Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX

Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX, or DDR 5th Mix, is the fifth game in the Dance Dance Revolution series of music video games. It was released to the arcades by Konami on March 27, 2001. Although only officially released in Japan, units exist worldwide. DDR 5th Mix contains a total of 122 songs, nine of which are hidden and unlockable. Of those songs, 40 of them (including all nine unlockable songs) are brand new to Dance Dance Revolution.

For the list of songs, please reference the Dance Dance Revolution 5thMIX song list.

=Gameplay= The general premise of DDR 5th Mix is the same as the previous Dance Dance Revolution games. One player can play using one dance pad (Single play style), Two players can play using one dance pad each (Versus play style), or One player can play using both dance pads (Double play style).

A player must step to the beat, matching the beat to the arrows presented to them on screen by stepping on arrows on a metal-and-plexiglass dance stage. Depending on the timing of each step, the step is scored "PERFECT," "GREAT," "GOOD," "BOO" or "MISS." A health bar is on the screen, and starts halfway at the beginning of the routine. PERFECT and GREAT steps increase the health bar until it is full. BOO and MISS steps diminish it. GOOD steps have no effect either way. If a player accumulates too many BOOs or MISSes in rapid succession, and the health bar fully diminishes, then they fail the song and the game ends.

A player may play anywhere from three to seven songs, depending on how many the arcade owner sets the machine to play each game. At the end of each song, the player sees their accumulated points, bonus points, and how many of each kind of step they stepped. They also get a letter grade, ranging from E (only seen in two player modes when one player fails but the other passes) to AAA (all steps PERFECT), solely determined by the kind of steps they make. At the end of the game, they get a cumulative score based on all the songs they played.

The scoring formula is different from previous versions. The top score for a song is 5,000,000 + (f * 5,000,000), where f is the foot rating of the song. The top score for a one-foot song is 10 million, and the top score for a 9-foot song is 50 million. Bonus points are then added based on performance; they seem to be highly influenced by the highest combo achieved.

Interface

DDR 5th Mix introduced the song wheel interface used when selecting songs. This is also the first arcade version to display the game with a 60 frame per second refresh rate for smoother gameplay. Previous versions played at 30 frame/s. You can modify how the arrow arrangement and how they appear on the screen with various step codes when you select a song, and also use the Up and Down arrows on the dance pad to select between the three difficulty levels: 'Basic', 'Trick' and 'Maniac'. They are color-coded orange, fuchsia and green, respectively.

The Song Wheel has become so symbolic of modern DDR that attempts by Konami to move away from the interface (US DDR Extreme, Dance Dance Revolution and Dancing Stage Fusion) have been rejected by DDR fans.

Dancing characters

This is also the last arcade version of the game in which 3D-rendered dancing characters are displayed in the background until Dance Dance Revolution SuperNOVA. Twelve characters are selectable, six male characters for the left-side player (Afro, Rage, Johnny, Robo 2001, Spike and Baby-Lon) and six female characters for the right-side player (Janet, Emi, Charmy, Princess-Zukin, Maho and Alice). Legendary Konami and DDR Music Producer Naoki Maeda was inserted as one of two hidden dancing characters.

Nonstop Mode

Unlike DDR 3rd Mix and DDR 4th Mix before it, Nonstop Mode, which allowed the player to play one of several set courses without stopping, is not available in DDR 5th Mix.

Long Version songs

Four songs--B4U glorious style, DYNAMITE RAVE Long ver., HOT LIMIT and Oops, I Did It again (Fired Up Mix)--are long version songs, songs that run twice as long as a standard DDR song. Whereas the standard DDR dance routine is around 90 seconds, a long version runs for around three minutes. Such songs took up the play of two songs, and are only selectable as the second-to-last song in the round. Songs of this length exist only in DDR 5th Mix, and the concept was discarded for further machines.

Link Data

Some machines have the ports to insert PlayStation memory cards. Such memory cards have to be PlayStation 1 memory cards with Link Data from the home version of DDR 5th Mix or earlier. It can exchange data with DDR 5th Mix, as well as any earlier version that has songs that are in 5th Mix. It can also use Edit Data, custom steps made on the home version.

Special music notes

A contest in Japan, the DDR 5th Mix Musicmanship Trial Contest, was held in 2000 with the grand prize being the winner's song appearing in DDR 5th Mix. The winning song was PARANOiA ETERNAL, produced by an artist named Matsumoto, who uses the pseudonym STM200.

Naoki Maeda also held a talent search to create a new all-girl J-Pop band. He selected Shiyuna Maehara, Noria Shiraishi, Riyu Kosaka and Yoma Komatsu. The band they formed was named BeForU, and their first single, DIVE, is featured on DDR 5th Mix.

=Home version= The home version of DDR 5th Mix was released in Japan on September 22nd, 2001, for the Sony PlayStation video game console. It contains 47 songs: Most of the new songs from the arcade version (including all nine hidden songs), plus seven extra hidden songs that appear as a preview to the next arcade version, Dance Dance Revolution 6thMIX, for a total of 16 unlockable songs. Also, in this Home version features the Gallery Mode which are the screenshots taken from the Background Effect and Information from 1st to 5thMIX.It contains screensshot and needs to be unlocked as you play the game. The game also includes the "New Link Version" that links to the Newer Arcade Version of DDR such as MAX and EXTREME.

Soundtrack

The Original Soundtrack for DDR 5th Mix is a two-disc album produced by Toshiba-EMI under their Dancemania dance music brand. It is only available on compact disc The first disc contains all 31 readily-available new tracks from the arcade version, the 12 new songs introduced in DDR 4th Mix Plus. It also has a second disc that has a Nonstop Megamix of all the songs on the first disc, and two bonus tracks from DDRMAX. It was released on September 19th, 2001.

Notable songs from this mix

- B4U (glorious style) : A Long Version remix of B4U, a popular song by Naoki which debuted on Dance Dance Revolution 4th Mix)

- God of Romance ("Romance no Kamisama" in Romaji): One of the few true Eurobeat songs that were presented on this mix along with Nori-Nori-Nori (the last one only on the home version)

- MOONLIGHT SHADOW (new vocal version) A remix by Missing Heart putting emphasis on vocals. The vocals were sung by Maggie Reilly and the original song, Moonlight Shadow is by Mike Oldfield.

- Hot Limit A "one mix wonder" of the DDR world; this popular song was only featured on 5th mix because of the removal of Long Versions in DDRMAX. This song is famous for it's misconcepted lyric in its chorus "We Drink Ritalin".

- DIVE: The debut single from Konami-produced pop group BeForU, featuring vocals from Riyu Kosaka.

External links

Konami (US Home Page), makers of DDR.
Konami (Japanese Home Page)
DDR 5th Mix Production Report, with information on Matsumoto (STM200) and BeForU. (In Japanese)
Official DDR 5th Mix website, from Konami. (In Japanese)
Dancemania (In Japanese)

2001 arcade games | 2001 computer and video games | Arcade games | Dance Dance Revolution series | PlayStation games

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