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'''''Dance Dance Revolution''''' (commonly abbreviated to "DDR", and previously called ''Dancing Stage'' in Europe) is the premier series of [[Konami]]'s "Bemani" line of music games.
Instead of a controller where you sit on your ass and mash buttons, in ''DDR'' you stand on a panel with four arrows and follow the arrow that show up on the screen, by stepping on the matching arrows. Mind-numbingly easy on the lower levels, but insanely hard in the later ones. Kids seem to catch on better than adults for some reason, and a ''very'' common sight in arcades is 20-somethings being put to shame by dextrous eight-year-olds.
''DDR'' has spawned a variety of clones, including ''[[
Compare [[Pump It Up]], [[Just Dance]], [[Dance Masters]].
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* [[After Combat Recovery]]: In the nonstop modes that use lives instead of a lifebar, you'll often gain a life or two back after each song.
* [[And Your Reward Is Clothes]]: Even the arcade version ([[Bad Export for You|well in Asia anyway]]) isn't immune from having unlocks merely be just alternate outfits.
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* [[Big Win Sirens]]: SuperNOVA plays a siren on the results screen if you unlock the Extra Stage.
* [[Bonus Boss]]: Similar to recent ''[[Beatmania]]'' games, X2 had an extra stage system known as "Replicant D-Action", where certain songs are revealed by meeting specific patterns in the songs you play. Completing all six songs unlocked the [[True Final Boss]] for the Encore Extra Stage, and wiped out your progress on the previous 6. (meaning that to do it again, you had to play them all AGAIN.)
* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]: Several songs that while not that difficult at first glance, become absolutely monstrous in difficulty. Why? Because your stamina will drop faster than a lead weight while playing it. "Flashdance: What A Feeling" (Level 8 Maniac in 3rd Mix) is the first of many, followed by "Sunkiss Drop" (Level 7 Expert in ''SuperNOVA'') is the most recent one.
** The ultimate one is probably [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QIG7Gb62u4 Conga Oni from Universe 3]. Usually, the licenses tend to be the ''easier'' songs.
* [[Capcom Sequel Stagnation]]: 3rd and 4th Mix had "Plus" updates, which added songs from their Korean versions and other tweaks (such as the ability to play Maniac difficulty without going to SSR mode on 3rd Mix, and a All Music mode on 4th)
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** Recent versions offer the old 1st to 5th Mix arrow style as an option (it appears similar to the current one, except its point has a V-shaped "cut" in it rather than a rounded edge.
* [[Continuity Reboot]]: ''DDRMAX'' was supposed to be one since it changed so much: it introduced a new scoring system, re-named the difficulty levels, added full motion video backgrounds (and dumped the characters entirely), completely dropped the old level-based difficulty system in favor of the Groove Radar, added an options menu with modifiers, freeze arrows, the Extra Stage, removed ''every'' song from previous versions in favor of a completely new soundtrack. Boy, did Konami learn a huge lesson there.
** A similar reset happened for the Wii and [[
* [[Critical Annoyance]]: Flashing danger background and crowd booing. The arcade version of ''Extreme'' was particularly notable. If the player let their lifebar drop too low, the (usually cheerful) background videos would be suddenly replaced with [[Nightmare Fuel|an animation of a shark swimming straight at you]]. [[Unstable Equilibrium|This is unlikely to help you recover]].
** Beginning on the "Extreme U.S." engine (used by that, Extreme 2, and SuperNOVA among others), this was dropped in favor of a flashing "danger" text on the lifebar.
** ''Hottest Party'' doesn't change the background, but the announcer starts shouting at you to stop sucking. Aside from how distracting it is, it feels like the game's mocking you. Thankfully, you ''can'' adjust that so it doesn't, or just turn him off entirely.
* [[Cultural Translation]]: In earlier years, none of the US or European versions had songlists close to their Japanese/arcade counterparts. Most of the major Konami originals, but that's all they have in common. This became less of an issue starting with ''Festival/Extreme/Fusion''.
