Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party Review

If there’s going to be DDR on Wii, you should expect some kind of waggle, right? Only fair. Because there is. DDR Hottest Party is still the usual four-step dance pad, but this Wii iteration adds some remote and nunchuk lovin’ to the mix. Randomly interspersed between the scrolling arrows are hand markers. When these come up, you shake the nunchuk or remote respectively. It’s a little hard to get used to when you’ve been playing DDR with only your feet for the past eight years. Then again, if you have been playing DDR for that long, moving your hands may be just enough to make the experience feel fresh again.

The hand gestures are kind of nice, actually, and help get more of your body involved in the song. Finally, something to do with your hands! But the waggle has to be spot-on for it to register, and you’ll find that playing with this functionality isn’t the best way to shoot for a high score. You can turn it off, thankfully, but the game never remembers this setting. So each time you boot it up, you have to tweak the options again.

Barring that, DDR is very much the same game it was twenty games ago. Granted, for Nintendo enthusiasts, this may be entirely new territory. The GameCube saw only two dance games, and neither offered much of a challenge. Hottest Party, you’ll be happy to know, brings the difficulty back, especially when you throw in the hand markers. Part of why the game feels hard, though, is because you can’t change the color setup for the arrows. One of the best features of past DDR games has been the ability to turn on “Solo” mode which would alternate the arrow colors, making them easier to distinguish. No such luck here.

Another unfortunate setback is that very few of the 50 songs are open from the start. You have to play the venue mode for hours on end to open up the other 25 songs, which, consequently, are some of the best. Recurring favorites like “Love Shine” and “Candy” make an appearance, but most of the music is older, remixed American songs, not what you typically look for in an energetic dance series. And gone are any unique music videos. Instead, you’re treated to a couple of eerie characters dancing in Tronville.

Final Comments

I’m a big fan of DDR, and I’ve been waiting for years for a decent version to come out on a Nintendo console. While Hottest Party is definitely the best yet, it still doesn’t do the series justice. I’m not sure if Konami just hates Nintendo or if they feel like they have to unnecessarily baby things up for Wii and GameCube. Nonetheless, if you don’t have access to any other console, Hottest Party will fill your need to work out to a video game. Personally, though, I would hold out for something better. $70 is too much to ask for what is ultimately a very average DDR game.