GENRE
	Music
	DEVELOPER
	Konami
	PUBLISHER
	Konami
	NUMBER OF PLAYERS
	1-4
	WI-FI ENHANCED
	No
	DS COMPATIBLE
	No
	BUY NOW AT

Dancing with yourself has come a long way since it was invented by Billy Idol in 1981. Back in those dark ages people didn’t even have dance pads to help them keep track of their dancing skills. Fortunately, Konami has rectified the situation with its popular Dance Dance Revolution game series. This ubiquitous franchise has appeared on nearly as many consoles as Tetris (including the Game Boy, believe it or not), and finally stomps its way home to the Wii as Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party.

visuals

Hottest Party is a visual throwback to the original DDR games from the PS1 era. Back then, the series featured selectable characters that danced on-screen to the music. They were eventually replaced with psychedelic backgrounds and videos, but they make their triumphant return on the Wii. Different dancers provide no advantage or disadvantage; they are merely an aesthetic choice.

There are also several stages to dance on. They range from techno wonderlands to giant tree stumps, and again, they don’t have any effect on the gameplay whatsoever. They are quite busy, but never really distracting. The whole game is an electric, candy-coated party.

audio

The biggest selling point of a Dance Dance Revolution title is the song list. It’s the main factor that makes one version worth purchasing over another, and Hottest Party’s collection is solid. You’ll recognize covers from the seventies like Disco Inferno all the way up to hits from today such as Coldplay’s Clocks. There are about 50 songs in all, and the vast majority are quite decent. It’s not on the level of other music games like Rock Band, but DDR has never focused on licensed music.

There are also several Konami original songs. Some are new, and some are remixes of past tunes that will be instantly familiar to longtime players. One song in particular is an excellent challenge, because it features random tempos every time it is played. It’s only for the DDR elite and a very cool way of rounding out a decent-sized song library.

gameplay

Dance Dance Revolution has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon in the past few years, so the basic gameplay should be recognizable to almost everyone. It’s astonishingly easy: step on the arrows on the dance pad as the corresponding in-game arrows reach the top of the screen. That’s it. There are a few flourishes, and the footwork gets increasing fancier as the difficulty increases, but it’s an easy game to get the hang of. It’s a perfect match for the Wii’s "anyone can play" philosophy.

The included dance pad is durable and sturdy, with a thick foam underside that grips most surfaces. It’s not one of those $300 metal pads the hardcore players buy, but you won’t find it slipping around or bunching up too badly. It plugs into the GameCube controller slot, so if you happen to own DRR Mario Mix, you’ll find your old pad works here too.

Hottest Party offers a unique twist by incorporating the Wii Remote and Nunchuck. You hold them like maracas and shake one or the other depending on the icon that shows up. It’s very simplistic and doesn’t add or detract from the experience in any significant way. Purists will be glad to know that you can turn this option off in a menu, although the game doesn’t save these settings, and you’ll have to change them every time you play.

The main portion of the single player is called the Groove Circuit. In the Groove Circuit you travel from venue to venue clearing songs and meeting certain conditions like racking up a set combo or earning a certain grade. Do well enough and you will face off against a boss character in a dance battle and unlock some new songs for your trouble. Those with determination and stamina can probably clear this mode in 2 or 3 hours, but Dance Dance Revolution is not really known for having an emphasis on any sort of campaign mode.

The real fun of Hottest Party comes in the variety of other modes. It’s a highly skill-based game, so Free Play is where the majority of your time will be spent once you unlock all the songs. Free Play allows you to play any songs in any order for as long as you want. It’s all about mastering a song and moving up to a new difficulty level.

For those seeking an alternative to Wii Fit, look no further than Workout Mode. In this mode, you can start a profile by entering your weight, and the game will tell you how many calories you burn as you play. It’s not an extremely precise measurement, but make no mistake: you can burn tons of calories in an intense DDR session. Workout mode allows you to set the game to play for a certain amount of time or for an amount of burned calories. Make a custom playlist or dance to one of several pre-arranged ones and dance yourself thin.

multiplayer

If you have the cash and the floor space, Hottest Party allows up to four dance pads. Both Groove Circuit and Free Play support multiple players and include a few different options. Friendship mode awards all players with the highest score that anyone got on a particular step. Sync mode is the opposite, penalizing all players for the lowest score an individual player earns on a step. There is also an option for standard competitive multiplayer to see who can get the highest score on a given song. It’s a fairly robust selection of play modes and a lot of fun if any of your friends happen to own a spare pad.

overall

Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party is a solid entry in the series and a great place for the uninitiated to jump in. Seasoned veterans will find fifty songs exclusive to this game (a few are remixes of old DDR standards) and a reasonable challenge. In the grand spectrum of the series, Hottest Party is above average: the song selection could be a little bigger and the difficulty could ramp up a bit more to give the hardcore DDR crowd a real challenge. Despite these small complaints, Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party is still an incredibly fun game. New players will finally have a chance to see what all the fuss is about, and it offers a great alternative to Wii Fit for those who can’t manage to hunt down a copy. Dancing with yourself has never been more fun.

7.5/10