** America's ''Dance Dance Revolution Konamix'' and Europe's ''Dancing Stage Party Edition'' are practically identical, except the one Japanese-language song in Konamix got replaced with five licensed songs: "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" by Kylie Minogue, "Don't Stop Movin'" by S Club 7, "My Favourite Game" by The Cardigans, "The Bad Touch" by The Bloodhound Gang and "You Got The Love" by Rufus feat. Chaka Khan. It's also one of the better games to be released in Europe having more songs than many [[
* [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]]: There are modifiers which re-arrange the charts using predetermined patterns (i.e. shuffle, mirror, left, right, etc.).
** Or the other way around, if you play PIU after DDR instead. Still aggravating.
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** In many beginner modes, you get, in place of the background animations and video, your character on a pad showing how to do the steps. Unfortunately, the way they step on the panels (step on panel, then return foot to the center) is a very well-known mistake that stops beginners from progressing past the easiest of songs. Recent versions dropped this feature entirely, and the tutorial levels in the Wii games have used more desirable starting positions.
* [[Elegant Gothic Lolita]]: Some of the dancers.
* [[Excited Show Title!|Excited Song Title!]]: BRE∀K DOWN! (also qualifies as a [[Lucky Charms Title]]) and OVERBLAST!!
** "aftershock!!" from Universe 3, X2, and DDR II.
* [[Exergaming]]: Although the point is to dance, it does burn calories. Workout Mode allows you to capitalize on this, with calorie counters and song lists designed to be workout courses, as well as a complete lack of the ability to fail out.
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* [[Fan Service]]: Yuni's [[Panty Shot|panties]] and hatless Emi.
** You're not gonna tell me that Root from Hottest Party 2 isn't fanservice. While we're at it, Chordia in Hottest Party 1 wears a bodice, and Harmony and Domi by themselves are fanservice. Look at their outfits!
** [[Zettai Ryouiki]]: Rena manages to pull this off in her Hottest Party 2 outfit. [https://web.archive.org/web/20141008125140/http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z183/Fairy-red-hime/Hottest%20Party/HP2Rena.jpg See for yourself.]
** Jenny in both SuperNOVA games.
* [[Fluffy Fashion Feathers]]: A [[Palette Swap|white or black]] feather-trimmed angel-themed dress in ''Dance Dance Revolution ([[Wii]])''.
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** Choreography mode does so too.
* [[Gaiden Game]]: The ''Dance Dance Revolution Solo'' sub-series, which offers a 6-panel mode that utilizes two new "up-left" and "up-right" arrows and has speed modifiers, [[Older Than They Think|a few years prior to their "introduction" in DDRMAX]]. Solo was later just merged back into the 4th Mix series, and went away entirely until Hottest Party 3 (where several songs had a gimmick causing the left or right arrows to rotate out of nowhere into diagonal arrows)
* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: We've had several over the years;
** Arcade versions before DDR X (those on [[PS 1]]- or [[
** ''Dance Dance Revolution Extreme'' for the [[
** Somehow, the Universe games are notorious for frame rate issues. Some players have been puzzled at how this can even happen on a Xbox 360 in a game like this.
** The quality of the pads on a particular machine can vary depending on their condition, how often its repaired/cleaned out, etc. Poorly maintained cabinets can turn even the easiest song into a Gambol-grade struggle to get a decent score at all. A variation comes from the DDR X cabinets outside of Japan: someone will probably get a Prefect Full Combo on Valkyrie Dimension Oni before you can have a DDR X machine in North America working just as good as a Japanese model.
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* [[The Immodest Orgasm]]: A few songs, such as "Oh Nick Please Not So Quick", "Sexy Planet", and "INSERTiON", have sounds [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|you would not expect from a dancing game...]]
** [[Bowdlerization]]: Some songs that do this, such as "The Earth Light" and "Injection of Love" had these sound effects removed before being used outside of Japan. Ironically, the clean instrumental version of "Injection of Love" was the first to appear anywhere, in America's ''Extreme 2'', whereas the explicit English version (Titled "Injection of Love(e)") was in Japan's ''Str!ke''. "After The Game (Of Love)" also had its lyrics removed in its US appearances.
