John Zeitler

I still love and play Dance Dance Revolution, the fact that I’m also still terrible at it notwithstanding. However, I have significantly less enthusiasm for Konami’s other music games as presented to the English-speaking world. Don’t get me wrong, I dig Pop’n Music, but nobody can say that Beat’n Groovy was anything other than an insult to the NA fans of the series.

So it probably should not surprise me at all that Dance Dance Revolution S Lite, recently released as a free trial of the upcoming DDR for iPhone and iPod Touch, is equally terrible. I could say that the whole idea of arrow matching on a touch screen removes a lot of the charm from the game mechanic, but then again it’s not that far removed from Guitar Hero or Rock Band (or even straight-up Beatmania). That’s not the major problem. The problem is that the iPhone and iPod Touch have such small screens and that half of them are consumed by the arrow hotspots… which are transparent overlays over the scrolling arrows. And try as you might, you are probably not going to find anyone with transparent thumbs. My opinion is not to bother with DDR S when it becomes available, and to not even waste the time or effort with the free trial.

I doubt anyone from Konami is reading this, but if they are, they ought to know that I’m through with the NA Bemani games until Konami of America straightens up and flies right. To be honest I should have seen this coming when Beatmania US was released to absolutely no fanfare or attention, or for that matter anything resembling playtesting for the difficulty curve… Little did I know, four years ago, that it was just the beginning of the end for North American Bemani. Ah well. DJ Max Fever is out next week. Le roi est mort; vive le roi.