StepmaniaX is doing what DDR has failed to do for the last decade or so in keeping dance games modernized. Love the addition of the middle panel, although I am personally not the biggest fan of the new stage design. I feel like there is slightly less feedback than on a DDR cab from pressing a metal panel and there is definitely a learning curve if you're used to DDR cabs. Song list is solid with a lot of old school Dancemania licenses but overall a little too Monstercat/Royalty free EDM vibes for my tastes. Difficulty tuning is a little weird too. Interface is clean, snappy and so much simpler than modern DDR. Overall dance game enthusiasts have a lot to love.

A Stepmania/ITG revival project with an insane bounty of QOL fixes to the DDR formula - and it's pulled off perfectly. I have almost nothing but praise to sing for it.

The pad ergonomics are fucking phenomenal, there's no metal brackets whatsoever, just a 6x3 grid of pressure-sensitive arrows. All the usual shit of lifting your foot over and down to avoid clipping the sides of your shoe? Totally gone. Feels like gliding on air. They made great strides to get casuals to actually sit their ass down and learn how to play, with the new 3-panel easy mode and totally refined UI. There's no awkward forced tutorial on each credit, no confusion with how to navigate the song list, and no noisy dissonance between the sensors and background animations - everyone else I saw playing this machine immediately understood the rules, and often stuck around for all 3 songs, something I never see casuals do with DDR. I have never had to wait a line to play a dancing game before playing this. Timing is lenient but still strict for players looking to get FC and PFC scores.

The new middle arrow concerned me at first, it kinda feels like an afterthought just to scare Konami away from suing them for the up/down/left/right arrow layout. But it integrates seamlessly into play after a few songs - forgot it was there unless the chart used them in a gimmicky way. Real talk, the best part of middle arrows is the needed meat they bring to Doubles play. I could never get into DDR Doubles because most charts are full of awkward walks from one side of the pad to the other. Here, middle arrows pad out the streams and reduce the travel distance (things still get space-y when they wanna be hard tho). And this perk combines w/ the lack of metal brackets and the removal of the stepzone markers: You don't feel like you're awkwardly tethering between 2 pads anymore, it's just one big dance floor. I never expected a world where I played more doubles on a DDR trip than singles, it's amazing.

Moreover, the song list is actually really good??? My biggest gripe with ITG is that they couldn't get good composers if their life depended on it, there's hardly anything listenable nor catchy in that trilogy. But they got a really excellent blend of dance, disco, euro and pop here. Biggest surprise is a bunch of returning artists from DDR's Dancemania selection, iplus songs from their discography that never appeared in DDR. Hell, finding out this game had Rhythm & Police and Flash In The Night were what made me go out of my way to find a cab. Only thing I'd change is that the game needs more 'fun' songs and not just 'danceable' songs, if that makes sense. DDR's large library of BEMANI crossover of experimental early-mix tracks bridges a ton of genres, and you don't get that out of StepManiax, barring a few goofy tracks like the returning Saint Goes Marching. Scroll the song wheel and a lot of beats and basslines bleed together.

Only other gripe has to do with factors outside the game - there's not a lot of cabinets in circulation and they go out of stock fast whenever they produce new units. Store operators always crank credit prices unreasonably high for these machines, one place near me was basically a buck per song. Kids don't know boundaries and will run over the pads while you play, they stomp like hell (even with heels and cleats), and generally act like crazyheads.