* [[Incredibly Lame Pun]]: In the Japanese arcade release of X, there is a ranking course consisting of the songs "1998", "Dance Dance Revolution", "Will", and "Flourish" in that order.
* [[Interface Screw]]: The speed, boost, visibility (Hidden, Sudden, and Stealth), and other modifiers.
** Inverted in DDR X. The player is able to have his or her side of the field darkened to see the arrows better.
** Mixed up with the Gimmick settings. Sudden Arrows, Foot Confusers, and Minimizers/Normalizers come to mind...
* [[Konami Code]]: At least the up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right part. It's appeared in several stepcharts, such as Twinbee
* [[Large Ham]]: All of the announcers tend to be like this. They gotta keep you motivated, after all!
** The DDR X announcer is probably the most hammiest of all. Combine that with his overly cheesy sounding lingo, and you got a hot diggidy pig!
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** Just before the end, Valkyrie dimension drops from 186 BPM to 46 BPM (1/4 speed) as the melody fades out for one measure of [[Nothing Is Scarier|complete silence]], then it suddenly blasts out four measures of percussion that sounds like machine-gun fire at 372 BPM (double speed).
** Tohoku EVOLVED might be the ultimate example of this. Most of the song runs at 340 BPM, then the final chord comes and the music fades out...and then five full seconds later, the song goes up to 1020 BPM (triple speed) and there's '''one more jump''' that comes out of absolutely nowhere. Thanks to it being an EVOLVED song, this jump is ''random every time you play it''. It was even nastier when this song used to be only playable on Encore Extra Stage, because it was extremely likely that a player would fail right there on the last step.
* [[Level Editor]]: Many of the console versions have included "edit mode", a function that allows you to create custom routines. Some DDR machines even had PS1 memory card slots in front that could be used for this (but of course, [[No Export for You|only the Japanese PlayStation versions have offered this functionality]], and Edit Mode is gone entirely on the Wii versions )). Edits on the arcade version were scrapped on SuperNOVA, but returned on DDR X with support for USB flash drives (and the ability for [[Ascended Fanon|edit charts popular with players to be deployed to everyone over e-Amusement]]). Of course, this required DDR X's Japanese PS2 version as a middleman, and even files generated from that wouldn't work on American arcade versions. Konami alleviated this with an [https://web.archive.org/web/20130131220413/http://ddredit.konamionline.com/ddrse/ online app], but it doesn't support all songs.
* [[Licensed Game]]: While most of the games have their share of licensed songs, there's also the two Japan-release ''Dancing Stage'' games, each of which has a songlist consisting almost entirely of the artist in question. There were also quite a few Disney versions; most notably DDR Disney Mix. There was also a ''[[Winx Club]]'' version which also managed to have a number of new, unexpected (and good) [[
* [[Luck-Based Mission]]: Traditionally, the Shuffle modifier does this.
** The "evolved" series of boss songs uses this in a way. Each of them is [[Theme Naming|named after a major city]] (it started with cities in Japan, but then went to New York and L.A., followed by London on the most recent game), and most of them have three variations each, picked at random. All three of them open the same, except that they begin to diverge by the halfway point (i.e. one version might steadily speed up, one version might go into an intense breakdown, one may just slow down a bit). There have been two subversions of this however: L.A. Evolved has no variations whatsoever, and Roppongi has a DDR X2-exclusive "ver. D".
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* [[Lucky Charms Title]]: Numerous song titles. Especially songs by Jun. (Love♥Shine, Happy☆Angel, Kimono♥Princess, Sunkiss☆Drop, etc)
* [[Market-Based Title]]: The title ''Dancing Stage'' was was used for the European releases until around DDR X, when the DDR name was used for the first time in the region on the [[Licensed Game]] ''DDR'' ''[[Winx Club]]'', which was released everywhere ... [[Offer Void in Nebraska|but the United Kingdom]] (possibly due to the fact that Winx isn't as ''huge'' in the U.K. as it is in the remainder of Europe)
** The fourth "Hottest Party" game on the [[Wii]] (and the 2010 [[Xbox 360]] and [[
* [[Meido]]: A few characters have maid costumes, most notably Yuni and Maid-zukin.
