This game is pretty much the unfortunate result of not only delayed game localizations but localizing games with licenced content in general. This is the second american DDR game at a time when japan already had 6 main mixes, a best of mix, 2 club discs, and 3 dancing stage side-games. Instead of doing another US DDR1 best-hits style setlist, konamix opts instead to go solely for konami original music, not a single dancemania license is in sight here. On one hand it works out because there's already a large wealth of songs from the previous JPN games to pick from to make the setlist a very satiable 52 songs wide, but at the same time it feels like it's missing something thanks to no licenses.

The game also uses the engine and assets from DDR 4thmix which I definitely understand given that this was likely the slapdashiest of rush jobs to make another US DDR game and 5hmixes buttery smooth 60fps PS1 engine was only like 7 months prior to this games release, but it is certainly jarring to go back to the lower framerate. That being said though, there are 5thmix songs in this so they must have spent time backporting new songs to an older engine in some capacity.

It's a strange mix for sure and definitely a byproduct of circumstance, but it's still fun enough to go through. Would definitely have been solid enough to get a DDR fix for an american gamer that can't play the JPN mixes.

Last month my brother got a free DDR pad at his work, hurling us straight back into an obsession we thought we'd put to rest fifteen years ago. This kind of high-impact exercise is harder on my body than it was in my dainty adolescent twink years, but the cardio feels great and I'm glad to have an excuse to work up a sweat.

The real pleasure, though, has been the chance to reacquaint myself with the music. DDR radically shaped my musical tastes as a youth, for better and mostly worse, but even as a manic happy hardcore junkie I still kept an open mind to the rest of the franchise's massive library, if only for the stepcharts. In my wiser, mellower adulthood, I have come to rebuke the false messiah Jenny Rom and turn toward the riches of TaQ and dj nagureo and Slake. The flashy Dancemania stuff often overshadowed the wealth of electronica that Konami's musicians cranked out for the better part of a decade, so it's nice to have a release like Konamix that highlights their contributions, even if that's just a result of licensing issues.

And really, aside from framerate, the only thing differentiating one DDR from another is their songlists (or a bunch of ancillary game modes that no one gives a shit about), so one I can get behind counts for a lot! Based on the metric I developed for evaluating these song lists, epiglottis' Highly Objective Library Evaluation (henceforth eHOLE), Konamix scores a 58% with 30 of the 52 songs being listenable, fun to dance to, or ideally both. More hits than misses, tons of funky-ass Club Mix stuff, Paula Terry only gets exhumed from her wicked sepulcher once... at this point the CS releases were still content with being niche and weird rather than trying to land a big normie audience and I'm thankful for that!

Favorite song: patsenner. THE WOODBLOCK! Come on!!!

Toshiba Emi's licensing policy caused difficulties for Konami when localizing the early DDR games, as each borrowed song from Dancemania would need to be relicensed for each new region. Because of this, most mixes from 1st-8th were Japanese only, and Konami exported those versions to US arcades instead of making new region ROMs (no idea how legal this was). That's why if you're lucky enough to find a DDR Extreme cab, it'll have that big ol' 'IF YOU PLAY THIS OUTSIDE JAPAN, WE WILL KILL YOUR FAMILY" warning. That's how things go when you build your IP around cross-media licensing before it's an industry norm.

Same strategy can't really 'fly' in the console space, though. Konami had to suck it up and do re-licensing for their American DDR and European DS games. Of course, their strategy to Toshiba Emi's ballgame was not to play at all: And as such, Konamix is originals only. There are NO licensed songs here whatsoever. With that stipulation, you'd think the songlist would be pretty sparce. Yet the focus on Konami originals makes this extremely comprehensive - almost every original from 1st-5th is accounted for. For newcoming fans, it's an incredible sampler of Bemani's in-house style, bring high difficulty and consistent quality to the table. Trouble is, Konami's OG tracks tend to have more challenging and complex stepcharts than licensed ones. You really start wishing the arrow and speed mods from the later games were here. You can technically apply this criticism to all the PS1 mixes, but this is the first one where it felt like a pervasive issue in every song. And since the game is built on 4th Mix's engine, all the same criticisms of that version apply here.

I like this mix, especially with all the CLUB mix beatmania songs that never returned. Most of these DDR originals have been brought back during the PS2/Xbox releases, though, so there's not much to miss if you have access to Max1/2, Extreme1/2 and the Ultramix series. But having all these bops in one space without a lot of filler is nice.

Oh also, funniest trivia: DDR 3rd Mix CS had a vocal version of a song from one of Konami's basketball games, and the lyrics were about hard fucking. They removed the vocals from the version of it in this game, so there's just, a fuckin' song from a basketball game with album art of a lady's lips. Good shit.

Cool songs from here:
-HYSTERIA
-LUV TO ME (AMD MIX)
-On the Jazz
-patsenner
-think ya better D
-Do It Right
-Holic
-La Senorita Virtual
-Matsuri Japan
-Trip Machine Luv Mix
-Super Star
-R3

A great home version of DDR for PS1 and definitely an improvement over the 1998 US release. The song list is a lot more interesting, focusing on Konami originals. The "playlist" format is also nicely curated. In terms of DDR entries on PlayStation, it gets so much better down the line obviously. While it accomplishes the bare minimum of a compilation trying to keep up with Japan's furious release schedule, I still had a good time unlocking the full song list and would consider this one of the more decent rhythm games of the PS1 era.