Players are free to dance and move however they want, except for certain sequences where they must pose (indicated by a green body outline) or move their arms and legs in specific locations indicated by a blue ring. Motions and movements are tracked by the Xbox 360's Kinect. Easier difficulties have less pose sequences, allowing players to have a bit more freedom in learning the dance movements, while higher difficulties will test the player’s memory. From the current version of the game we played, the game’s difficulty settings were similar to DDR’s renamed as Light, Standard, Extreme, and Stealth.
Maeda-san came up with the idea for the game after witnessing the unveiling of Kinect (previously named Natal) at last year's E3. With influences from DDR, Maeda-san was looking to create a more free form game with no barriers, giving players a bit more leeway than DDR to create their own dance moves. With initial production, the game proved to be very difficult to program, especially with the full body motion tracking system, something completely new compared to ParaParaParadise's on and off sensor in the arcades.
Maeda-san revealed to us that currently they are planning around 30 songs for release with downloadable content in the future. Players may look and feel silly the first time they play the game, but with anything, practice makes perfect and they’ll be grooving like a pro in no time. Fans of DDR and ParaParaParadise definitely will be dancing the night away, but will your average American be just as receptive? How will the game fair against Rock Band creator Harmonix’s Dance Central, also announced at E3? We’ll find out later this holiday year when the game is currently expected to be released.
Probably one of the more interesting game for otakus is being made by the creators of Dance Dance Revolution is Dance Master. Dance Master is an evolution of the Para Para arcade machines. Instead of a simple on and off sensor switch, Dance Master actually tracks the player’s body movement utilizing Microsoft’s Kinects for the Xbox360. Now you can learn how to dance in privacy of your own living room. Despite the countless gazes of onlookers, we gave the game a test run on stage. Naoki Maeda, probably best known as simply NAOKI from the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) series and Executive Producer for Dance Master, gave us a brief run down of the game before we tested the game to the fan favorite DDR song, Night of Fire.
At first the game appeared to be extremely difficult trying to follow the dance movements of the onscreen dancers.
Players are free to dance and move however they want, except for certain sequences they must pose (indicated by a green body outline) or move their arms and legs in specific locations indicated by a blue ring. Easier difficulties have less pose sequences allowing players to have a bit more freedom in learning the dance movements, while higher difficulties will test the player’s memory. From the current version of the game we played, the game’s difficulty settings were similar to DDR’s Light, Standard, and Heavy modes with the absence of a beginner or training mode which we are hoping will be included in the retail version.
Players may look and feel silly the first time they play the game, but with anything, practice makes perfect and they’ll be grooving like a pro in no time. Fans of DDR and Para Para definitely will be dancing the night away, but will your average American be just as receptive? How will the game fair against Rock Band creator Harmonix’s Dance Central also announced at E3? We’ll find out later this holiday year when the game is currently expected to be released.
