Dance Dance Revolution: Biggest Heads

by JC Fletcher { Jul 10th 2007 at 3:25PM }

Konami has released some screens of their new Wii-style Dance Dance Revolution, entitled Dance Dance Revolution HOTTEST PARTY. And it mostly looks like a DDR game, with some small adjustments. Hottest Party (we're going to stop with the caps, if that's all right) includes the same Free Play and Diet Modes as other DDR games, but also includes simultaneous four-player mode for people with really big living rooms.

The most noticeable adjustment is head size. That's funny, and a little weird, but totally cosmetic and won't get in the way of anyone's Dance Dance Revolving. What's a little more interesting than cranial embiggening is the Wiimote/Nunchuk usage. There seem to be special arrows that instruct players to point their hands in a certain direction, much like Samba de Amigo. Sometimes even the on-screen characters hold Wiimotes and Nunchuks.

The dance pad has made it to the Wii pretty much unscathed, with no Wiimote-shaped cavities or anything. It's a basic dance pad in a Wii color scheme. It appears to be wired, probably USB. We didn't need more-- with the extra waggling, this game seems complicated enough!

Tags: dance, dance dance revolution, DanceDanceRevolution, ddr, hottest, hottest party, HottestParty, konami, nintendo, nintendo wii, NintendoWii, party, revolution, wii

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rainer @ Jul 10th 2007 3:42PM

Aren't there only two USB ports in the back of the Wii? And didn't you say it supported up to four players? I'm guessing the pads will use the gamecube controller ports.

Steve @ Jul 10th 2007 3:51PM

Why do do the Japanese like to emphasize words by duplicating duplicating them? We don't have "Dance Revolution" we have "Dance DANCE Revolution". You don't have a "ham" you have "ham-ham". You don't have something that's "happy" you have something that's "happy happy". I've noticed many others but can't think of any right now.

Is this a characteristic of how they use their own language and then they apply it to English when creating English titles?

Mario Panighetti @ Jul 10th 2007 4:04PM

Hopefully I'll be able to use my DDR Mario Mix pad... and my (ugh) MC Groovz Dance Craze pad.

http://www.dotmatrixwithstereosound.com

Jonathan Tran @ Jul 10th 2007 4:09PM

Steve:

Probably. In many languages like French, Vietnamese, etc, the way the grammar or pronunciation works, you have to stress the words differently.

For instance in Viet, words all have a specific tone to go along with the pronunciation, so you cant just say the word louder or slower like in English like let's *dance*!

In French if you wanna stress a word you have to say it before ANY pronoun, like saying, "The Wii, it is awesome".

There is probably some reason in Japanese that words must be stressed this way. They carry it into english the same way an american speaking french doesn't know they just can't use regular stress on words to stress them.

Jonathan Tran @ Jul 10th 2007 4:12PM

Also I wonder if this will be compatible with Miis

JC Fletcher @ Jul 10th 2007 5:13PM

Linguistics? In my Wii Fanboy? It's more likely than you think.

Okay, first I'll address the weird DDR name: in this case, it's less a result of anything inherent to Japanese language than of sequelitis. In 1998, Konami put out a Playstation game called Dance! Dance! Dance! that was little more than a ripoff of Bust a Groove. It didn't use the dance pad.

http://www.ex.org/4.2/37-game_dancedancedance.html

The next dance game they came out with was an arcade game that, like Dance! Dance! Dance! was about dancing, but used a new input method. Thus, Dance Dance Revolution. Probably.

Anyway, I don't think that the reduplication in stuff like 'happy happy' is anything more than style. There ARE uses for reduplication in Japanese, like collectives (kami= god, kamigami= gods) or for onomatopoeia (doki doki, pera pera)