 Dance! Dance! Dance!/PSX
Many of you Konami/Bemani fans may have not heard of this game(thankfully) actually...this isn't a Bemani game..but it is a music game made by Konami. It's titled Dance! Dance! Dance!. This is supposedly Konami's first attempt at a dance-related video game. By the look of the cover, it appears some-what similiar to the covers of the future DDR games due to the silhouette of the girl that looks almost like the DDR character Lady and even is posed the same way. Do not let this fool you, the gameplay of DDD is very different from DDR. The gameplay is more similiar to the one on one dance competitions found in Enix's Bust A Move(a.k.a Bust A Groove) series. Every category that Bust A Move excells in however, DDD falls flat. Let's break this down.
Graphics(3/10):: Even at the time of it's release, the graphics look dated. They include a hand full of uninteresting characters and most have the same face. There are also the stages they dance on. They all look like a square 3d area with no animations happening within them. Also very dull. Each character has their own style of dancing but the animations are all stilted and unrealistic.
Gameplay(2/10):: The core gameplay of DDD is pressing different random button combinations "to the beat" of the music. It's harder than it sounds due to the fact the timing is off sync to the game's music. This can lead to a lot of frustration as you see your CPU opponent dancing away while your character is falling all over the place. There is also a RPG-style mode that lets you walk around a map, talk, and of course dance. A good understanding of Kanji is needed for the RPG mode, but the uninteresting back-tracking gameplay will make you not want to play through it anyway.
Sound(1/10):: One of the most important aspects of a music game is the sound. And surprisingly, DDD fails at this too. The tracks sound like the same sound clip (mostly instrumental) played over and over for a minute and thirty seconds. There is a gimmick that lets you use your own CD music to play with. But if the game cant even stay on sync with it's own music, then dont expect the game to be on sync with your music.
To be blunt, overall this game is trash. If you are looking for a good character dancer, I recommend any of the three Bust A Move games. As a matter of fact, I dont recommend DDD to anyone, not even hardcore music game collectors. I'm really glad this flop did not discourage Konami from making another dance game. Then we wouldnt have the popular DDR series that we have today. I guess if at first you dont succeed, try again right?
Overall Rating:: (2/10) | 
