YMMV / DanceDanceRevolution

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• Adaptation Displacement: Songs that get ported from other Bemani series suffer from this, with many fans assuming that they debuted in this game. This is especially bad with any song in EXTREME, since most Konami originals from that game are widely considered DDR classics no matter where they came from.
• Americans Hate Tingle: The various announcers of the series are seen as an iconic staple of the series by Japanese players, but Western players see them as annoying nuisances more than anything else and long for the option to turn them off in arcade versions.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Genom Screams on DDR Extreme was a 8 on Single Heavy, but a 10 on Double Heavy. It was generally considered to be a mis-rating; on DDR X's new rating scale it was re-rated to 12, which is about the equivalent of 8.
  • When "The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku" was announced, people wondered how the chart was going to handle the song's infamous 240BPM 12ths. Cue disappointment when they discovered the Challenge charts were both 16s, with not a single 12th or 16th in sight. In fact, most agree the Single chart is only a 15 at best. Compare, for example, SOUND VOLTEX where the song's hardest chart is rated 18 out of 20.
• Base-Breaking Character: The announcers as a whole. Either they add flavor to the game and are a good source of memes, or they're obnoxious as hell and the lack of an option to disable them in arcade games is a Scrappy Mechanic.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: One of the things 3rdMIX is well-known for is introducing Swiss-German Europop group E-Rotic into its tracklist, with tracks that are as raunchy as the group's name implies.
• Breather Boss:
  • BOOM BOOM DOLLAR (K.O.G.G3 MIX) from 3rd MIX is generally regarded as easier on Expert than on Difficult. Despite having more notes, its ending section is easier on Expert, having more repetitive "running" patterns rather than the hell of crossovers on Difficult.
  • Xepher in DDR SuperNOVA (This is taken up a notch in "The Last" Stellar Joint because it's the easiest boss), On The Bounce in X, and Kimono Princess and Roppongi EVOLVED in X2 are distinct examples of this. On the Extreme cabinets, Sakura, Bag, and Genom Screams on Double were significantly easier than the other 10s, and most people found at least one 9 to be harder than any of them. Bag is only hard without speed mods, stirring debate as to whether one is "supposed to" use speed mods (plus the song's rhythm didn't quite match up with the chart's, but that was a flaw with the game engine).
  • For an 18, "嘆きの樹" ^note romanized: Nageki no Ki from DDR 2014 is the only one to lack BPM changes or stops. That doesn't mean it's easy, of course.
    • Following the above mentioned song is "Prey" which appeared in DDR A three years later, only this time it is an 18 on Expert. And it is much faster and stamina draining than the last song.
  • In a similar way, Triple Journey -TAG Version- is somewhat easier than the other two event bosses from DDR 2013, Elemental Creation and IX. While Elemental Creation and IX have a fast BPM and lots of timing changes, Triple Journey has the lowest BPM (Not by much) and mostly lacks timing changes, with a half-speed segment at the very beginning that's pretty tame. Just keep in mind, it's still an 18.
• Broken Base:
  • Bar usage. It's much harder to do well on harder songs without it, but some feel it cheapens the experience. Though most no-bar players switched to bar years ago, debate between remaining no-bar players and bar users has stayed quite vitriolic. It's officially not a cheat since it is allowed in official competitions like the respective DDR branches of the Konami Arcade Championship and the BEMANI Pro League, and most score-focused players agree it isn't cheating, but there's still a subset of players who don't agree with Konami on this front.
  • The notion of having Goods count towards combos. Many players tend to complain since it devalues Full Combos (though Great/Perfect/Marvelous full combos are still given distinct recognition in-game). Others don't care since it doesn't affect score.
  • In general, DDR after EXTREME, particularly beginning with SuperNOVA. Some players stopped playing, citing the loss of the Dancemania license, increased crossovers from other BEMANI games instead of original songs, and increased focus on competitive, Perfect-Full-Combo-or-bust play over a more social DDR community as reasons to stop caring about the series. However, the series does still have enough of a following to keep going, with some enjoying modern DDR games because of the focus on competitive play and the increase in boss charts, as well as the variety of licenses and interface improvements over the years. The departure of Naoki from Konami and TAG becoming his successor with regards to the sound director position is also a make-or-break point amongst fans.
  • The announcer that has been used in the arcade releases since Dance Dance Revolution X has been split. While some have grown to like the announcer's sense of humor, others feel the announcer is obnoxious and trying too hard to be cool, so they prefer one of the previous two announcers.
  • DDR A and newer releases the Challenge difficulty behind e-Amusement. Some are fine with it since people too new to have e-Amuse accounts probably shouldn't play on Challenge difficulty while some feel that Konami is starting to get too greedy with e-Amuse.
  • Players are divided on whether scroll BPM changes for the sake of difficulty are fun or not.
  • The Marvelous timing being a standard in SuperNOVA 2 than just a nonstop exclusive. Many were so adjusted to Perfects as the highest rating, but Marvelouses being a standard divided players whether or not to continue improving skill-wise or withdraw from having fun with the game. Basically nonexistent now, since it's been over fifteen years and the current standard scoring system rates Perfects as only 10 less points than a Marvelous (out of 1,000,000), but it used to be a big deal.
  • The DDR X rating system, which remains unchanged since, has caused a major split between players. While most mainline DDR players have accepted the 20-foot system, many custom chart makers still use the old scale over a decade later. Many people who use one scale don't know how to interpret the other.