* {{spoiler|[[Mirror Match]]}}: The final mission in Disco's story on DDR X's Street Master Mode has {{spoiler|Disco playing against himself. Win the mission, and he mentions that he [[Unfortunate Implications|beats himself]]}}.
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* [[Musical Theme Naming]]: All of the Hottest Party characters (save for the Bemani Trio, obviously) are named after something to do with music and rhythm.
** Also Train and Bus (the guys from the "Long Train Runnin'" background video, [[All There in the Manual|you'll have to look pretty deep to find that out]]), Rhythm and Blues (Extreme), and Drum and Bass (Extreme 2).
* [[Multi Platform]]: Averted in a way in America until the Hottest Party 3 sequel, as each console got its own separate game yearly. PlayStation versions were aligned with the arcade mixes, the Wii had the party play and gimmick-based Hottest Party series, and the [[
* [[Non Indicative Difficulty]]: The Challenge/Oni charts indicate that they're a harder difficulty than Expert/Heavy, yet for many songs they are slightly to significantly easier.
* [[Nostalgia Level]]: Dance Dance Revolution's Challenge steps feature bits and pieces of some of the more popular song's steps sprinkled throughout. Also, Paranoia Max (SMM Special), features a lot of patterns from its predecessors, [[That One Boss|even though most of them are going at double speed.]]
* [[Obvious Beta]]: ''Dance Dance Revolution Freedom'' for the iOS. It still uses the same GUI from DDR X, and all the songs are [[Game Breaking Bug|horribly stepped and synced]]. [[It Got Worse|Even worse, DDR S and S+ were removed from the iTunes Store upon its release]] (S was re-posted shortly afterwards, however).
* [[Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo]]: After three ''Hottest Party'' games on the Wii, the next release on the system and the [[
* [[Pac-Man Fever]]: Indeed, this game is well-known enough to be constantly in shows, expy or not.
** Averted in the film ''Yes Man'', where Jim Carrey's character plays ''Hana Ranman
* [[Perfect Run Final Boss]]: One More Extra stage, since renamed to Encore Extra Stage. Basically, if you break your combo (by getting anything below Great or missing a freeze), you lose instantly.
* [[Pimped-Out Dress]]: Some of the outfits the dancers wear.
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** From ''DDRMAX'' onwards, your grade is determined by a hidden "dance point" system, which came to set the standard for evaluating accuracy. And from ''DDR SuperNOVA'' onwards, the on-screen score is essentially the percentage of your dance points vs. maximum dance points mulitplied by some power of ten.
*** With SuperNOVA onwards, Almosts and Boos don't hurt your score NEARLY as much as in Extreme and earlier (they get zero points instead of -4 and -8) although they still take away health. In SuperNOVA 2 you can actually get a AAA with a miss! To counter-act this oddity, SN2 was also the first version to recognize Full Great/Perfect/Marvelous combos on the results screen.
* [[Sequel Escalation]]: Originally, the difficulty ratings went from 1-8 footprints. 3rd Mix added 9's. DDRMAX added MAX 300, the first 10. Then came MaxX Unlimited, The Legend of MAX and Paranoia Survivor MAX, Fascination MAXX and Fascination -eternal love mix-, Pluto / Pluto Relinquish and Dead End Groove Radar Special... each of which would one-up the hardest songs in the previous installment.
** This progression broke the original rating scheme. MAX 300 and Fascination MAXX are nowhere near the same difficulty, but both were rated a 10 until the scale was extended to 20 and all the songs were re-rated.
* [[Sexy Whatever Outfit]]: In the first three "Hottest Party" games, Jun wears a skimpy version of the Japanese folklore goddess dress, while in the fourth game she wears a sexy angel dress.
** Also in the fourth game, Ceja wears a sexy lady Navy uniform.
* [[Short Title: Long Elaborate Subtitle]]: ZETA ~The World of Prime Numbers and the Transcendental Being~ from DDR X2 and DDR II.
