It’s not something I try to talk about too much, but I really love Dance Dance Revolution. Like, I’ll make a trip over to the only worthwhile arcade in San Francisco (Metreon, baby!) just for some solid DDR. So when I had a chance to check out newest form of DDR, that involving the balance board, I headed on out.
I’ll be real. You’re gonna look like an idiot playing DDR on the balance board. Even more than the regular DDR, which, if you’ve ever seen a 300 lb man do hardcore dancing to DDR, is pretty hard to top. The arrows on the top of the screen are the same, but instead of arrows rising up, you have directions to lean your hips. Other icons will come up telling you to punch your left or right hand, or to rotate your hips. It’s pretty simple, actually, and none of the songs reached levels of particular difficulty. If Konami hopes to make this feature the future of DDR, they are going to have to make the game a little more hardcore for any sort of high level play.
Honestly, DDR with the balance board feels like a hula game with some arm waving. It’s sort of fun, but the encompassed experience is lackluster. I mean, it’s at once DDR and not-DDR, and the general feel of it is that this feature is kind of half-assed. Thankfully, it is just that, a feature, and that means the overall DDR experience in this game isn’t going to be hampered by the Balance Board.