  • DanceDanceRevolution A to A3 in North America are exclusive to Dave & Busters and Round 1 USA. This caused many unexpected problems during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, with restrictions generally ocurring from March 2020 until March 2022:
    • Lockdowns led to the closure of arcades for months, or over a year in some regions, after the US government began its "15 Days to Slow the Spread" campaign on March 16, 2020. The first arcade with DDR A20 to reopen was the Sandy, Utah location of Round 1 USA on May 12, 2020. California and other American regions reopened shortly thereafter, followed by the DDR A20 Plus upgrade on July 6, 2020. With California ordering the shutdown of arcades on July 13, 2020, however, gamers only enjoyed A20 Plus for a week at the time. State and local restrictions only allowed arcades to reopen on October 27, 2020, in San Francisco. A series of rolling restrictions and reopenings continued in California and most of America until March 2022.
    • In Canada, only two locations feature official modern Dance Dance Revolution releases as of November 2022. Both are located in Ontario: Oakville exclusively received DDR A on December 5, 2016, while Vaughan received a white/blue DDR A20 machine in November 2019, upon which Oakville upgraded to A20. Both locations were closed on March 24, 2020, due to the province's COVID-19 lockdown, but were upgraded to DDR A20 Plus upon reopening on July 24, 2020. However, Oakville's machine was closed for repairs shortly thereafter, while the Vaughan region was locked down again on October 19, 2020. As with most of the USA, both regions saw rolling restrictions and reopenings until March 2022.
    • Compulsory face mask policies were also debated within the DDR community. In May 2020, Dave & Buster's implemented an employee mask mandate, while simply recommending them to guests free of charge; since July 2020, D&B mandated masks for the public, but over time, it aligned itself with regional government policies, with all mask mandates concluding in March 2022. Meanwhile, Round1 USA simply recommends face masks at their facility, although locations under a government mask mandate were required follow the mandate.
    • Notwithstanding, the community is split because of various perspectives on the virus. Those who posted pictures or videos of themselves at an arcade during that time are usually condemned and seen as potential "superspreaders" of the COVID-19 virus. Several forums and groups have banned public pictures and videos during the pandemic, especially if said media was mask-free. While masks were allowed to be briefly removed while eating and drinking, several regions are unclear if exercise on a dance machine qualified for a mask exemption.
    • With the launch of DDR A3 on golden cabinets on March 17, 2022, and arcades fully reopening for good by April 2022 in North America, the community is active again. However, A3 on golden cabinets remains exclusive to Round1 USA, while A3 on white/blue cabinets remains exclusive to Hawaii.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Several players will try to find the hardest song available in the mix they currently play, pass it, and then keep playing it over and over again. Some may break out of this habit by choosing new or random songs, but some don't. Repeated song play is common practice in Japan, but a major annoyance in the West.
  • Alternately, some players (mostly those who played earlier mixes) will try to find songs they remember (or similar) and keep playing them.
  • The same can go for speed mods. While most players these days accept speed mods as part of the game, since they make reading the arrows easier, players who don't learn how to "read slow" are in for a nasty surprise when they play bosses with dense sections at a quarter their maximum BPM.
  • Almost nobody in the US counts any scores on charts below Expert/Heavy/Maniac. Exceptions might exist for boss songs that have not had their Expert charts made available for play yet, and even then only if the so-far-unlocked charts are at least boss-tier charts (such as "Over The "Period"'s level 15 Difficult Single and Difficult Double charts). This is averted in Japan, where some players go for score even on Beginner charts.
• Default Setting Syndrome: Any song that comes up first on the song select on a first stage tends to fall victim to this, especially when there are beginners and/or kids involved. Songs getting drilled into your head will ensue. "Graduation" on Extreme is the classic example, considering how widespread EXTREME was. On X, the default song became the updated version of "Butterfly", and X2 played with this a bit by having different defaults between regions; America got "Super Eurobeat (Gold Mix)" as default, while Japan got "more more more" as default.
  • In terms of characters, Disco has been one for most of the series.
• Difficulty Spike: Across different eras and different regions, there have been many instances where the hardest official chart(s) legally available were much harder than then next hardest chart(s). One example is the North American version of DDR SuperNOVA; getting to the level of beating Fascination Maxx Oni and Healing-D Vision Oni wasn't practical without playing imported games, fan-made charts, Stepmania or other series such as In the Groove. This became less intense at some point in the X-era; the 14 rating bridged the gap between the hardest 9-footers (now 13's) and the easiest 10-footers (now 15's and hard 14's), and charts rated 15 and 16 became more common so there was a stepping stone to the hardest songs.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With Pump It Up, another Rhythm Game centered around stepping on panels. DDR players dislike the Fake Difficulty that Pump is notorious for (such as "jumps" of 3 or more arrows and Double charts that require the player to stretch their legs beyond reasonable limits), while Pump players feel that DDR's stepchart makers are too afraid to experiment and try out new kinds of charts.
  • With CROSS×BEATS, on the basis of "We want NAOKI back in BEMANI!" This seems to be a one-sided rivalry, as fans of CxB don't mind DDR much.
  • DDR players are rather incensed about Dance Rush, due to Konami's Milestone Celebration of DDR being a plug for that game. Things only got worse when a prominent DJ tweeted about wanting to see more updates in DDR only for Konami's English-language account to recommend he play Dance Rush instead.
• Fan Nickname: DDR A20 on upgraded machines is sometimes referred to as "DDR H20", as a pun referencing its blue-colored user interface. Some have pointed out that the game's title is officially pronounced as an acronym (i.e. "A-2-O" or "Ace-2-O" and not "A-twenty"), and the ending of the "ACE FOR ACES" video (where Rinon falls into the ocean) as support of this Stealth Pun. In addition, both of the initial Extra Exclusive songs on the release had some sort of aquatic theme to their title ("ORCA" as in the whale, and "Splash Gold").