* [[Shout-Out]]: A couple exist in the Hottest Party series. In some stages, you can see clips of videos from past DDRs, a nice nostalgia bonus for older fans. And another one, that's harder to get unless you really suck or you're trying to get it; when you're doing bad, and the announcer starts to shout abuse at you, one thing he'll say is "[[Wizard Needs Food Badly|Dancer needs groove badly]]".
** In DDR X, the announcer sometimes starts stages by saying "[[F-Zero|Show me...]]" and obviously intends for players who are familiar with the series to finish with "your moves!"
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*** And the song itself is based on Konami's old "Walking Logo" [[Vanity Plate]]. Compare: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EebUbR2wFM#t=0m08s the "chorus" of Make a Jam!,] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt8fGE_coqY the Walking Logo.]
** The title cards for the [[Paranoia]] songs feature robots similar to [[Kraftwerk]]'s [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ "The Robots"].
* [[Spikes of Doom|Spike Balls of Doom]]: Some of the songs before SuperNova had this in their background movies. Max 300 is one of the more infamous ones.
** The Shock arrows that are introduced in most challenge stepcharts in DDR X tend to trip people up.
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** The capitalization on a lot of things gets a little funky too. PARANOiA, INSERTiON, MaxX, and even the old numbering format (2ndMIX, 3rdMIX, etc.).
* [[Super Move Portrait Attack]]: Since SuperNOVA2 on the Arcade continuity, reaching various combo levels causes a sort of portrait of the player's character to come up in the middle of the screen. Hottest Party 3 takes this further by having the background change to show the character itself doing a victory move at combo milestones (complete with a distracting "REACHED X COMBO!" graphic too!
* [[The Movie]]:
** ''La Maquina De Bailar'' (The Dance Machine) is the unofficial candidate.
** The BBC's ''Lord Of The Dance Machine'', which followed a UK entrant to an international competition, might count as a [[Documentary Episode]].
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** There are other songs that are 7/8, 3/4, or some other random uncommon time the whole time.
* [[Unlockable Content]]
* [[Unwinnable]]: DDRX2 on the [[
* [[Video Game Lives]]: Challenge mode. One More Extra Stages reduce you to ''[[One-Hit-Point Wonder|one]]'' life.
** SuperNova 2 and later changed the [[Bonus Boss|Extra Stage]] life bar mechanics from no recovering on perfect hits to the health bar system on Challenge mode. The amount of misses you can make depends on your score. This means the Extra Stages can now become [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|OneHitPointWonders]] as well.
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* [[Up to Eleven]]: Challenge steps for songs that were already ranked level 10 on the hard difficulty. "PARANOiA Survivor MAX" and "Fascination MaxX" come to mind.
** Starting with DDR X and Hottest Party 5, the difficulty ratings were re-scaled to be out of 20 instead. Most of the "flashing" 10's from before X got assigned ratings around the 16-18 range.
** "DEAD END (Groove Radar Special)" comes to mind. It's almost as if the chart author made it as a means to challenge the people who play this game.
** Valkyrie dimension on Challenge (19/20), enough said.
* [[Video Game Remake]]: As indicated by its title, DDR X3 vs. 2nd Mix features "2nd Mix Mode", an apparent HD remix of DDR 2nd Mix, with most of the songs intact, and with HD graphics. This is most likely in honor of Dancemania's 15th anniversary too (given how important Dancemania was in the early days of DDR), since EMI Japan is also producing a special re-issue of the 2nd Mix soundtrack in honor of the anniversary and as a tie-in for X3
* [[Virtual Paper Doll]]
* [["Wake
* [[Xtreme Kool Letterz]]: "MaxX Unlimited" and "The Legend of MaxX".
* [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair]]: Rena and U1 (comes in blue or purple!), Root's abnormally orange hair, jun who's hair can come in pink. There's also Bridget with her multi-tone hair, and Ceja as well. Those are all characters who appeared in Hottest Party. Emi and Alice from the arcade DDR games also qualify.
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{{World Video Game Hall of Fame}}
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