Pump It Up Exceed PS2 (NOT PROOFREAD YET)

[Small Waves]

Pump It Up Exceed / PS2


We all know PIU from the late Jillian's, D&B's, or some arcade elsewhere. Likewise, we know that if you go to said-late Jillians or D&B (or if that's your only option), you will have to pay prices that might make you break out in a fight since you are not too keen on paying a $1+ for a dance game. Thanks to Andamiro and to those who made Pump popular in the US, we now have two different CS releases in the states for the X-Box and PS2. I was lucky enough to find the game on sale somewhere for only $30 with the game and pad, and bought it in a heartbeat.

PIU Exceed for the PS2 is the first music game made for an American audience with a song list going into the triple-digits. With 101 songs, you cannot shout out "IT'S TOO SMALL TO SATISFY MY DANCE GAME HUNGER" without people thinking you're fucking insane. If you are one of those people who cannot be satisfied unless you have a song list larger than a Goddamned house, then stop reading this and order DDR Extreme JP now. However, the "more songs = better game" ideal may not work so well with this game. Opinions will differ from your tastes in music. If you like Spanish music and K-pop, you're going to have a boner over this game. If you don't K-pop, then you might have a little trouble getting into PIU Exceed, especially if it's the first PIU game you play.

The Banya channel is pretty packed. You have songs from the old PIU days like Hypnosis and Ignition STARTS to CANON-D from Exceed 2 (a la Abyss the heavens remix in 7th style)? Consider it a preview for an arcade game that's been out months before the CS. We have all of the Exceed arcade songs with old favorites like Turkey March and the Final Auditions. Much like Naoki, Banya are only human and have flaws. For instance, I find the song Hate a very fitting name. It just sums up my feelings about the song. Koul is too dull for my taste, and then we have Bee. Let's face it: some classical songs weren't meant to be remixed. Most of the Banya songs here are great in my general opinion, and if you're looking for a challenge, you know where to go.

The K-Pop channel has a mixed opinion from me. I will say this: I like Novasonic. I wish to listen or buy one of their albums one day. Hatred is an enjoyable song with a fun step-chart if you can manage to play it and same goes for Run! Crash on the other hand doesn't interest me so much, and What Do You Really Want's steps on CZ are retarded. I can A Love is a Danger Zone from the Banya Channel along with CANON-D, and yet I can barely D that BS chart. This means either the chart sucks, or we need 5 and 6 times speed. As for the rest of the channel, Valenti is a great song, and the steps are beginner friendly and even to this day, the Crazy steps don't bore me. We also have Passion, which only has a Normal chart because they were too lazy to give the song another difficulty until Zero, but too bad I don't do doubles. I do not like songs such as Perfect or You Gotta Be Kidding!. Come Back to Me, Hatred, and Valenti are on my top three list for the K-Pop channel. This channel also has the most retarded unlocks. 175 Arcade rounds to unlock Go!? It took me a week and a half to unlock the Drop the Bomb remix in MAX US, for petesakes. I'm not a man of patience, so good luck with that unlock. Odds are that Go! will be your final unlock. If you are one of those people who played DDR Korean mixes, then you'll remember Starian.

The Pop channel has six new songs, only one which is in Zero. Bad news: That song isn't Rapper's Delight. I Love You Baby has an interesting background video and Crazy Steps that are pretty fun, but too bad the song is pretty crappy. 5/10

Rapper's Delight is an old classic. With a song as cool as this and a video that reminds me of VJArmy's variety, it's sad to see it get mediocre jump-happy steps. Without a doubt, my favorite new song for the home version. 9.5/10

Walkie-Talkie Man is the hardest new Pop song in Exceed CS, and the hardest Pop song in PIU to date. With a Crazy 17 and a Nightmare being 19, no other song touches it in the Pop channel. It was like it was hard for the sake of being really hard. They used the original music video like Name of the Game and the remix of A Little Less Conversation, but both songs are better. 6/10

Name of the Game is from the Crystal Method. I was pretty scared to get this game because of their song in MAX 2 Busy Child, which happens to be one of the worst licenses in DDR in my opinion. The song kicks Busy Child's ass so much that I could barely tell that they two songs were made by the same people. It's a shame that the charts are either too boring (Normal and Hard) or too overwhelming for most people (Crazy, which is a 16). 8/10

Let's Groove happens to be one of those songs where the cover sounds cooler. That doesn't mean the song was bad, and also, YOU CALL THIS A 9?! 7.5/10

A Little Less Conversation remix is a remix of the original song made by the king himself. If Elvis was alive and wasn't an asshat, he'd be glad with the job they did remixing his song. The steps do the song justice, but don't deserve a 13 on CZ. Just a plain old 12, thank you. 9/10

The rest of the Pop channel is generally better than the K-Pop. Join the Party, Essa Maneira, and Fiesta are my diamonds in the rough. Like everything good, there's crap. Ba Be Loo Be Ra is like Let Them Move in suckage along with Shake It Up. Even though I like it more than the K-Pop channel, it has my least favorite two songs in the game. Most of the songs are easy and will help you get off the ground leading you to harder songs. It's much more beginning friendly than the Banya channel.

The other features are nice, such as Home mode, where you can practice songs with special mods, and now enter them in a special menu instead of memorizing every button code. Took long enough, but I would still like to see a mod menu after you choose a song in the arcade. Sudden Death mode has you play until you get a miss, but if you get a good or bad, it's not game over. Survival mode is like Endless mode from DDR MAX 2 and beyond, but you get to choose each song and the mods. If you want to rank up mileage, want to burn off some calories, or are tired of Arcade mode, this is a great mode. If you just want to unlock the new songs that can be obtained from survival, then play for at least 30 songs in a row. There's an unlockable Video mode that allows you to watch the special backgound videos without playing. If you don't want to download the videos here and watch them on your computer, then ou are more thn welcome to watch the 101 special videos for the songs in PIU Exceed, that is, if you can unlock all of the songs.


Now we have the pad. For me, it works a lot better than the default DDR home pad. There are many complaints from the fans because it seems to be smaller than the arcade pad, but I cannot tell the difference or am unable since D&B won't let me in since I'm not 21, so I cannot do a "arcade now and an hour later at home" comparison. I can actually clear hard songs with a good score unlike that C I got in Tsugaru or the B Dracula Medley when I could already A 10s by that point on a good pad. However, I still await a good soft or hard pad so I can be more confident about playing 14s and 15s without failing in the arcade mode or sudden death.

My only real beefs with the game if the the brightness setting. When you turn down the brightness of the background, you also turn down the brightness for the arrows. To me, it renders the option unless for me. I cannot see a damn thing in some songs unless I turn off the background. I hope if they make a new home game, they'll fix that. Another problem is the syncing. It seems the arrows are a little late with the music, but to make up for that, you get a timing window that makes it a lot easier to PC that in DDR. I have PC'd at least 15 songs in Exceed US, and found myself cursing when I get a great. Meanwhile, I have gotten zero AAAs in DDR, home and arcade. That's how big the timing window is, folks.


In the end, it has a large song list and a decent home pad. Extremely enjoyable for veterans such as myself, but might be tough for new fans to get into.

Overall: 9/10