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Claiming that using the bar is cheating. In years past, whether it was cheating or not depended on which circle of players you talked to, with most of the hardcore scoring-based community in agreement that it is not cheating. Today, using the bar is officially not cheating since the Konami Arcade Championship and the official Professional Gaming circuit BEMANI Pro League allow use of the bar; go ahead and call it cheating at your own peril.
• Franchise Killer: Depends on region:
  • DDR SuperNOVA2 in Japan. Sales of SuperNOVA2 was catastrophically low compared to previous entries of the series. It wasn't until DDR X that revitalized the DDR scene in Japan. Meanwhile, DDR X outside of Asia...
  • DDR X outside of Asia, not because of the game itself, but because of the Bad Export for You fiasco surrounding the arcade hardware. In Asia, Konami offered upgrade kits for old machines as well as brand-new redesigned cabinets with HD monitors. In North America and Europe, however, Konami contracted things to Raw Thrills and Betson. Upgrade kits were available, but rare, while the common brand new cabinet was a cheap knock-off of the redesigned HD cabinets. Case in point: the pad was covered by one single piece of metal, with holes punched through it for the arrows, and the control panel on the cabinet was just blank metal with no decoration. The RT/Betson cabinets were inferior in quality to the Japanese ones, and broke as easily as peanut brittle, yet they were still thousands of dollars more expensive than upgrading an old cabinet would've been. This led to lots of arcades buying a new machine, only to find out it was crap. Making this worse is that a dedicated In the Groove 2 cabinet had been introduced to North American arcades some years prior, which was no longer on the market, but increased players' expectations for quality. While Betson tried to update the cabinets, the damage was already done. To this day, there are still old, broken-down RT/Betson DDR X cabinets scattered around North American arcades, and the next two releases after X2 did not receive international releases. However, Konami later partnered with the U.S. locations Dave & Busters, and Japanese arcade chain Round1, to offer DDR 2014 location tests. Successful tests led to the international release of DDR A, beginning with the United States launch on July 6, 2016, which used Japanese cabinets with localized software. The game was launched in Canada on December 5, 2016, at the Dave & Buster's location in Oakville, ON. The game was released in Europe on December 15, 2017.
• Gateway Series: The earlier mixes of DDR are how many in North America discovered more obscure europop. At the time, the genre was tainted in that market by the scandal surrounding Milli Vanilli, and still is now because of western Europe's unmanly image in the US.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: DDR has a sizable competitive scene in the United States, thanks to large amounts of illegal EXTREME imports (the mainline arcades never had an official worldwide release until SuperNOVA), In the Groove helping fill the void between EXTREME and SuperNOVA, and the localized DDR A being a hit among competitive players, with many official world records being set by Americans. The 6th Konami Arcade Championship was the first time Americans were allowed to register, with one of the three American finalists for DDR coming out as champion.
• Growing the Beard: The first console version of DDR for North America isn't terribly flashy, only having 27 songs from 1st through 3rd MIX. DDR KONAMIX introduced some improvements, with a 52-song list, use of the 4th MIX engine and thus allowing for 6-panel play and 2-player Battle mode; however the use of the 4th MIX engine means that the game only runs at 30 FPS (while contemporary DDR versions run at 60)) and has no speed modifiers, and some players were nonplussed by the lack of any licensed songs. Then DDRMAX went and pulled out all the stops, putting in 71 songs from a wide variety of sources (Konami originals, Dancemania licenses, and Western licenses), keeping the "foot" ratings unlike the Japanese version of DDRMAX while having the Groove Radar at the same time, and even having Oni/Challenge courses which a. also aren't in the Japanese version and b. weren't introduced in the arcade version until DDRMAX2!
• Harsher in Hindsight: It must have been really awkward playing DDR X in Japan a few years ago, when the announcer said "Is there an earthquake or something? 'Cause this party's a-crackin'!"
  • The World Ends Now closes off with the line: “In the next world, we’ll meet again.” It hits so much harder in light of the death of composer, Akira Complex.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the mid-noughties, Konami sued Roxor over In the Groove's patent infringement on this game as well as for the reuse of DDR cabs for ITG, and acquired the rights to ITG (i.e. killed it). Then in 2020, former DDR sound director Naoki Maeda, as well as Paula Terry who is well-known for her vocal work for BEMANI songs, would contribute songs to ITG's Spiritual Successor, StepManiaX. In other words, the faces of DDR are now providing songs to DDR's competitor!
  • Early American versions of DDR use "Standard", "Difficult", and "Expert" for the three main difficulty levels, but these weren't used very commonly in the community due to collectively being more used to the Japanese versions' Basic/Trick/Maniac and Light/Standard/Heavy. Beginning with SuperNOVA, however, the Japanese versions adopted the old US versions' difficulty names, except with "Basic" in place of "Standard", and Basic/Difficult/Expert is now widely accepted both in and out of Japan.
• Hype Backlash: In the early days of DDR, several songs got a lot of infamy for being picked a lot:
  • "Butterfly" was frequently picked due to being a catchy Europop song and being one of the easier songs to play, and thus became like nails on a chalkboard for many players waiting their turn.
  • "DYNAMITE RAVE" was a popular song for freestyles, and due to a lot of players attempting to freestyle and overusing basic techniques such as hitting the panels with their hands and knees without any sense of choreography, it not only became another song to dread hearing but also one to make it more difficult to impress people with freestyle routines.
