Review Roach 3/5 · Jul 3, 2025
Show Me Your Moves!
Dance Dance Revolution took the arcades by storm in 1998. A year later, it was re-introduced to the living room via the PlayStation console. Included with the game was a plastic mat with those iconic directional arrows to step to the beat to. These controller mats were prone to slip and slide across the floor and didn't lay completely flat, …
Dance Dance Revolution took the arcades by storm in 1998. A year later, it was re-introduced to the living room via the PlayStation console. Included with the game was a plastic mat with those iconic directional arrows to step to the beat to. These controller mats were prone to slip and slide across the floor and didn't lay completely flat, which made it hard to play on higher difficulties, but being able to play round after round of your favorite DDR tracks without emptying your coffers was a decent tradeoff.
But I played it on controller!
This console iteration is pretty barebones to whichever sequel I played in the arcades. No settings for increasing the speed of arrows (making them harder to read), no disappearing arrows when landing a Great or Perfect (making it unclear whether you hit it at all), and various other options that have become staples in later entries. Still, even without the bells and whistles I was accustomed to, it was enjoyable to step back into the funky electronic soundtrack of my childhood.
There aren't many tracks, and they vary based on which region you're playing, but there's about an hour's worth of music to dance your way through. There are a few unlockables but most music is available straight away. There's also a few characters you can choose from but the roster is very small. Again, there are a couple variants of these characters to unlock, but hardly any. There's also a few secrets in the game that I doubt anyone would find naturally but you can check this post out for how to do so.
It was fun to revisit this dead franchise. I'm not sure if we'll ever see a modern iteration of it again. Here's hoping this arcade staple doesn't completely fall into the realm of obscurity.
