because of replayability. Whether you play it again and again depends on your interest in dance games.
Replay Value: 5/5
Whether this game is kid friendly depends on what type of music they are exposed to. Some of the music is suggestive, but it's all stuff one might hear on the radio.
This title appeals to the casual players. However, bear in mind that, if you have Kinect, there are quite a few better alternatives of casual dance games. Big fans of the series will probably be disappointed and should pass this by.
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