    • It also was played on the high score list in the 3rd Mix attract mode. Every single time. So it was overplayed long before people started freestyling it.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
  • For the longest time, particularly during the arcade version hiatus that lasted from 2002 (EXTREME) to 2006 (SuperNOVA), this was a common complaint, particularly from Pump It Up players who tend to respond with "I've seen much worse" and In the Groove players. In fact, part of the reason In The Groove came to be was the demand for harder charts. This went away when Konami resumed the arcade series and started cranking out harder charts.
  • Bag's fixed steps on DDR X. Who wants to play that song now? Semi-averted with X2: the original steps with their old timing are available as challenge steps.
  • Also one of the main complaints surrounding DDR 2010.
  • DDR Winx Club got this reaction too. It seemingly uses the old rating scale, but in practice, the so-called 9-footers ^note the highest Foot Rating in the game, as there aren't any 10-footers play like 5- or 6- footers. Players who were looking forward to playing a challenging chart to a Pop'n Music or beatmania crossover were disappointed. Disney Grooves suffered from the same issue, except that it didn't have such coveted crossovers.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: DDR has a surprisingly steep learning curve, as evidenced by the countless players who pop in a credit, make common newcomer mistakes like returning their feet to the center after every step, have to take time to associate each of the four lanes with each of the four cardinal-direction arrows under their feet, and then swear off the game (or even the entire Rhythm Game genre altogether) after failing a song or two, often due to embarrassment. In fact, by modern rhythm game standards, it's not quite friendly to new rhythm game players for these reasons, especially compared to games that are operated with the player's hands or which have a stronger association between on-screen objects and the player's inputs.
• Memetic Mutation: Take a look here, alongside other BEMANI titles.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The sound that plays upon achieving a Full Combo. Bonus points for a Perfect Full Combo, and even more so for a Marvelous Full Combo.
  • "EXTRA STAGE!"
    • "ENCORE EXTRA STAGE!"
• My Real Daddy: Naoki Maeda, despite having left his position of DDR sound director to work on DanceEvolution before leaving Konami entirely to produce CROSS×BEATS, is still seen by many fans as the face of DDR despite the series' team having changed significantly since. Some fans feel that the quality of DDR games has declined ever since he left in 2013.
• Nightmare Fuel: here.
• Obvious Beta:
  • Dance Dance Revolution Disney Channel EDITION. The game is not unfinished per se, but it's apparent that the creators prioritized the presentation over gameplay. All of the stepcharts are terribly off-sync, something that is not helped by the absence of Rainbow and Note arrow skins as well as the custom GUI that the game uses, which makes everything look blocky. Very few players know that the game actually contains 40 songs, not 37, because the last three songs ("Moment 40", "exotic ethnic", and "Sakura") can only be accessed by scoring a Marvelous Full Combo on three different difficulties (some may make a guess that "exotic ethnic" is in the game because it's the song used for the Magic Mode theme).
  • Dance Dance Revolution Freedom for the iOS. It still uses the same GUI from DDR X, and all the songs are horribly stepped and synced. Even worse, DDR S and S+ were removed from the iTunes Store upon its release. Thankfully, a month after its release, they took it down and re-released S+.
  • Dance Dance Revolution Pocket Edition. After abruptly pulling down Dance Wars (which was like S+ but with obligatory social gaming elements), Konami randomly released this new version for iOS in October 2013. But what's wrong with it? Everything. Firstly, you have to mirror it to an Apple TV device connected to a TV; because to "play" it, you put your iWhatever in your pants pocket (securely, we must add. Good luck fitting an iPad in there), and it tries to pick up your motions using its gyroscope and accelerometer. Good idea in concept, had they not based everything off the Classroom Edition (which itself is bad enough); meaning there's no real "game" at all, it uses automatically generated charts, and the audio quality is poor as well.
• Old Guard Versus New Blood: A lot of post-EXTREME (arcade) versions of the game are more focused on popular licenses and competitive play, especially with the growing number of "boss" charts, as opposed to the older games that push the dancing-related themes more and use Dancemania licenses (as DDR was originally made in part to promote Dancemania CDs). There are occasional efforts to appeal to the old guard, such as X3 bringing back licensed songs from the first game and 2ndMIX and even having an HD remake of 2ndMIX as an alternate game mode, but ultimately, the content of current versions leans more towards Konami originals, big-name licenses, a mentalilty of going for high scores, and charts that are designed with the assumption that the player will be playing using "meta" strategies like holding onto the safety bar and keeping one's feet on the inner corner brackets. It's not too often these days that one will see people who play DDR for a largely social experience or to do flashy freestyle routines, two things that were more commonplace in the 1998-2002 period.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Many players thought that DDR brought anime licenses very late in the series starting with Supernova 2's Trust. While this is both the first DDR Original-labeled (since Konami also owned Gurren Lagann), 4th mix had Lupin the 3rd '78 and Cat's Eye -Ventura Mix-from the Dancemania licensing.
  • Speed modifiers, thought to be introduced in DDRMAX, actually appeared in the two Dancing Stage feat. (artist) and the DanceDanceRevolution Solo spinoff games first.
  • The "9-foot" rating on the classic 1-10 difficulty scale, commonly associated with 3rdMIX, appeared in 2ndMIX CLUB VERSION first.
  • Difficulty level to 10. Disney's Rave first introduced that level, even though the installment had Schizophrenic Difficulty in general.
  • 5thMIX is thought of as introducing 60 FPS. Again, the Dancing Stage "artist" games did it first.
