Dang I can't believe no one has reviewed this game yet- Anyways I feel Dance Maniax is easier for people to get into than games like Beatmania, Pop'n Music, and DDR games after 3rd Mix since you just wave your hands around and the lights track your motion. (Hitting your hand on the machine is gonna happen a lot) I think it has a pretty solid tracklist and I'm glad it isn't dominated by a lot of DDR or Beatmania songs that's not a bad thing but I like having variety, also this is the only game where you can hear "Dr. Love" without having the sfx blaring over the vocals. The visuals are fine but some of the background videos in the songs make my eyes strain, (I'm looking at you "Jane Jana," fun song to play on DDR but not here!) the scoring system is neat it uses a pi chart instead of just telling you how many "Perfects" or "Goods" you got.
It's a just a neat game, 2nd Mix is probably better though.

After grinding to unlock everything in 4th Mix I eventually had to come to this game to finish playing every PS1 DDR game (Yes even Dancing Stage which is just European DDR) anyways THE NEW UI NOW THIS IS WHERE DDR UIS PEAKED same goes for characters this is Alice and Maho's debut game and it has my favorite version of Janet.
The tracklist is fine, personally I'm not a fan of most of the default songs for this game but after playing these songs over and over again just to unlock things I did grow to like a few of them.

It's a fun novelty game and probably something that's fun to play with a friend but as a fighting game it's pretty meh it's clear they focused more on the style and soundtrack of the game which in this case isn't a bad thing since I love it's art style.
I wish there was a bit more to its rhythm game within in a fighting game gimmick that's an idea that has a lot of untapped potential and they don't do much without here, your level 3 supers are just a mini rhythm games that will give you a small cutscene if you use it when your opponent is near death but sometimes they can interrupt the flow of your super by adding their own notes during your super which serves as a small challenge but it's pretty easy to avoid.
If this game wasn't Japan exclusive and it's battle system got some refinements I'd like it as a whole but it's more of a eye candy game.