  • Supernova was thought to be the first arcade game to have exclusive videos (i.e. Xepher). DDRMAX had True... (both song versions) that officially played a full video of Riyu Kosaka in various locations. Sadly, the videos from both songs were removed from Extreme due to memory limitations with the outdated System 573, which is based off of the old Playstation architect.
  • DanceDanceRevolution A is the first mainline game in which Goods increase score. This was first done in the Solo games, though unlike in the eAMUSEMENT Participation DDR games, they break your combo.
  • "AFTER THE GAME" from Konamix is thought to be a Bowdlerised version of "AFTER THE GAME OF LOVE" from 4th MIX, given that the former's debut game, which is a North America exclusive, was released after the latter's. "AFTER THE GAME" is actually the original version of the song, having been originally composed for NBA In The Zone '98.
  • Having 3+ notes at one line (Megalovania CSP) in a DDR 4-panel game. Dancing Stage accidentally had that with Uh La La La before Pump It Up, DDR Solo, In the Groove, and StepManiaX.
  • The "Note" noteskin is commonly associated with SuperNOVA onwards, where it featured in gameplay for the first time, but it originated in the console games' Edit modes, where it's always been used.
• Schizophrenic Difficulty: In Dance Dance Revolution X2 on the PS2, boss songs are unlocked in this manner. The first song is "Dance Dance Revolution", which isn't that hard outside of its jumps, then right afterward comes "Dead End (Groove Radar Special)", which is absolutely loaded with Fake Difficulty, and has only one chart, which is an 18. After that comes "Pluto The First", which is notorious for being one of the hardest 18-footers to this day and having even more Fake Difficulty than DEGRS. Once you've gotten past that, you'll find the remaining two 15-footer bosses, "Kimono Princess" and "Roppongi Evolved", to be very easy by comparison.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • The BPM of the chart changing by some factor of 2, even if in reality the music's tempo didn't change, or the chart completely stopping. Charts that overuse these gimmicks are usually Those Levels too, which doesn't improve the situation.
  • In older versions of the game (primarily any PlayStation-based versions for that matter), songs with triplets were at times harder to play than normal songs. This was not due to a player's inability to hit triplets, but rather a player's inability to hit triplets that were rounded to the nearest 64th note or so. The slower the song, the more obvious this became: "bag", "Ballad For You", and "I'll Make Love To You" are three of the slowest songs, yet are done completely in triplet style. The Windows-based engine on DDR X AC finally corrects this issue, but for those stuck with an older machine: assuming 12th notes, hit the last 12th before the quarter note just a tiny bit sooner than you would if it was a proper 12th.
  • This becomes an Ascended Glitch on X2 where "bag" gets a Challenge chart, which is just the Expert chart with an emulation of the previous glitch.
  • 3rdMIX forces you to input a code not mentioned at all in-game at the title screen just to be able to play SSR (Maniac/Heavy/Expert) charts for 3rdMIX songs. Oh, and once you begin SSR mode, you cannot play any songs on Basic or Trick difficulty for the rest of the credit, and notes are forced to the "Flat" noteskin, requiring another hidden code if you want to enable the default colored-by-beat "Vivid" note skin. Thankfully 2ndMIX mode has all difficulties available and doesn't force Flat, and 3rdMIX PLUS allows selection of any difficulty in all modes, again without forcing the Flat skin.
  • In spite of having the largest songlist of any game at the time, including the near-entirety of all mainline games' songlists up to 3rdMIX PLUS, 4thMIX only allows you to access songs from a single folder throughout your entire credit. This was fixed in 4thMIX PLUS with the All Music folder.
  • By default, even the current version still requires you to play double the price of a Single Play credit to play on Double Play. This is in contrast to Pump It Up and beatmania IIDX, both of which not only charge the same price between single and double modes, but even allow switching between the two between songs. A3 finally fixes this and gives the player the ability to toggle single and double using the keypad.
  • In the arcade versions, in an effort to munch more tokens and discourage players from playing beyond their comfort zone too often, if you run out of health during a song, not only does the song end immediately, but you lose all of your remaining songs as well. This changed in X3, which introduces a Quick Play mode where you can pay by the song rather than a set of stages, so not only do you have flexbility over how many stages to play, you won't waste money if you fail one of your stages. Sadly, Quick Play is only available if you're on a cabinet that is connected to the eAMUSEMENT network and supports the PASELI proprietary currency system.
    • With DDR A's release in the US, and the subsequent export of eAmusement cards, anyone with eAmuse can play all three rounds without failing out. There is no extra credits required for this, but you have to purchase an eAmuse card.
  • Many early games had oddball scoring mechanics that did not reflect the player's performance very well, often being heavily based on combo or some other weird system. It didn't help that these changed every game or two. Only from SuperNOVA onwards is the displayed score finally indicative of overall step accuracy, rather than punishing the player harshly for a single misstep.
  • The 8th Konami Arcade Championship had DDR finalists playing on the new 20th anniversary cabinet, with little opportunity to get used to the difference in screen height, screen angle, screen size, or the new pads. A lot of players were not pleased with this form of Fake Difficulty, feeling that the tournament was mostly just to shill out the new cabinet rather than answer the question of "who's the world's best DDR player"?
  • Speaking of the new cabinet, A20 has a bunch of tracks and features (such as Dan inintei) that are exclusive to the new dedicated cabinet, i.e. they're not available if you just upgrade an existing cabinet. It's clear that Konami wants to force operators to throw down extra money for the new cabinets when there isn't really any logistical reason for the new cabinet exclusives to be unavailable to upgrade kits. This is further compounded if you live in the United States, where the gold cabinets do get exported but use Japanese builds, with all of the PASELI-locking frustration that follows, while the official North American version is only available as an upgrade for A cabinets (the opposite problem of X).
  • While many console versions allow you to turn off the mid-gameplay Announcer Chatter, the arcade versions don't.
  • The Encore Extra Stage mechanics of Replicant-D-Action (DDR X2), Replicant-D-Ignition (DDR 2014), and Extra Exclusive (DDR A). This requires a LOT of time and credits just to get to play the Encore Extra Stage song. The requirements to even play the Encore Extra Stage songs are extremely hard. What makes it worse is that once you get the chance to play the Encore Extra Stages, you have to go back to a certain point again to get to that spot, which usually requires 6-7 credits/sessions and very excellent play.
• Scrub:
  • The safety bar on arcade machines was a major point of debate back in the first five years of the game's life, and arguments about it still pop up once in a while, with casual players and spectators deriding it as boring to watch, stupid-looking, and not how the game is "meant" to be played (never mind that official tournaments allow it) and higher-level no-bar players asserting that any feat, no matter the chart difficulty or score/grade, was invalid if the bar was used. While this fight mostly fizzled out over a decade ago, bringing it up again can still start a flame war in the 20's, and a lot of people who haven't played in 15 years will come back and assume it's still going on.
  • Speed modifiers were once regarded as "cheating" as well; that debate has since been inherited by the Guitar Hero community.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Due to the game's popularity and age, players have devised all sorts of ways to increase the challenge beyond what's in the game.
  • Playing versus mode by yourself.
  • "Freestyle" players (who were very prominent around the 3rd/4th Mix era in both Japan and America) try to perform an actual routine to the song with actual moves, often with spectacular results. A few even still exist in the 20's.
  • The all-great run (getting only "great" ratings on all steps, which means playing slightly off-rhythm).
  • Challenging your stamina by playing songs in quick succession (outside of the course modes) or playing a tough song repeatedly with little rest in-between. Of course, you need to be careful not to wear yourself out in a bad way when doing this. The ultimate example is probably O 4 MA playing MAX 360 Challenge, a 19-footer, 100 times (he stopped at 73 and finished the rest with 18-footer Expert).
  • Playing hard songs without using the bar. Just make sure not to die (or at least fall over).
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: On Hottest Party 4 (CS) and DDR 2013 (AC), Goods no longer break your combo, nor do they drain your life meter on Extra Stages or the "Risky" option. However, it still doesn't affect scores until A rolls around.
• Sequelitis:
  • Starting with SuperNOVA. Curious how it was the first core game in the series to be released after Guitar Hero...
  • DDRMAX, the sixth main arcade release, had some questionable changes. The game introduced 42 new songs to arcades, including formerly console-exclusive songs, but all previous arcade songs (122 in 5thMix, or 150 in 4thMix Plus) were removed. While 5thMIX removed almost as many songs (it would've had 190 without removals), MAX still gets all the blame. Difficulty ratings were also removed, but returned in DDRMAX2, along with 45 pre-DDRMAX songs, of which 15 must be unlocked by the arcade operator.
  • The new cabs designed for DDR X in the US. With poor pad quality and HD lag, it's no wonder DDR lost popularity in arcades.
    • This was allegedly fixed with DDR X2's American showing, but mixed reports have come in from different players and Tropers. Some corners were still cut, making some believe that no effort was put in at all.
  • Fans were disappointed at first by X3 vs. 2nd Mix for not having as much "new" content on launch, as much of it was imported from Hottest Party 4/2010.
• Shocking Moments: The May 19, 2022 update of A3 brings a bombshell of a licensed song: "MEGALOVANIA". Yes, that "MEGALOVANIA". Furthermore, it features Shock Arrows outside of Challenge difficulty and its Challenge chart is rated an 18, a rating not seen before by licensed songs. "You feel like you're going to have a bad time" indeed.
• Signature Song: "Butterfly" by the Swedish europop group Smile.dk, despite being a licensed song, is seen by many as the song of the series, and is commonly recurring within ; the group has had other songs appear on DDR in later installments as well, including "Golden Sky", "Koko Soko", and "A Geisha's Dream" (a collaboration with Naoki). Captain Jack is similar.
• Small Reference Pools:
  • If you mention Konami and rhythm games to the average Western gamer, the first—and perhaps only—game that will come to mind is DDR, more specifically older (EXTREME and earlier) games. This is mostly due to the fact that DDR is the only BEMANI game to have more than a small handful of Western releases.
  • Most fans of old-school DDR think it's the only project NAOKI has worked on, ignoring Dance Masters and CROSS×BEATS, even though NAOKI plainly posts about these two games in English on his Facebook account (which is open to friend requests from fans and not just people he knows). Worse, some still think he works for Konami rather than Capcom even though he left in 2013.
• So Bad, It's Good: beatmania IIDX fans, remember "GOLD RUSH"? Well it's here, and there's not one, but TWO new versions tailored for DDR!
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Despite being a dance simulation game, the game has any number of songs that most would not typically associate with dancing, especially at a club. Examples include many of the rock songs, such as "JET WORLD", "Across the Nightmare", and "How to Cook Delicious Rice and the Effects of Eating Rice", and the Vocaloid/other "high-pitched anime girl" songs of 2013 through A.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Within the U.S. console version line, DDRMAX is widely regarded as an improvement over Konamix, the latter of which received critcism for using an outdated game engine (the 4thMIX engine, which uses 30 FPS gameplay and lacks modern quality-of-life features like scroll speed modifiers, but which did have some fans due to 6-Panel mode and other features exclusive to this engine) and having only Konami Original songs (to their credit, some of these songs are Club Version (beatmania crossover) songs which at the time had not been carried over to any other DDR games). DDRMAX features licenses in addition to Konami Originals, a more modern interface, Challenge courses (which weren't even in Japanese console releases yet!), and even songs new to DDR. It's widely regarded as a turning point for American DDR games in which Konami finally began to take the U.S. DDR playerbase seriously.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • A patch for the first iOS version, DDR S, featured several Jimmy Hart Versions of past Konami Original songs, such as "Say It Again" (a remake of "HYPER EUROBEAT" by DDT and Naoki, never appearing outside of the game despite having a Dummied Out double chart), "Rescue Me" (a remake of "MEMORIES" by Fracus and Naoki, also appeared on HP4/DDR PS3, and made an arcade debut on X3 vs. 2nd Mix). Given that "MEMORIES" got removed on DDR X (which was released around the same time), presumably Rescue Me was created to replace it. But why?
  • Comparisons have been drawn between X3 vs. 2nd Mix's hidden boss song "Tohoku EVOLVED" and "MAX. (period)"; both are Darker and Edgier remixes of a previous boss song (Max 300, and London EVOLVED) by 2MB (though, with an additional 100KB in the case of Tohoku), their charts both start immediately at the beginning of the song, both have a section played at a very high speed, and both contain an inspirational message at the end ("Thank you for playing" at the end of Period, and the "CLEARED" screen instead reading "PRAY FOR ALL" on Tohoku)
  • The ending to version B of "London EVOLVED" sounds suspiciously similar to "CONTRACT", despite both tracks being done by different artists.
  • Older games occasionally had this happen with originals sounding similar to licensed music:
    • "My Summer Love" sounds shockingly similar to Ace of Base's "The Sign" (down to being in the same key, nearly identical progressions and similar vocal melodies.
    • "La Señorita" bears some similarities to Ricky Martin's "Livin La Vida Loca," even being about a similar topic. Funnily enough, a cover of Livin La Vida Loca was planned to be in 4thMix PLUS.
    • "MAKE IT BETTER" is an interesting example of this happening to a song that was actually supposed to be in the series. The original Dance Dance Revolution was supposed to have "MONEY" by the Ragga Twins, but got cut. MAKE IT BETTER would be added in the Internet Ranking update, and has a similar reggae-inspired sound like MONEY had, and it sounds like it samples MONEY, too. The similarity in the songs, combined with the lyric "Got no money..." has led people to theorize that MAKE IT BETTER was made specifically to replace MONEY.
    • A particularly bizarre example comes from the Japanese version of Hottest Party with DOUBLE TORNARD bearing resemblance not to a license, but to a cover of a license that was featured in the American and European versions of the game. Rhythm is A Dancer and DOUBLE TORNARD share similar structures, progression, key, bassline, drums, and styles in a way where they sound too close for it to be a coincidence. If you speed the former up to the latter's speed, they go together shockingly well to the point of even complimenting each other at parts, as heard "here.". And if that wasn't enough, DOUBLE TORNARD's charts bear similarities to Rhythm Is A Dancer's. Given that it wasn't in the Japanese version, it's likely DOUBLE TORNARD was created as a replacement.
    • In what is probably the most blatant example, the shop theme from EXTREME 2/Strike copies the majority of the chorus to Above & Beyond's "Satellite" note-for-note. Assuming the song was completed by the time KONAMI announced the game, Satellite got copied just a little over one year of it's initial release. It might even be sooner, depending on the game's production timeline. For comparison, the shop theme is "here," and the chorus to Satellite is "here (timestamped).
• Tear Jerker:
  • Naoki Maeda's final songs he composed for the series before leaving Konami in 2013, "Everything I Need" and "You" sound really heartbreaking for an otherwise upbeat rhythm game.
  • Pretty much all of DDR A's Encore Extra Stage, Ace for Aces. As well as being the credits roll for the game, it shows the aftermath of Rinon using up all her energy for the Level A Galactic Strike, deactivating, and falling into the oceans of Earth as Yuni watches on.
• That One Attack: Noteworthy examples:
  • The Maniac/Heavy/Expert chart for DYNAMITE RAVE had a rather nasty area in the form of a 16th triplet set that started with a jump. This was very awkward to play, as you’d have to use one foot to go from one arrow to another much faster than normal, and unless you anticipate this or if this is your first time playing the chart, you’re most likely going to miss one of or even all of the triplets. Admittedly, it was an error in the chart-writing process, but that didn’t stop it from reappearing in Dance Dance Revolution’s Challenge/Oni chart in EXTREME. And considering that that song is that game’s One More/Encore Extra Stage, where a single combo-drop is an instant game over...
  • Almost any sudden change in BPM, but the biggest (dis)honor goes to "Tohoku EVOLVED", which ends its charts with an increase to 1020 BPM — three times as fast as the charts' main scroll speed of 340 BPM — and a randomly-generated corner jump at that speed. The only way to hit it consistently is to bracket-jump with both feet to hit all four arrows at once, especially if you use a speed mod on the rest of the song. Hope you're not playing on a "battery" meter with one life left!
• That One Boss: Way, WAY too many boss songs to count, so much that it garners its own page now!
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Up until X2 or so, songs transplanted from other BEMANI games would be truncated if they were longer than about 1 minute and 50 seconds. Many fans of those BEMANI didn't like this, whether due to what they consider a butchered cut that ruins the pacing of the song, or simply on principle. Later games drop this practice.
  • The Festival/Extreme/Fusion interface, dear lord. Thankfully, they realized their mistake and went back to the "classic" song wheel (plus an early version of what would become SuperNOVA's UI design) for Str!ke/Extreme 2/Max.
  • Dynamite Rave's new steps on X2 and Hottest Party 3/Music Fit. The new steps don't have the same challenge as the older ones. Even the song itself, which debuted in DDR X with the old steps, has been changed for the worse.
  • This is the general opinion of the more "modern" Dance Dance Revolution interface on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Just look at their Facebook page and read the comments if you dare.
  • Many fans claim this after DDR stopped using Dancemania as its main source of licenses.
  • London EVOLVED's new Challenge chart on DDR X3.
  • Counting Goods towards the combo on HP 4 / HP 5 /2013 AC. Generally, higher-end players tend not to care though, since combo has no impact on grade.
  • When DDRMAX removed background dancers, a lot of complaints were raised, as the dancing characters are a major staple of the series. Eventually Konami put them back in console releases following DanceDanceRevolution EXTREME, and eventually put them back into arcade titles beginning with SuperNOVA.
  • Another change in DDRMAX that put off many players was the removal of difficulty "foot" rating numbers for charts, substituting them for the Groove Radar, a five-point graph that shows an analysis of the chart selected (number of notes, number of jumps, peak density of notes, etc). A lot of players found it difficult to parse the Radar on the fly and that having only the Groove Radar instead of making it an addition alongside the foot ratings made it more difficult to discern at a glance which charts might be appropriate for their level of skill. Sure enough, DDRMAX2 brought back the foot ratings and every mainline game has had both Groove Radar and foot ratings since.
  • There's quite the base split when it comes to "classic", EXTREME-and-earlier DDR and more "modern" DDR; fans of the former dislike the choices of licenses in newer games and the shifting of the overall community's focus from recreational play to competitive "Perfect Full Combo or bust" play.
  • The 20th anniversary cab is not well-liked amongst competitive players, especially taller players, due to the much different screen angle and height and the changes in timing.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
  • The Shock Arrow mechanic is a variation of the mines from In the Groove, except unlike mines, they always come up in groups of 4, are judged using the O.K./N.G. system, cause the arrows to momentarily disappear and fade back in when hit, only appear on designated Challenge charts, and have always been used more like a "hurdle" and never really on bosses (well, except for Horatio on X CS US and Pluto the First on X2 CS US). ITG's mines, on the other hand, let the charter really manipulate how players stepped instead of just making them put their feet in the center.
    • "女々しくて" (Memeshikute) on X3 turns the use of shock arrows on its head for Rule of Fun, using them to make the player imitate parts of the dance routine from its music video that involve hopping.
  • DDR PS3 and its "Chain Arrow" and "Groove Trigger" features seemingly rip off mechanics from Guitar Hero and the like. However, the Chain Arrow segments only add bonus points, a glass shattering effect, and forces a flat noteskin on the notes in question. Groove Trigger works like Star Power itself (bonus points for a period), except it reduces the lifebar by half.
  • The DDR 2013 update unveiled at JAEPO 2014 (typically referred to as "DDR 2014") introduces a new interface style, which some have derided as being a carbon copy of Gitadora. Yes, they're copying from their own franchises.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: More like "They Wasted a Perfectly Good Soundtrack". The DDR Winx Club game features a ton of crossovers from Pop'n Music and beatmania out of nowhere, some of them fan-favorites that had never been on DDR before. The fandom rejoiced...until the game ended up suffering from It's Easy, So It Sucks!.
  • Walk It Out suffers a similar fate, with most of the soundtrack consisting of songs that never got into DDR, with music from fan favorites like the Sampling Masters, RAM, SLAKE and more.
• Underused Game Mechanic: 3rd MIX features on-screen karaoke lyrics, a feature that has unfortunately since not been seen in most subsequent versions, including all mainline arcade versions (it was occasionally incorporated into the European Dancing Stage games, with Fusion being the only other arcade release to follow suit).
• Unintentional Period Piece: Wanna see what dance club music was like in The '90s? 4thMIX PLUS and earlier for arcade cabinets and EXTRA MIX for consoles can help you with that.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Solo 2000 made headlines in San Diego when a parents group demanded its removal from an arcade due to its background videos featuring a scantily-clad nurse and pills. They're probably talking about "I'm Alive" and "Get Off".
  • Somehow, just in the U.K., Hottest Party 5 got a "16+" rating from PEGI for "violence." By contrast, every other country got a "3+" on the scale (roughly an "E" on ESRB's scale) from the exact same organization. But why? It was just a single punch in the face in the "More Than Alive" music video. Did they think this was going to be Grand Theft Auto?
  • Playing the same song repeatedly for practice purposes is standard practice in Japan, but a good way to annoy players around the cabinet in the West.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: The "pretty boy" concept wasn't as famous in the US when the dancer Zero came out, so it was easy to mistake him for a girl.
• Win Back the Crowd: After years of denied or stripped-down arcade releases and a lot of console releases of questionable quality, DDR A seems to have won back American players due to a localization that has nearly all of the content of the Japanese version, including eAMUSEMENT connectivity. The presence of American DDR finalists at the 6th Konami Arcade Championship certainly helps cement the idea that yes, arcade DDR really is back. This is still going 5 years later.
• Woolseyism: In American installments, the "Boo" timing judgment got renamed to "Almost," and "Miss" to "Boo." This migrated to the Arcade on SuperNOVA (however, "Miss" was restored as part of the changes to the judgement scale on X2).

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